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JENSEN: The Crew Chief’s Advantage
The Sprint All-Star Race was an interesting affair ...
Crew chief Chad Knaus (Left) and Jimmie Johnson, (Right) celebrate in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 19, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo: Getty Images)
I have long been of the belief that the smartest people in NASCAR are crew chiefs, and Saturday night’s Sprint All-Star Race did nothing to dissuade me from that belief.
Jimmie Johnson won the race in part because he’s a great driver and in part because he had a great car. But an equally important component of the victory was that his crew chief, Chad Knaus, figured out that if Johnson won the first segment of the race, he’d be in the best position to win at the end.
The race’s new format dictated that there would be a mandatory pit stop prior to the fifth and final segment. And prior to that stop, the first segment winner would line up first, the second segment winner second, etc. So Johnson, who won the first segment, pitted first and had the best pit stall. That’s because his crew also won the Sprint Pit Crew Challenge on Thursday night and got to choose their stall as a result.
Johnson won the first segment and spent segments two through four half a lap behind the field, as Knaus fine-tuned the adjustments on the No. 48 Chevrolet through a series of pit stops. It was brilliant strategy and it worked to perfection.
The fact that Knaus legally snookered the rules makers brought me back to a conversation I had at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October 2000 with Smokey Yunick, the irascible mechanical genius who pioneered so many innovations — some of which were legal, others not so much — in NASCAR during the 1950s and 1960s.
It was Smokey’s belief that the crew chiefs would always be ahead of the NASCAR inspectors. And while he had a lot of respect and admiration for then-NASCAR Sprint Cup Director Gary Nelson, Yunick said he was fighting an uphill battle.
“They will find out there is no way to police creativity. No way in hell. There's always some guy who comes along like (former crew chief) Ray Evernham that's smarter than the average cat, and he's going to figure out a way to get around it,” said Yunick. “The difference between Gary Nelson's ability to think and Ray Evernham's — well, probably there's not a lot of difference in their IQs, but Evernham concentrates on engines and certain areas with a lot of expensive, very educated help. For 60 hours a week, he's studying new stuff to beat the rules. Gary Nelson is spending 50 hours a week trying to enforce the rules that were made yesterday. They're not even in the same game.
“One of the problems is, and it's a very specific problem that will never go away, is that if he (Nelson) had, say four good assistants that are very knowledgeable and so forth, they're up against 100 mechanics factory-educated to like the third level, almost like doctors, you know what I mean?”
You had to believe Smokey was doffing his trademark Stetson from above somewhere after Saturday night’s race, because a crew chief helped his driver win a race on one of NASCAR’s biggest stages by finding a loophole in a rule and (legally) exploiting it.
My suggestion to close that loophole for next year?
Give the four segment winners the first four spots prior to the last stop, but line them up by average finish in all four segments. That way, the segment winners have to race hard in each of the first four segments. And during the pit stop, make the crews change four tires.
Those two simple tweaks, in my humble opinion, ought to greatly improve what already is a fabulous event.
One final thought: While Knaus may have out-thought everyone else, it in no way diminishes what Johnson did. There’s no question that the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team was the class of the field on all-star night.
Now what will be interesting to see is if anyone can step up and knock them off in the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday.
Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
Jimmie Johnson won the race in part because he’s a great driver and in part because he had a great car. But an equally important component of the victory was that his crew chief, Chad Knaus, figured out that if Johnson won the first segment of the race, he’d be in the best position to win at the end.
The race’s new format dictated that there would be a mandatory pit stop prior to the fifth and final segment. And prior to that stop, the first segment winner would line up first, the second segment winner second, etc. So Johnson, who won the first segment, pitted first and had the best pit stall. That’s because his crew also won the Sprint Pit Crew Challenge on Thursday night and got to choose their stall as a result.
Johnson won the first segment and spent segments two through four half a lap behind the field, as Knaus fine-tuned the adjustments on the No. 48 Chevrolet through a series of pit stops. It was brilliant strategy and it worked to perfection.
The fact that Knaus legally snookered the rules makers brought me back to a conversation I had at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October 2000 with Smokey Yunick, the irascible mechanical genius who pioneered so many innovations — some of which were legal, others not so much — in NASCAR during the 1950s and 1960s.
It was Smokey’s belief that the crew chiefs would always be ahead of the NASCAR inspectors. And while he had a lot of respect and admiration for then-NASCAR Sprint Cup Director Gary Nelson, Yunick said he was fighting an uphill battle.
“They will find out there is no way to police creativity. No way in hell. There's always some guy who comes along like (former crew chief) Ray Evernham that's smarter than the average cat, and he's going to figure out a way to get around it,” said Yunick. “The difference between Gary Nelson's ability to think and Ray Evernham's — well, probably there's not a lot of difference in their IQs, but Evernham concentrates on engines and certain areas with a lot of expensive, very educated help. For 60 hours a week, he's studying new stuff to beat the rules. Gary Nelson is spending 50 hours a week trying to enforce the rules that were made yesterday. They're not even in the same game.
“One of the problems is, and it's a very specific problem that will never go away, is that if he (Nelson) had, say four good assistants that are very knowledgeable and so forth, they're up against 100 mechanics factory-educated to like the third level, almost like doctors, you know what I mean?”
You had to believe Smokey was doffing his trademark Stetson from above somewhere after Saturday night’s race, because a crew chief helped his driver win a race on one of NASCAR’s biggest stages by finding a loophole in a rule and (legally) exploiting it.
My suggestion to close that loophole for next year?
Give the four segment winners the first four spots prior to the last stop, but line them up by average finish in all four segments. That way, the segment winners have to race hard in each of the first four segments. And during the pit stop, make the crews change four tires.
Those two simple tweaks, in my humble opinion, ought to greatly improve what already is a fabulous event.
One final thought: While Knaus may have out-thought everyone else, it in no way diminishes what Johnson did. There’s no question that the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team was the class of the field on all-star night.
Now what will be interesting to see is if anyone can step up and knock them off in the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday.
Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
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