Chevy Notes: Chad Knaus Responds

CHEVROLET/TEAM MONTE CARLO NOTES AND QUOTES
TROPICANA 400
CHICAGOLAND
JOLIET, ILL.
NO. 18 OF 36 EVENTS
NASCAR WINSTON CUP SERIES
FRIDAY, JULY 12, 2002

CHAD KNAUS, CREW CHIEF ON NO. 48 LOWE¹S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO, RESPONDS TO
FINES AND PENALTIES LEVIED ON THE TEAM THIS WEEK:

CHAD KNAUS:"We got caught with something that we thought was gong to be a
little bit of an advantage for us.  That was the first time we¹d actually
tried it, was at Daytona this time.  We hadn¹t tried it on previously in the
year.  We went out there, we were looking for a bit of an advantage.  We
needed something.  We knew we weren¹t going to be quite as good as what we
were at Talladega.  Thought we had found something; NASCAR didn¹t like it,
so they dinged us a little bit.  That¹s just part of it.  They¹re doing
their job.  They¹re really starting to crack down on people getting off into
the gray areas and looking for new ways to do things.  They¹re just trying
to show everybody that look they¹re going to set a new precedent about the
penalties and the fines."

ARE THEY MAKING AN EXAMPLE OF YOU?  "I think they¹re trying to send a
message to the rest of the competitors out there that they¹re tired of it.
That they don¹t want a table full of fines; they don¹t want a table full of
parts every time they leave a superspeedway.  They¹re tired of dealing with
that.  They got more important things to worry about.  For them to start
levying fines and penalties like that I think it¹s going to slow some things
down on people cheating."

"I didn¹t really get into it too much with them.  When John Darby calls you
and tells you what you¹re going to do when you know that you were probably
in the wrong by a little bit you just take it and go with it.  There's
nothing I can do about it.  We went to Daytona, we tried to make our car as
fast as we possibly can.  They didn¹t like something on our car and the good
thing about it is we know we¹re back here in Chicago this week."

ARE YOU SURPRISED IT WAS SOMETHING FOUND BEFORE QUALIFYING?  "Yeah, I was a
little surprised about that.  I knew that there was going to be some type of
action taken, thinking that it would points, no, never crossed my mind.  If
you talk to some of the crew chiefs in the garage right now there¹s a lot of
guys that are going to be watching their P¹s and Q¹s even pre-qualifying."

HOW DIFFERENT WAS THE SETUP?  "We just tried to do a little bit of creative
engineering is all.  It wasn¹t a safety issue; it wasn¹t even that much of a
performance issue, but it was going to help us a little bit.  You know,
speedways, they¹re pretty tight."

"We basically just offset our trailing arm mounts a little bit to try to
change the location of the rear springs a little bit.  It really wasn¹t that
big, but it was still an advantage for us if we were able to run it.  We
weren¹t, so we didn¹t have the advantage."

WOULD IT HAVE MADE THE CAR LOWER?  "Possibly.  We don¹t even know that for
sure.  Like I said, that¹s the first time that we tried it.  We had hoped it
would be a gain, but we didn¹t know for sure."

WHEN DID THEY FIND IT?  "They found it Thursday morning at pre-qualifying
inspection.  Well, they found it before we even practiced.  They found it
while we were sitting in the garage, just like where we are now."

WHEN DID DARBY TELL YOU?  "He called me Wednesday morning."

DOES IT TAKE SOME OF THE FUN OUT OF BEING A CREW CHIEF?  "It makes you a
little nervous to sign that inspection sheet every day.  That¹s part of it,
that¹s part of Winston Cup racing.  If you¹re going to step up and you¹re
going to be crew chief on one of these cars you¹ve got to be able to handle
the media, and the press and NASCAR coming down on you when you need to be
come down on.  That¹s all just part of it."

"Being creative is my job, so if I¹m going to get fined or penalized for
being creative then that¹s just part of it."

"At superspeedways they look for stuff that people might not do normally."

WERE YOU RATTED OUT?  "Who knows?"

PENALTY FAIR, POINTS TOO MUCH?  "It could have been a lot worse, how¹s
that?"

WAS THE CAR AS FAIR AS OTHERS OUT THERE? "I can guarantee that a lot of cars
out there weren¹t the fairest cars out there or the most strictly on the
rules either.  A lot of people go out to the speedways to try to find an
edge and they find it in many, many different ways."

OTHER PEOPLE HAVE BEEN PENALIZED FAR LESS AND FAR WORSE:  "Once again,
NASCAR is raising the bar on the fines and the penalties right now. They¹re
trying to cut back on a lot of people stepping out into the gray areas,
people trying to be a little bit creative.  They want to put an end to a lot
of that stuff.  The way to do that is to make an example and start to show
people the new precedent.  That¹s what it is."

ANY WARNING? "They had talked about doing some stuff that if the car was,
say, too low after the race.  If you¹d have won the raceŠAt the driver¹s
meeting at Dover Mike Helton went up there and said they would take the
points away from you if you were too low after the race.  As far as for
something like this, we didn¹t really know that, no."

"Let me tell you something, that race car right there, that No. 48 Lowe¹s
Chevrolet is one of the most legal cars in this garage.  The reason that car
is going so fast is because we¹ve got an awesome race car driver, we¹ve got
an awesome team, and that¹s all there is to it.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON W.C. CARS?  "I¹ve been on Winston Cup cars
now for 10 years."

HOW MUCH HAS THE GRAY AREA SHRUNK THAT YOU CAN WORK IN?  "You could probably
fit what was black and white on one page (before), now it takes a whole book
to put everything in black and white."

"Like I said, we try to be creative, we try to make our cars as fast as
possible.  We¹re gong to look at things in a different light right now and
if it¹s something that we feel like could fall under what they¹re talking
about; we¹re definitely not going to do it.  But, there¹s still areas that
that you¹ve got to work just to maintain the speed on the race track."

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