HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- The number seven isn't just an important number for Jimmie Johnson when it comes to NASCAR Sprint Cup championships, it's also a milestone for No. 48 team crew chief Chad Knaus as well.
"What's really cool about it is if we were able to pull this off, it would be seven titles with the same driver, same crew chief, same sponsor and same team, which would be even more phenomenal," Knaus said of the possibility. "It's been an honor to be able to work with Jimmie, Lowe's and Hendrick Motorsports throughout this portion of my career. Looking forward to it extending a long time."
With six career Sprint Cup championships to his name, Knaus ranks second all-time behind Hall of Famer Dale Inman, who has eight Cup titles as a crew chief. Knaus holds the distinction of being the only crew chief to win more than two Sprint Cup titles in a row, a feat he accomplished when he coached the No. 48 team to five straight from 2006-2010.
Johnson said that Knaus is a "very, very smart, self-taught man," making the success he has been able to achieve very impressive.
"Chad has got to be in that conversation as one of the greatest in my opinion," Johnson said. "Knowing what he's capable of and what he's been able to engineer without an engineering degree is unbelievable. He comes up with ideas and then turns to the engineers and says, 'All right, now make sense of this,' and they figure out through their education how to make sense of it."
While he's nowhere near hanging up his headset, Knaus said that more than anything, when it's all said and done, he wants his legacy to live on in the motor sports community.
"I want to be remembered as a real racer, I guess, more than anything," the crew chief said. "I came in and I was a grass‑roots racer from the Midwest who got an opportunity to work on some of what was then Winston Cup cars in Alabama and then got an opportunity to work on the No. 24 car of Jeff Gordon and was able to work my way up methodically. For people just to remember that I started out as a racer and ended as a racer is probably my biggest goal."
But perhaps most importantly, the chance to win a seventh title reminds Knaus of where he's come from, where he is now and where he's headed in the future.
"Being able to represent this company and our associates the way that we have has been a lot of fun," Knaus said. "To Jimmie personally, obviously he is by far one of my best friends and to be able to have seen him grow and mature into the driver and the family man that he is has been awesome. It's been a great ride."