Jimmy Johnson’s victory at Dover International Speedway this weekend made both him and crew chief Chad Knaus winners. His win in the MBNA 400 moved him to the top point standings, giving him a seven point lead over second place Rusty Wallace, and brought Knaus the Wypall Wipers Crew Chief of the Race award. The most important call of the day came on the final round of pit stops. Knaus elected to change all four tires on the # 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, despite Mark Martin receiving only two tires on his pit stop. Johnson lost a spot on the track, but his fresh rubber paid dividends. He quickly took the lead on the restart and never looked back. “I wasn’t concerned that one person took two tires,” said Knaus. “I was concerned that everyone else was going to take two tires. Fortunately almost everyone took four. We had some good track position to where we had a lead with a couple of seconds gap that we could have taken two tires if we saw everyone else doing that. If we had to pit under green, we would have taken two tires, but under yellow I wanted to take four.”
The panel of voters; including a Wypall Wipers representative and Robbie Reiser; all cast their vote for Knaus as the crew chief that did the best job.
Doug Richert leads the Wypall Wipers Crew Chief of the Year standings with five wins. Alan Gustafson is in second place with three wins. Bob Osborne, Jimmy Fennig, Greg Zipadelli, Robbie Reiser and Robbie Loomis are tied for third place with two wins. Tommy Baldwin, Scott Miller, Fatback McSwain, Steve Hmiel, Greg Erwin, Slugger Labbe, Chad Knaus and Pete Rondeau are in a tie for fourth place, each with one win. At the end of the season, the crew chief with the most weekly wins will receive $20,000. Fans can also vote for their choice at wypall.com.(SMC 500)(9-26-2005)
