End of era for Johnson
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Losing Lowe’s, the only sponsor he’s had at NASCAR’s top level, was just one bump in the road for Jimmie Johnson this season. The biggest stunner came this week when team owner Rick Hendrick, after 17 years of babysitting the delicate relationship between Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus, pulled the plug on the longest pairing in NASCAR.
Knaus built the No. 48 team around Johnson from scratch. He was atop the pit box for the record-tying seven titles and 81 of Johnson’s 83 career Cup victories. The two have been together since bachelorhood, through marriage and now children. They were fueled by the chase for eight, the elusive number neither The King or The Intimidator could reach.
Their farewell tour begins today at Talladega Superspeedway, and when they part, Johnson still will be tied with Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. with seven titles. Knaus will be tied with crew chief Dale Inman.
If No. 8 ever comes, it will come for one of them, not both. Knaus is moving to the No. 24 team, where he started at Hendrick Motorsports so many years ago building cars for a new guy named Jeff Gordon, to crew chief another fresh-faced young talent in William Byron. Rick Hendrick went to his farm system to pair Johnson with Kevin Meendering.
“We’ve lasted longer than the average length of a marriage in the United States. We’ve worked really hard,” Knaus said.
So hard they nearly destroyed the relationship on more than one occasion. Johnson and Knaus aren’t wired the same but have always chased winning. The path each took wasn’t always orderly and Knaus, so rigid, intense and inflexible, sometimes clashed with Johnson’s easygoing demeanor. The louder Knaus yelled, the quieter Johnson became.
Only now they aren’t winning anymore, and for a variety of reasons that Johnson and Knaus cannot solely control. Hendrick Motorsports is in a massive rebuild, Chevrolet has lagged behind
its competitors this year and Johnson’s young teammates don’t know what they don’t know, so aren’t in position to take charge of the march out of this mess.
That’s how Johnson gets stuck in a 53-race losing streak headed into today. And at some point, Hendrick has no choice but to step in and try something new, anything new, even if it means splitting the greatest combination since Petty and Inman.