Jimmie Johnson is interviewed after his Crew Chief Chad Knaus was caught having illegal parts on the #48 Hendrick Motorsports entry.

It seems the boys in the garage could not even get a checkered flag drop before they decided to push the envelope and find ways to get themselves in trouble.  Pushing the limits of the tolerances is not something new to NASCAR, in fact it is what all the good crew chiefs should be doing, but there’s a fine line between pushing the limits and stepping over them with blind abandon. Even the great Dale Earnhardt has been quoted as saying “If you’re not cheating, you’re not racing.” NASCAR has never seemed to enjoy that attitude.

“The 48 car had a body modification on it that was outside of what our tolerances are, what the original surface definitions for the body were,” Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said.

“There were some obvious modifications that the template inspectors picked up on and did some additional inspections with some gauges and stuff and found that they were just too far out of tolerance to fix.”

“We’re pretty serious about the body configurations of the cars for all of the right reasons. This was a modification that had been made to the car that put it outside that box.”

Chad Knaus, already known as a repeat offender, was caught this week for having illegally modified C pillars, the posts that connect the roof to the rear deck lid, in between the side and rear windows, which NASCAR found and had removed from the vehicle along with the rear window.  What is the significance of these modifications?  The amount of wind resistance, or drag, could be significantly reduced allowing for greater speeds with the same amount of power.  Technically this is what a crew chief is supposed to do, outside of the track.  Find a way of making gains to improve your teams chances, but when you know it is going to go through inspection why would you push the tolerances so far?

Knaus is no stranger when it comes to visits to the NASCAR hauler.  In 2006 it was for an illegally modified rear window resulting in a 4 race suspension.  2007, both Knaus and LeTarte were caught with modified front fenders on the 48 and the 24 cars resulting in a 6 race suspension as well as a $100 000 fine.  Most recently was 2009′s tolerance pushes with the 48 and the 5 cars that were so close to the limits that Knaus was warned, but not penalized, for.

So what do the other crew chiefs think about all this?  One would think that there would be some anger, or finger pointing.  Surprisingly however, there seems to be more support than bad feelings in the garages.

“He pushes the limit — that’s what you’re supposed to do,” said Pat Tryson, crew chief of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford.

“It doesn’t surprise me. That’s why they’ve been so successful. They’re willing to be aggressive and try to do things that other people aren’t doing. With success, sometimes every now and then you’ll get bit. But I’m sure they’ll continue to do it, ’cause that’s why they won five championships.

“It doesn’t bother you that you didn’t go that far. I guess it bothers you that you don’t have the car owner that will let you take the chance to get in trouble and then you have to risk losing a sponsor or getting fired.

“Fortunately, he works for a guy who is loyal to him and the sponsor doesn’t get upset when they get caught doing it, so it’s OK. Not everybody is in that situation. Everybody isn’t in the same box. I’m glad he does it. That’s what a crew chief gets paid to do.”

So will Knaus be penalized for this infraction?  Most likely he will, but no penalties will be handed out until after returning to Charlotte, and therefore not until after the Daytona 500 has been run.

NASCAR declined to discuss what penalties could develop until after Speedweeks. Since the car never made it to inspection, the team was allowed to make modifications, and as of 9 p.m. ET on Friday — following two attempts — the car still was not deemed legal. The No. 48 crew will be allowed to work on it and try to pass inspection again on Saturday.

“After it gets through inspection, we’ll go on for the next 10 days or so and go through Speedweeks,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s VP of competition. “Like always, we’ll reconvene at the R&D center post-race and do all our cleanups for whatever happens for the next week or so.”

Checkers or Wreckers

Practice yesterday resulted in the first wreck of the season involving some of the most polarizing names in the sport.  Defending Champion Tony Stewart triggered the wreck after getting into the left rear of Kurt Busch’s car, spinning the #51 car around and gathering up the 22 of A.J. Allmendinger, the #2 of Brad Keselowski, the #24 of Jeff Gordon, the #18 of Kyle Busch and the #56 of Martin Truex Jr.

Happening only 40 min into the first practice session, it leaves many wondering if this will be the type of carnage we should expect to see at the Daytona 500.

“I was pushing (Busch), so I’m the one responsible for it,” defending champion Stewart said.

The accident was especially damaging for Kurt Busch, who had the best 10-lap average speed (196.340 mph) of all drivers — suggesting he had a quality car for Saturday night’s exhibition race.

“The guys in front of me just got together, that’s just the way it is,” Keselowski said. “It’s better that it happened now then next Sunday.”

“Yeah, it’s practice, but everybody wants to run hard and see what they can do because we’re going to have to,” Truex said. “Everyone was just trying to be as ready as they can for tomorrow night. If you don’t know what your cars will do now, you can’t get prepared for tomorrow night.”

Since the end of the season at Homestead Miami there has been a ton of shuffling going on and musical chairs is being played all over the place. Drivers have moved and changed teams, lost their rides, moved up to better ones, changed manufacturers, and this year even involved a number of moves made by crew chiefs as well.

Kurt Busch has had a year of infamy and will be dropping back to a lower funded team driving the #51 in 2012 - Image courtesy of JDTImages

Kasey Kahne moves from Red Bull to Hendrick Motorsports for 2012 - Image courtesy of JDTImages

The most obvious of the driver moves was Kasey Kahne, who we know was moving to Hendrick for 2010 for well over a year now. Rick Hendrick helped him get into the ride at Red Bull to keep him active for the final year of Mark Martin’s contract driving the #5. Mark Martin will semi retire now this year and will drive a limited number of races in both Cup and Nationwide. Kahne however is moving up in the world to the best equipment in the sport. Red Bull certainly had the money to back their team yet they were unable to break into the top tier in points, and for whatever reason they have backed out of the sport and shut down their teams for good at the end of 2011.

The next most obvious move was that of Kurt Busch, who after having a well broadcast meltdown with Dr Jerry Punch at Miami homestead, all caught on camera by a fan and posted on YouTube, parted ways with Penske racing and will be running in the #51 car of Phoenix Racing. Landon Cassil was the former pilot of this machine and he will be running in Nationwide only from the way things look at the moment.

Trevor Bayne, Juan Montoya, A.J. Allmendinger standing around at Texas Motorspeedway in April - Image courtesy of JDTImages

Moving into Kurt Busch’s vacancy is A.J. Allmendinger taking over the #22 Penske Dodge. Having finally made it into a team with the top tier equipment, expectations are high for A.J. to do well in the 22 car. Allmendinger had done well at Richard Petty Motorsports given that RPM had not been overly competitive until he and Marcos Ambrose arrived in their stable. 2011 was a good year for Allmendinger as he earned 10 top 10′s during the regular season and came close to a wild card spot for the chase, and ending up 15th over all for the year.

Filling Allmendinger’s vacated ride at RPM will be the young man that Dale Jr has been grooming over at Jr. Motorsports,  Aric Almirola.  It’s a big step up for the young driver as he enters Cup racing for his first full season.  After driving for JGR, JRM and sharing a seat at DEI with Mark Martin previously his resume is rather impressive.  RPM is looking forward to some exciting racing with Almirola at the helm of the #43.

Clint Bowyer - Image courtesy of JDTImages

Clint Bowyer had an awesome season, but even with a win, 4 top 5′s and 16 top 10′s in 2011 it was not enough to draw sponsorship for a full season and keep him at RCR. Moving to the #15 car at Michael Waltrip Racing might be a bit of a step back equipment wise, but it will still keep him relevant in the sport. Besides, it will also bring him more TV commercial time if Michael Waltrip has anything to say about it. Keeping your face in the media will certainly help his chances in the future, although he has signed for 3 years at MWR.

David Reutimann found himself a ride early in 2012 with Tommy Baldwin Racing.  Although a step back from MWR, Reutimann is happy to have a fully funded ride to take him through the 2012 season.

“Tommy has built a really good organization from the ground up in a really short amount of time,” Reutimann said in a statement. “One of the things I like about Tommy and what’s refreshing about him is that he is just a racer. There are lots of things he could be doing but instead he is at the shop every day working hard to build the organization from the ground up.”

Last but not least is the moves made by crew chiefs this year.  The most talked about move is that of Darian Grubb, who, after 3 seasons with Stewart Haas racing, was released after Stewart took the title and won the 2011 championship.  Grubb had been notified of this change earlier during the chace but kep his composure and worked as if no changes were coming as he spear headed Stewart’s team to 5 wins during the chase.  Grubb will be moving to JGR and will be replacing Mike Ford at the helm of Denny Hamlin’s #11 Toyota for 2012, hoping to repeat his success from 2011 and bring Denny Hamlin the luck he needs to finally win a championship.

Then we have Steve Addington, formerly the crew chief of Kurt Busch in the #22 car for Penske Racing.  Having worked with in the same garage as Stewart during his tenure at JGR, Addington and Stewart already have a working relationship and an understanding of how each other work, and it should be a good fit.  Also moving from JGR to SHR is Stewart’s former crew chief, Greg Zipadelli.  “Zippy” will move to SHR as the director of competition and as crew chief for Danica Patrick in her 10 Cup races driving for SHR.  Having alreay worked with Stewart for his first 10 years in Cup, including a pair of championship wins in that time, Zippy is well known for being able to deal with temperamental drivers, and should be a good coach and mentor for Patrick as she transitions from open wheel to running stock cars full time in 2012.