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HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL (jHk) i jp~ !;, Jimmie Johnson POINTS: Champ 2006 WINS: 5 2006 TOP 10S: 24 | Green Flag News and Notes Montoya’s past success yet to help him in Cup Juan I'ablo Montoya won the Indianapolis 500. He’s also been a win ner in Formula One. Hut in NASCAR, that means nothing. Montoya’s Nextel Cup Series debut ended in flames last Sunday at Ibe Uoinestead-Miami Speedway. It was the result of two run-ins with Ryan Newman in a span of six laps. “1 did accomplish what 1 was looking for," Montoya said. “I got experience and got to know the guys and it was good. I'm racing against great drivers, and it was awesome racing against them today. I think it’s been getting better and better race by race.” Montoya will race full-time in Nextel Cup next year, replacing Casey Mears in the No. 42 Dodge. Mears said lie tried to help Montoya, but the open-wheeled driver seemed above it. "I've tried,” Means said. “I've given him all the advice 1 can when 1 can. I've let him know that he can ask me any thing he wants at any time. 1 think he’s used to being the guy. and f don’t think he’s used to asking other people for advice much." Biffle: Minimize Cup influence n Busch Series (ireg Biffle has an idea regarding the wave of Nextel Cup Series drivers doing double-duty in the Busch Series: Make all of them qualify on speed. Biffle was one of eight drivers moon lighting in the junior circuit this year Cup drivers accounted for 34 of the series’ 35 wins, prompting complaints throughout the garage area. “If! were in charge. I'd make the Cup guys have to race their way into the line up,” he said. "That way there wouldn’t be more than 13 in any race.” NASCAR locks the top 30 drivers into each starting lineup. The other 1.3 spots are given to the fastest drivers in time tri als. Championship crew chief sounds off on season Knaus credits crew for persevering through rough start to 2006 Cup season Crew chief Chad Knaus started the season with a four-race suspension for cheating before the Daytona 500, but his team never skipped a beat. Jimmie Johnson gave Knaus and car owner Rick Hendrick the Nextel Cup Series champi onship last Sunday. Knaus talked about that accomplishment and everything that went into it during a post-race press conference. Here are excerpts of that inter view: Question: Jimmie quickly gave you the credit for the championship. How does that make you feel- Knaus: We were in a very fortunate situation obviously leading up to the Chase because we were so high up in points. So we were able to start our developmental work for the final 10 races very early in the season. A lot of wind-tun nel testing, a lot of testing and a lot of things of that nature and we were able to get our bullets (f npctbl)) iHn|A k & I I Hii Matt Kenseth POINTS: -56 2006 WINS: 4 2006 TOP 10S: 21 Denny Hamlin POINTS -68 2006 WINS: 2 2006 TOP 10S: 20 Hendrick has winning formula By Don Coble Morris News Service HOMESTEAD, Fla. Kick Hendrick has an easy for mula for success: Assemble an all-star east, give them a lim itless budget and challenge them every day to over achieve. It’s the way he lives is life. It's the way he wins NASCAR championships. The car owner was diagnosed with leukemia 10 years ago. He beat the odds and survived. Two years ago, an airplane carrying 10 of his friends and family, including his son, brother and two nieces, slammed info a mountain while flying to a race. The disease taught him that with unwavering confi dence and complete confidence in those around him, any thing is possible. The tragedy taught him about priorities. As he took his place at the podium at the Homestead- Miami Speedway last Sunday as the championship car owner for Jimmie Johnson, Hendrick was torn between personal and professional satisfaction. Johnson’s victory was Hendrick’s sixth as a car owner in the Nextel Cup Series, and it made him the first owner in NASCAR history to do it with three different drivers. “Well, you know, yesterday the 18th was the 10-year anniversary of the day 1 was diagnosed with leukemia, and 1 talked to Jimmie and Chad (Saturday night before the sea GHASE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP: Johnson wins Jimmie Johnson held on for his first career Cup championship Sunday at Homestead. He is the fourth different champ in the last four years and the first Hendrick driver to win the title since 2001. Kevin Harvick POINTS: -78 2006 WINS: 5 2006 TOP 10S: 20 'll u I ,v., KamriCi" t - T HjjillH*' '* M 9H| ; WMrfFmm Wm H *■* lined up the last 10 races. We were prepared and more prepared than what we had ever been. We were rested and \rru®M i irvi) fresh and we were riVibMA «V& 11 really looking for ward to it. It got kind of to the point where it was a bit of a lull in the sea son as you go through those first 26 races just because we were leading the points. So everybody was really jazzed up and ready to go racing. Every race track we had a plan for and stuck by our guns o. We had great race cars and that's some thing I'm proud of. We were able to plan ahead and that worked out well and we would not have been in that situation if we were not leading the points in the summer stretch. Question: Rick Hendrick decided in the off season to divide your responsibilities. Did that transition go smoother than you expect ed? Knaus: Yeah, it did, because, you know, I think it would be hard for somebody that did not want to get better; that did not want this. And this is the only thing that I've ever dreamed of my whole life. I remember laying in bed when I was a SPORTS Dale Earnhardt Jr. POINTS: 147 2006 WINS: 1 2006 TOP 10S: 16 son-finale Ford 400)," Hendrick said. ‘T said. You know, one of the things we say, I say a lot is, ‘it’s not life-threaten ing.' If we don’t win this, we want to be in a position to come back and compete next year and keep your chins up if we don’t, if something happens out of our control and we don’t win.’" Johnson has been in the Nextel Cup Series for five years. He’s never finished worse than fifth in the rankings He's won more races in the past three years than anyone else, but it wasn't until he finished eighth last Sunday that he was able to transform that success into a championship. He crashed in two of the first four races in the Chase for the Championship, but be dosed out the playoffs with a win. four second-place finishes and an eighth to win the title by 56 points. "We got a slow start to the Chase, but we still fell back on the fact that we were fast in all of those races and we were not on our heels,” Knaus said. "We were putting pres sure like we needed to and we were racing like we needed to. That’s what kept us motivated and kept us going because we knew we were playing everything out right.” Hendrick won a championship with Terry I-abonte and four with Jeff Gordon. He said titles are getting tougher to win because the competition gets better every week. He gives bis race teams all the resources they need, but every one else isn’t far behind. “1 think in the past, if you had an advantage, you could —“282? Chad Knaus Jr ■ Jell Burton POINTS: -247 2006 WINS: 1 2006 TOP 10S: 20 Jell Gordon POINTS: -219 2006 WINS: 2 2006 TOP 10S: 17 teenager watching Dale Earnhardt winning the championship thinking one day I want to be crew chief of what was then the Winston Cup, the champion crew chief of Winston Cup. I wanted it so bad that I knew that I needed to make some adjustments to make the team feel like they were more a part of it. If we had won a championship in the first four years, the team would not have felt as large of a part of it as what they do this year. And I'm happy about that because those guys have worked hard for it and they have done a good job. They all bought into it and there's blood, sweat and tears by every party. Question: Looking back, are you surprised by the way your team responded to your sus pension at Daytona? Knaus: What I really think it did is it helped the guys on the team realize they were capable of doing what was needed to be done. It was tough when we won Daytona. It was real tough, but it was probably the proudest moment of my life leading up to that point, above and beyond winning Fontana for our first event, the 600 s, whatever it was. Because I was so proud of the group of guys that they were able to go out there and carry out their jobs and win an event without me. That was really neat. That was very, very cool for those guys to be able to do that, because they took it upon themselves and they all had to buy stock in that deal. It was a total team effort. For those guys to win those races, it was not SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2006 ♦ i sL’d* Mark Martin POINTS: 307 2006 WINS: 0 2006 TOPI OS: 15 Kasey Katina POINTS: 273 2006 WINS: 6 2006 TOP 10S: 19 probably keep that advantage through the year or maybe at least four or five, six races,” he said. ‘Today the competi tion is so, so fierce. If you take a car to the track that you just won the race and dominated with four, five, six, eight weeks ago, even back to the same track, you may be a cou ple of tenths (of a second) off. 1 mean, everybody in that garage area, there’s 25 teams that they are capable of win ning a race. “So you just can’t count anything until it’s over.” There was celebration following Johnson’s champi onship, but there was a greater sens** of relief. Johnson had been compared to football’s Peyton Manning because of his ability to dominate the regular season, be the favorite during the playoffs and not close the deal during the cham pionship. “People thought and expected a lot out of us as a race team from the beginning.” Johnson said. “We never felt a burden. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t want to miss an opportunity when we were in the position to become a champion. We’ve just been happy to win races and have the season we had. We’re very proud of what we did, and I'm not saying we wouldn't have been happy if we didn’t win the championship, but after a couple days wen! by we would be able to look back and be proud of what we’ve done. "Now that we’ve won, that title can’t linger around any longer.” But the formula for success remains. Jimmie winning the race; it was the whole team winning the race and I think that was pretty cool. Question: How stressful was fast Sunday’s race? Knaus: I could not even blink when there s a TV camera in my face. It was bad. I didn't think it was that bad. it was painful, but I tried to keep my composure. Obviously, I didn't do a very good job. The thing was, we were in a position that we wanted the race to be over with because we were solidly in the top-10 and that was the big thing I wanted to do. I didn't want to back into this cham pionship at all, and I wanted to go out there and race for it. And that's what this team does best is it races week in and week out and for us to be able to go out there and run solidly in the top-10 all day long disregarding minor mishaps that we had —that's how I wanted the race to end and I didn't want us to get into a situation with a bunch of laps down track or something like that to where Jimmie was going to have to back out of it and fall back to 15th or 20th and kind of ride. I wanted to make sure that we ran it to the end. That was my frustration more than anything, because at that point we had identified with the fact that basically all we had to do was be last car on the lead lap and Matt not finish any better than third and we would have been able to win the championship, I think is what it was. So I just wanted to get it done. compiled by Don Coble 3B Kyle Busch POINTS: -448 2006 WINS. 1 2006 TOP 10S: 18