Hendrick Motorsports Vice President of competition Chad Knaus earlier this month shed light on the loose wheel saga with the Next-Gen Car in the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season.
Chad Knaus made one of his usual appearances on the NASCAR Race Hub last week to discuss the issues Bubba Wallace and his team have been facing all season and particularly loose wheels.
The seven championships winning crew chief made it evident that the loose wheels are a considerably bigger issue and no NASCAR team is immune from it happening to them.
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He thinks that it is NASCAR’s fault and not that of the pit crews.
“Nobody in the industry is immune to this right now, to say we don’t have a problem is just blind. You can’t deny that we’ve got a mechanical issue. You can’t do that in a competitive environment, right. We’ve got to make some adjustments as an industry. You have to realize that as it’s going from Hendrick Motorsports to Gibbs to Roush. Every team in the industry has gone through this just about. You can’t pinpoint folks. We’ve got to get to work on it as a group,” said Chad Knaus.
Knaus also pinpointed the way how NASCAR reacts to each incident isn’t assisting the problem but making it worse.
Last month NASCAR suspended Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson’s crew chief Cliff Daniels four races for loose wheel at Sonoma Raceway
“There’s something else I want to put out there, so, they had an issue at COTA. A wheel came loose. Honestly, from my opinion, I think that was a mechanical problem that resulted in a loose wheel. Then you take the guys that they thought were the best that were on that pit crew and you take them off, right. So those guys aren’t participating anymore. So how many of those penalties were a result of those guys that were the better guys not being on that team?” Chad Knaus added
Former Hendrick Motorsports’ crew chief-turned-vice president exchanged his fire suit for a dress suit when he took over as competition director in late 2021.