CONCORD, N.C. - For a good portion of the season, three teams at Hendrick Motorsports have been fighting tooth and nail atop the NASCAR Cup Series points standings, locked in a battle for 15 pivotal playoff points and of course, a trophy.
Filling out the top three spots as recently as last week and entering this Saturday's penultimate regular season event at Richmond Raceway in first, second and fourth respectively, William Byron, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson have remained among the stiffest competition for each other.
Yet, to walk around the Concord, North Carolina-based campus, one would never know a championship clash is being waged. And that's just how Hendrick Motorsports vice president of competition Chad Knaus would prefer it.
“If you’re playing basketball in the driveway with your sibling, you want to beat your sibling, but as soon as someone from down the block comes down, you want to make sure you beat that kid,” Knaus explained to HendrickMotorsports.com last week. “That’s the way we want to approach it every single time. We have to think of the greater good of Hendrick Motorsports and what it is we can do collectively.”
Certainly, over the course of a 24-race sample size, the organization's four teams have put themselves in prime positions. Rounding out the contingent is the No. 48 Ally Chevy team with driver Alex Bowman ninth in points and 60 markers above the playoff cutline.
For the other three, those 15 points remain the carrot to chase and that shared goal would seem to potentially put crew chiefs in a seemingly awkward position. Would it not be human nature to keep a crucial setup note or an air pressure discovery a little closer to the vest come title-winning time?
Well, not at Hendrick Motorsports, it appears. And Knaus would be happy to know that to a man, all three crew chiefs toed, embraced and touted the company line when asked about any potential conflicts of interest.
“I like racing these guys. We work together all the way through and we let the execution and the drivers and the pit crews at the track, we let those chips fall where they may,” said Rudy Fugle, crew chief of the No. 24 team. “But we work together. We don’t hide anything from each other. We try to make each other better because we all want somebody in house to win everything every week.”
“The strength of our company is what unites us,” added Cliff Daniels, crew chief of the No. 5 squad, about the points race. “At the end of the day, if we can get all four cars to finish in the top four of every single race, then that’s the first goal. Then where we sit within that, of course everybody has their own desires within that. But from my perspective, I value Rudy’s input, I value (No. 9 crew chief Alan Gustafson’s) input too, so to let any of our own competition get in the way of what could be good communication or helping each other build a strategy or build setups or other development items that we have, I think that would just be a distraction and a waste of time.
“As I walk around this place, I have zero consideration of the points battle amongst us other than I want all of us to score as many points as possible.”
This past Sunday at Watkins Glen International, it was the No. 24 team leading the way in terms of points, using a fourth-place finish to separate itself a bit from the No. 9. Byron will head to Richmond 42 points in front of Elliott. Larson is now 85 back and in need of some massive swings the final two weeks.
For the No. 24 squad, its perch at the top is getting quite familiar as Byron leads the standings for the 19th week so far in 2025. And as the regular season championship is a measure of excellence over an extended period of time, Daniels said remembering that when looking at the pecking order is an important measure of self-evaluation.
“Of course, everyone wants as many points as they can possibly get but at some point you’ve got to come to grips with reality,” Daniels said. “The 9 has been the most consistent car in the field in terms of finishes all year long. The 24 has had better qualifying results than us that has given them a little more stage points along the way and we’ve been capable of some really good runs that we’ve been taken out of.”
Interestingly enough, now in his 21st season atop a pit box at Hendrick Motorsports, this is hardly Gustafson's first foray into competing with teammates for wins and titles.
Perhaps the most glaring example came in 2009. Jimmie Johnson won his fourth of five-straight Cup Series championships. In doing so, he had to best teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon, who finished the season second and third respectively.
Knaus was the crew chief of Johnson's No. 48 team while Gustafson was guiding the No. 5 squad, then anchored by Martin. Both noted the evolution and advancement of teamwork and cooperation over the last 16 years.
“I think we’re much better. We’ve refined the process much more. It’s much more natural and the teams collaborate a lot more than we used to and I think it’s so much a part of our everyday life that it’s not really a consideration,” Gustafson said. “It’s nice to work with guys – not only crew chiefs but team members – the majority of people have been in this environment for a while and we all genuinely like and respect each other and it just makes it fun and easy. It’s nice to be around people you enjoy being around. I think we’ve gotten to a point with that culture that if you don’t, you’re going to be the anomaly and the one that stands out.”
“The reality is … it’s growing every single day. To say back then we were sharing everything would be an untruth," Knaus concluded. “As long as we’re communicating and we’re bought into the process and we understand what we’re trying to do, ultimately, we’re going to win out. We may not win every race, we may not win every championship but the company will win out as long as we’re doing that and that’s going to be, has been, and will always be our major focus is just that communication between everybody. None of us are as strong as all of us, none of us are as smart as all of us, none of us can do anything that all of us can achieve. We’re working really hard to make sure everybody understands that.”
By the time the 400-mile race at Daytona is in the books next Saturday night, a regular season champion will have been crowned. Whether that's Byron finishing it off, Elliott rallying late or Larson coming from way behind, the stakes will only be raised further once the postseason begins.
Yet, the expectation of open sharing and the commitment to communication remain. And everyone involved believes the dividends will only be higher for all involved.
“All of us understand that collectively we’re better and even if one of us was to hold something back or not share, that potentially could give you an advantage over the other three but you’re still going to be worse off than you would be if we all share openly,” Gustafson said. “I think that’s why you see what you see. Everybody is going through experiences and different things and that’s a lot more information, four times the information and data points and experiences that you can draw from. I think it's important that you convey that experience accurately and that information accurately and your opinion on it and that's what we do really well and it generates a lot of strength and collective intelligence for growth.”
“I don’t hide anything and I know those guys aren’t hiding from me,” Fugle said. “We work together better than ever in these high-stress situations. We want everybody at Hendrick to win a race, win the regular season championship, the season championship – that’s what we care about. We want to bring a trophy home to Mr. and Mrs. Hendrick and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports that put in all the hard work. We’re super competitive, but we can sit there and know we’re going to be way better working together because we’ve done it every single week. That’s how we’ve gotten here and there’s no need to stop now.”
NASCAR TV schedule for Richmond
Friday, Aug. 15
- 2:05 p.m. - CRAFTSMAN Truck Series practice (FS2)
- 3:10 - CRAFTSMAN Truck Series qualifying (FS1)
- 4:30 - Cup Series practice (truTV)
- 5:40 - Cup Series qualifying (truTV)
- 7:30 - CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race (FS1)
Saturday, Aug. 16
- 7:30 p.m. - Cup Series race (USA)