Post by dalejrfan on Aug 7, 2005 15:50:32 GMT -5
SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- Time was the biggest enemy for Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus and the rest of the No. 48 Chevrolet team Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
A chain that holds the rear axle housing to the chassis caused the car to fail inspection twice -- and as the team worked feverishly to try and repair the problem, the five-minute time limit expired, leaving Johnson without a qualifying run and having to start 40th in Sunday's Allstate 400.
"NASCAR didn't like the way it was," Knaus said. "It was a little bit too snug for them. So we had to adjust it.
"It wasn't a big deal. We were trying to fix it, we just didn't have time."
Knaus knew their chances of getting things repaired with the clock ticking weren't too good.
"As soon as they put us on the five-minute clock, I knew we were pretty much done," Knaus said. "There was no way we were going to be able to make it back through the technical inspection line and go through everything and get Jimmie buckled in the car safely with his HANS to get out there and complete the lap.
"They were gracious enough to give us every opportunity, but we just didn't make it."
Knaus said he understood NASCAR's decision.
"They've got a five-minute rule and they hold to that pretty true," Knaus said. "I don't think we were the first one. I think the No. 38 car (Elliott Sadler) maybe even had that happen here a couple of years ago, I don't know."
The problem was escalated by a number of factors. The team didn't test at Indy, Friday's weather compressed the schedule and a double-check of the car before inspection took longer than expected.
"We didn't come up here and test, so we spent a lot of time after practice trying to make sure we had the exact shock and spring package on the car that we wanted," Knaus said. "It put us behind from the get-go.
"We left the garage about 15 minutes later than we were supposed to and that put us behind. And then when we had that issue with technical inspection, we just couldn't recover from that and get out there in time."
Knaus said there's nothing that the team can do now except put it behind them and get on with the business of getting to the front Sunday.
"It happens from time to time," Knaus said. "When you're in a compressed schedule like what we've got here because of the weather and then putting it into an impound situation, and then we weren't able to test.
"We were really trying to dot all our I's and cross all of our T's and we just got behind."
A chain that holds the rear axle housing to the chassis caused the car to fail inspection twice -- and as the team worked feverishly to try and repair the problem, the five-minute time limit expired, leaving Johnson without a qualifying run and having to start 40th in Sunday's Allstate 400.
"NASCAR didn't like the way it was," Knaus said. "It was a little bit too snug for them. So we had to adjust it.
"It wasn't a big deal. We were trying to fix it, we just didn't have time."
Knaus knew their chances of getting things repaired with the clock ticking weren't too good.
"As soon as they put us on the five-minute clock, I knew we were pretty much done," Knaus said. "There was no way we were going to be able to make it back through the technical inspection line and go through everything and get Jimmie buckled in the car safely with his HANS to get out there and complete the lap.
"They were gracious enough to give us every opportunity, but we just didn't make it."
Knaus said he understood NASCAR's decision.
"They've got a five-minute rule and they hold to that pretty true," Knaus said. "I don't think we were the first one. I think the No. 38 car (Elliott Sadler) maybe even had that happen here a couple of years ago, I don't know."
The problem was escalated by a number of factors. The team didn't test at Indy, Friday's weather compressed the schedule and a double-check of the car before inspection took longer than expected.
"We didn't come up here and test, so we spent a lot of time after practice trying to make sure we had the exact shock and spring package on the car that we wanted," Knaus said. "It put us behind from the get-go.
"We left the garage about 15 minutes later than we were supposed to and that put us behind. And then when we had that issue with technical inspection, we just couldn't recover from that and get out there in time."
Knaus said there's nothing that the team can do now except put it behind them and get on with the business of getting to the front Sunday.
"It happens from time to time," Knaus said. "When you're in a compressed schedule like what we've got here because of the weather and then putting it into an impound situation, and then we weren't able to test.
"We were really trying to dot all our I's and cross all of our T's and we just got behind."