Thoughts from a Crew Chief: Because He’s Mine

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Summary: After the Bristol night race of 2008, Chad shares his thoughts on his relationship with his driver.

AUTHOR: MystikHeather
EMAIL: mystikheather@cryptoffic.com
RATING: PG-13
CHARACTERS: Chad Knaus, Jimmie Johnson, Chad POV
CATEGORY: Drama
WORD COUNT: 823
DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don’t own it. I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
AUTHOR’S NOTE: For the girl who totally inspires my muses and is instrumental in me maintaining my sanity on a daily basis!  Thanks Manda (ProfessorKnaus!)
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Bristol, August 2008

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for us, these dog days of summer again wreaking havoc.  After the highs that we fought so hard for...Chicago, Indy, Pocono…I really thought things were rolling like everyone’s come to expect from this team.  Then the Glen, Michigan, Bristol…they slapped us in the face pretty hard.  Just means we have to work harder, longer than before.  That’s where the idea for running extra races besides the scheduled ones and besides just the endless testing came from.
           
There was a lot of talk, a lot of joking in the garage about Jimmie running the Nationwide and the Craftsman Truck race.  There was even more talk about the fact that I’m never that far away from him, that I need to loosen the leash, that “Chad’s a control freak.”  Maybe I am.  But even if I am…what does it matter if that’s what’s necessary?  I’ve come to realize they really don’t understand.  I honestly don’t think they ever will.  And maybe…I don’t want them to.  Because what we have works and I don’t need them figuring out just what our edge is.

I’m there at all of these other events because he’s mine.  He’s my driver.  Someone else might be his crew chief for the day, but he will always be mine. Every time he’s on a race track, I’m going to be there, especially if someone else is making the calls, unless for some reason NASCAR takes that choice away from me.  But I’m not going to let that ever happen again, at least not of my own volition.  Why?  Because I’m not letting anyone else put him in danger.  One wrong call, one wrong move and this legacy we’re building will collapse and I will not let that happen. 

So I will sit on someone else’s pit box or I’ll stand to the wall, or I’ll camp out on the hauler, but I will be there and I will be able to talk to him.  No one else knows his voice like I do.  No one else can read his mind like I can.  His silence might be just that to someone else but it’s loads more to me because it’s not that he’s silent, it’s when he’s silent, and for how long.  It’s not what words he uses, it’s when he uses them and which words he stresses and which he doesn’t.  It’s what questions he asks and when he asks them, that’s what matters.  That’s how you really know what’s going on with him. 

I can tell…everything…that he’s thinking…even when he doesn’t say a single word.  That’s why we’ve been successful with each other.  That’s why we’ve won TWO championships in a row.  That’s why we’re going to win THREE.  No one else has anywhere near the type of relationship that we have, that absolute trust and commitment to each other.  Carl thinks he’s close with Bob, maybe he is.  I doubt it though.  You have to be willing to give up everything for the other person to succeed.  Kyle knows that he’ll never have that relationship with Steve.  Why do you think he’s always over on our side of the garage.  He always wants what he can’t have.

Jimmie gives me every single piece of himself, and then he reaches inside of himself and he finds more to give me.  And I take all of it.  I have to because he needs me to.  He knows just as well as I do that this relationship we have, this marriage of crew chief and driver, cannot be recreated with anyone else in the garage, probably anyone else in the world.  And he knows that no one else can give him the success that I have because I’ve proven to him time and time again that I will give him everything I have to help him.  To make him win, to give him championships. 

And that’s why I almost laughed in their faces when they suggested I take the day off when he wanted to race the truck at Bristol, when he wanted to race the Nationwide car at Watkins’ Glen, claiming that I work too hard as it is.  They don’t understand that that option doesn’t exist, isn’t a possibility, because I can never work hard enough for him.  I don’t care if he’s racing a fucking go-cart.  If he’s behind the wheel of any type of racing vehicle, I will be there. 

It’s the only way I can protect my investment.  The only way I can protect my life.  Because that’s what he is to me.  More than my career, he is my life.  I can’t trust anyone else to protect him the way that I know that I can.  Not Rick, not Jeff, not even his fucking super-model wife.  I won’t trust anyone else to be there to pull him out of a burning car.  No way in hell. 

Because he’s mine. 

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MystikHeather - mystikheather@cryptoffic.com