Chad Anthony Knaus ( /kəˈnaʊs/; born August 5, 1971) is an American NASCAR crew chief. He is currently employed at Hendrick Motorsports as the crew chief for the No. 48 Sprint Cup Series car, driven by Jimmie Johnson. Knaus has 53 victories as Jimmie Johnson's crew chief and is the only NASCAR crew chief to win five consecutive championships. He has been a crew chief in NASCAR for 12 years. Over this time, he has worked for three teams: Melling Racing, Tyler Jet Motorsports, and Hendrick Motorsports.

Born in Rockford, Illinois, Chad Knaus grew up around the racetracks of the Midwest helping his father, John, race against the likes of Mark Martin, Alan Kulwicki, Rusty Wallace and Dick Trickle. By the time he was 14, Knaus served as crew chief during his father Rockford Speedway championship season. The father-son combination also won the Great Northern Series championship and finished second in the NASCAR Winston Racing Series. A few years and seven track championships later, Knaus moved to North Carolina in 1991 to pursue a job in national stock car racing.

Chad ⁱ/ˈtʃæd/ (French: Tchad, Arabic: تشاد‎ Tšād), officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west. Due to its distance from the sea and its largely desert climate, the country is sometimes referred to as the "Dead Heart of Africa".

Chad is divided into multiple regions: a desert zone in the north, an arid Sahelian belt in the centre and a more fertile Sudanese savanna zone in the south. Lake Chad, after which the country is named, is the largest wetland in Chad and the second largest in Africa. Chad's highest peak is the Emi Koussi in the Sahara, and N'Djamena, (formerly Fort-Lamy), the capital, is the largest city. Chad is home to over 200 different ethnic and linguistic groups. Arabic and French are the official languages. Islam and Christianity are the most widely practiced religions.

Beginning in the 7th millennium BC, human populations moved into the Chadian basin in great numbers. By the end of the 1st millennium BC, a series of states and empires rose and fell in Chad's Sahelian strip, each focused on controlling the trans-Saharan trade routes that passed through the region. France conquered the territory by 1920 and incorporated it as part of French Equatorial Africa.

Joseph Riddick Hendrick III (born July 12, 1949), better known as Rick Hendrick, is the current owner of the American NASCAR team, Hendrick Motorsports and founder of the Hendrick Automotive Group and Hendrick Marrow Program. He attended Park View High School in South Hill, Virginia, and began his career in auto racing at age 14. He is also a retired race car driver himself, driving in only three NASCAR races throughout the course of his NASCAR career.

Hendrick, born on July 12, 1949 in Warrenton, North Carolina, was raised on his family's farm. Hendrick, at the age of 14, began drag racing in a self built 1931 Chevrolet. Two years later, at age 16, Hendrick won the Virginia division of the Chrysler-Plymouth Troubleshooting Contest, a two-part test consisting of a written exam and a timed hands-on diagnosis and repair of defects planted on a car. While attending Park View High School in South Hill, Virginia, he considered being a professional baseball player. After high school, he decided to pursue a co-op work study program with North Carolina State University and Westinghouse Electric Company in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Michael Curtis Waltrip (born April 30, 1963) is a professional race car driver, co-owner of Michael Waltrip Racing, and a published author. He is the younger brother of three-time NASCAR champion and racing commentator Darrell Waltrip. Waltrip is a two-time winner of the Daytona 500; having won the race in 2001 and 2003. He is also a commentator for SPEED TV's coverage of the Camping World Truck Series and is an analyst on the Showtime series Inside NASCAR, along with Chris Myers, Brad Daugherty, and Randy Pemberton. He currently drives the No. 40 Aaron's Dream Machine Toyota Camry part-time and GT2 Ferrari for AF Corse in the FIA World Endurance Championship. He also competed in the 2011 edition of 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Waltrip was born in Owensboro, Kentucky. He currently lives in Sherrills Ford, North Carolina.

Waltrip's stock-car career got off the ground in 1981, when he captured the Mini-Modified division track championship at Kentucky Motor Speedway. A year later, Waltrip entered the Goody's Dash Series, where he won the series championship in 1983 and was voted the circuit's most popular driver in 1983 and 1984.

Steve Letarte (born May 14, 1979) is an American NASCAR crew chief. Born in Cornish, Maine, he is currently employed at Hendrick Motorsports as the crew chief for the No. 88 Sprint Cup Series Chevrolet, driven by Dale Earnhardt, Jr.. He first began as crew chief for Jeff Gordon when he took over the job of the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet from Robbie Loomis in September 2005.

Letarte began working for Hendrick Motorsports part time in 1995. In 1996, at the age of 16, he joined the group full-time. From 1997 to 1999, he worked as a tire specialist for the #24 team. He then became a mechanic and finally car chief in 2002.

Letarte was promoted from car chief to crew chief after the #24 DuPont Chevrolet missed the 2005 Chase for the NEXTEL Cup. He was promoted after 26 of the 36 races in the 2005 season.

In his sixth race as crew chief with Gordon, he visited victory lane for the first time in October 2005, winning the Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway, in Martinsville, Virginia. The #24 improved with three top-five finishes in the last five races of the 2005 season.