NASCAR Cup Series

Chad Knaus turns heads with restored car at auto show

Published Nov. 29, 2015 9:31 a.m. ET

Tom Jensen

Chad Knaus builds great race cars. The fact that Knaus won six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series crew chief championships with Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports is proof positive of that.

As it turns out, Knaus has some pretty wicked street cars, too.

At Saturday's Americarna 2015, Ray Evernham's third annual car show to benefit the IGNITE community center for young adults on the autism spectrum, Knaus brought one of the star cars of the show. Dubbed "SUMTOYII," the gleaming black Pro Mod-style 1966 Chevrolet Nova drew big crowds.

And with good reason -- it's a great build, powered by an LS3 Corvette engine. And it comes with a great story, too.

"My father brought it home one day when he was done racing ASA in the mid-80s," Knaus told FOXSports.com during the Evernham show. "What he did is he bought this car for $350, and we stripped it and put all the old ASA race car parts on it: ASA engine, rear-end housing, spindles, coil overs, the hubs, everything. It was just a hot rod I drove around when I was a kid."

Knaus' father eventually sold the car, and the crew chief bought it back about 10 years ago.

"I gave it to a fellow to restore," said Knaus. "He had it for five years. He didn't finish it. So I picked it all back up and I gave it back to my father. And my father's had it for the last four years, and he redid the whole thing, and I just took delivery of it actually two weeks ago."

Knaus drove the car to the event.

"It's pretty damned fast," he said. "It runs really well. I'm pretty happy with it."

Knaus said the Corvette engine has been tweaked with a hot cam. Next up will be the addition of a supercharger. "It's an awesome engine," he said. "It's got great power. It's pretty fun. It's a light car, there's not much to it, so it doesn't take a lot of power."

But it sure turned a lot of heads.