Tensions were at an all-time high at Hendrick Motorsports after the 2005 NASCAR Cup Series. Seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson was the winningest driver (18) in the four years since entering the Cup Series, but back then, he had no championships to show for it.
Meanwhile, his crew chief Chad Knaus had two championships as a tire changer on the No. 24 team of driver Jeff Gordon in 1995 and 1997. However, he was yet to make his mark as a champion crew chief. To make matters worse, Johnson and his crew chief had a shaky relationship and weren’t always on the same page either.
In fact, the tension between the two escalated so dramatically that the HMS bossman, Rick Hendrick, himself had to step in personally and restore order. And he did so, not with any fiery speech or corporate discipline. He put the two in their places, the old-fashioned way – with cookie and milk, just like a childhood timeout.
Rick Hendrick’s Unconventional Move That Motivated Jimmie Johnson
The famed HMS combo of Knaus and Johnson had racked up wins, but a championship still seemed out of reach back in 2005 when tensions were at an all-time high between the driver and his crew chief.
In 2004, Johnson lost the title to Kurt Busch by about two spots on the track, and in 2005, they lost it to Tony Stewart by one position on the track. Yet, considering their on-track success in such a short time, the bossman was hesitant to break them up and thought there was a way to work it out. However, constant arguing and shouting between the two created serious friction within the team, threatening to derail their momentum.
And following the 2005 season, Hendrick called both parties to his conference room. The Seven-time title winner recently recounted the event in vivid detail in an exclusive to Donut Podcasts.
“He brought us into his beautiful conference room,” Johnson reminisced. “Had Chad and I sit down at the conference room table and he pulled out two Mickey Mouse plates, pulled out a box of cookies, a gallon of milk and two red solo cups and you could see he was not in a great mood and was irritated at us both.”
Hendrick’s thinking was simply: If they are going to act like kids, they’d be treated like kids.
“He then forces us to eat the cookies and drink the milk, and he reprimands us like we’re little grade school kids and acting like idiots. And it was so funny and uncomfortable at the same time that it broke down a variety of different barriers that Chad and I were dealing with,” recalled Johnson with a sheepish smile as he narrated the scene to the host of the show.
Jimmie Johnson.
The guy literally peed on the competition for 15 years straight, won 5 titles in a row against guys like Stewart, the Busch bros, Martin, Gordon, Hamlin, Edwards, Kenseth etc. In three different gens of cars.
Prime Jimmie was just a whole different animal.
— El Campeón (@_CarlosJohnson_) May 10, 2025
And the result? Well, the duo won the championship the very next season, in 2006, and kept it coming till 2010, winning five consecutive titles – becoming the first and only driver to win five back-to-back titles in NASCAR history.
The iconic No. 48 duo then won two titles in 2013 and 2016 with 81 victories together.