Chase Rice, a former crew member of seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson is now a top Country artist. In a recent interview, he talks about his time at the team, specifically their Cup-winning 2009 season.

Chase was talking to Fox NASCAR’s Jamie Little in her show ‘OFF TRACK’. In the interview, he reveals how he wrote chart-topping songs while working with the Hendrick Motorsports team.

Additionally, he talks about how his aspiration was to become a world-class football player and join the NFL. However, an injury ended his NFL dream.

After that, he got a chance to join Jimmie Johnson’s crew and etched his name in history as the Cup championship-winning crew.

He revealed that despite bagging his dream job in NASCAR, he really wanted to pursue his dream of creating music. He said, “2009 happened, I got this dream job of working in NASCAR and it was everything but that. I was miserable while I was there. I wanted to move from NASCAR and write songs.”

He added, “I just wanted to be a songwriter, I wanted to write songs. I didn’t care about fame. And I had to work through people doubting me.”

Additionally, he talked about his time with legendary Crew Chief, Chad Knaus. Knaus is the only NASCAR Crew Chief to have won five consecutive Cup championships.

Jimmie Johnson won his 4th consecutive Cup title in 2009

In 2009, Johnson had a stellar run and took home his 4th consecutive NASCAR Cup title after a fifth-place finish in the final race at Homestead, Miami.

Additionally, Hendrick Motorsports had a dominating season with three of their drivers finishing the Cup table at the top 3 spots. Team’s Mark Martin finished in second place. It was the fifth runner-up finish for Martin.

He won his last Cup race during the season. And is named by ESPN as the “The best driver to never win a championship”. NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon finished the season at number three.

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