Is Mike Ford inside Chad Knaus' head?

Denny Hamlin is enjoying a reversal of fortune.

But the game-changing moment in Hamlin’s 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship run didn’t happen in Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway when he held off Matt Kenseth for the win.

Instead, it came in a move by crew chief Mike Ford, whose decision Friday afternoon to select the pit stall directly in front of the No. 48 team’s pits set a "Bring It" tone for the remainder of the weekend and beyond.

Certainly, Hamlin’s eighth victory of the season vaulted the No. 11 Toyota to the top of the points standings with a 33-marker advantage over four-time champion Jimmie Johnson. The team entered the weekend 14 points behind. However, the mind games on pit road not only caused the No. 48 team to unravel, it forced crew chief Chad Knaus to send his boys packing after a series of uncharacteristically poor stops.

Yes, the No. 48 crew lacked its "A" game from the very first pit stop when Johnson was blocked in and had to back out of his pit to return to action. That followed a series of setbacks, including when a tire was knocked out of the rear tire changer’s hands by Paul Menard’s passing car. Lugnuts were dropped on a two-tire stop on Lap 194, which sent Johnson out of the pits 14th and inevitably forced Knaus to dump his own crew and enlist the No. 24 team after Jeff Gordon’s day ended early.

Knaus acknowledged that changing crews was a decision made because the team “needed to do something.”

“When you get back there (in the pack), you don't know exactly how you need to tune on the car,” Knaus said. “It got a little edgy for him. After we got back up front, then it got too tight, so we just couldn't maintain our track position, that hurt us pretty bad."

Not surprisingly, Hendrick Motorsports on Monday made the pit crew changes official for the remainder of the season. Sure, Johnson salvaged a ninth-place finish Sunday, but he lost the points lead entering the final two races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. This is a position he hasn't been in over the past four title seasons with two races remaining -- and no driver has come back from a points deficit with two to go since the Chase began.

“We've been lacking and we need to get it straightened out and it was a good wake-up call for the guys, if anything, to bring the No. 24 crew in and let them do their job and let them watch,” Johnson said after the race. “I really do care for these guys with the bottom of my heart. They're my guys. But, man, we have to perform. We can't come down pit road and lose 10 spots every stop. That's just killing us."

What happened?

How did Jimmie Johnson claim his fifth-straight title? DEFINING MOMENTS OF THE CHASE

Ford’s plan played out perfectly Sunday. He exposed the weaknesses of the No. 48 team, and the wily crew chief had no regrets.

After Johnson's team selected the pit box in front of Hamlin's crew at Kansas -- and used it to their advantage --  every “courtesy was thrown out the window,” Ford said.

“When it was time to choose pits,” Ford, who made his selection 30th, said Sunday. “That one was an option. I felt like that was our best option. You take the Chase hat off and you say, 'What's going to be best for our race team', and I felt like we could outrun those guys all day, and we were able to. I figured late in the race the 82 (of Scott Speed, which pitted in front of the 11) may possibly be a lap down, so felt like of the pits that were left, that was the best one for us.

“Also knowing that you put the two pit crews toe to toe and those guys are going to make mistakes. We've seen it this year, and we went beside them, and those guys faltered, and it made them panic and push to the point where they made changes."

While Ford was aware of what was going on next door on pit road, his main focus remained on his team.

“We did see all that go on, saw them making mistakes, saw them studying us real hard, and when you put your focus on watching other people, you make mistakes, so I was glad to see that they are watching us and paying attention," he said. "That means they are chasing. And they made mistakes in doing so.“

Ford referred to Knaus’ decision to switch teams as “a desperation move” which will ultimately affect the psyche of the team. While both crew chiefs went over the wall in their younger days, Ford believes there are better ways to handle the situation.

Switching out pit crew before or during the playoffs is not uncommon. Organizations often cherry-pick athletes for certain positions for the team that has the best shot to be a title contender or will swap out a crew man who is having a rough day. Richard Childress swapped out Clint Bowyer's crew with that of Kevin Harvick's after Harvick's men struggled at Charlotte -- with five races remaining in the Chase -- but the decision was made after the race.

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“It's something that Jimmie, Chad and (team owner) Rick (Hendrick) needed to do if they wanted to win a championship because they just took their team out of it,” Ford said. “They removed their team. Their team got them to this point and they pulled them out, so this is more about trying to win a championship for the company and not the team.”

It wasn’t surprising that Hendrick Motorsports scheduled a news conference Tuesday for Knaus and fellow crew chief Steve Letarte to clear the air.

Knaus dismissed Ford’s accusation that the pit crew swap was an 11th-hour move, but asked about the crew -- it's the one that carried Johnson to championship contention for the last 34 races -- Knaus indirectly referred to his men as human capital.

“I don’t think it’s an act of desperation by any stretch of the imagination,” Knaus said. “It’s an act of what we’ve got to do to try to win the race. We’ve got a setup that we run at Phoenix that we like a lot. We’ve got a car that we run at Phoenix that we like a lot. We’re not going to go and run that exact setup if it’s not fast.

“I hate to say it as bluntly as it is, but it’s like changing a spring or changing a shock or something like that – you’ve got to put the best components together to try to win the championship. Unfortunately, we’re not in a situation to where the 24 (Jeff Gordon) can win the championship right now, from this building, and that’s what it’s about is this building and we have to take away from those guys right now.”

The “building” to which Knaus refers houses the teams of both Gordon and Johnson at the Hendrick Motorsports complex. From the time that the No. 48 was spawned from the championship Gordon squad in 2001, both teams have grown together. Yet, in the past four years, it has been Knaus’ crew that has continued to blossom.

Whether the No. 48 team has become stale or was intimidated by the pressure that Hamlin's squad applied through this season, since the crews have regrouped this week, Knaus insists he has noticed a resurgence from both squads.

“It was one of the coolest experiences yesterday when we got both those guys together,” Knaus said. “I haven’t seen a light in the eyes of the 48 guys like that in a while. They are really excited about having a driver that’s willing to go out there and just punch and scrap and claw and fight and they want to get Jeff a win. It’s really, really neat to see.

“The guys on the 24 side – they’re extremely excited, they want to go out there and try to contribute from their side of things to help the 48 win the championship, so I think it’s a really good opportunity for everybody.”

The swap is indeed a fresh start for Hendrick Motorsports, but Ford sees the move as further vulnerability.

Hamlin and Ford admit they’ve studied the strategy used by Johnson's team the past four years on its rise to the top. Now, they just have to build a better mousetrap.

“You've watched them play mind games with people in the past, and I'm completely immune to that,” Ford said. “I could care less. I'll be right in their face saying, 'It doesn't matter.'

“I think our race team is better than their race team, and I'm not going to tiptoe around them because of where they're at. I'm going to do what it's going to require for us to win a championship -- beat them. Not that I'm playing dirty by any means, but take what's ours, and I'm not afraid to go toe to toe with them.”

Yes, Mike Ford has made his statement. He and his men are in the heads of Knaus and the new and improved No. 48 team. If they can remain in this position by being aggressive and applying pressure in the final two races, Hamlin's crew will bring the Cup back to Joe Gibbs Racing.