It's starting to look like crew chief Chad Knaus will miss the first four races of the season.

Knaus was ejected from all Daytona activities Monday after NASCAR found a raised rear window on Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 car during a technical inspection after qualifying.

Johnson said during his weekly show on XM Satellite Radio that NASCAR's ``not taking it lightly.''

``This is a serious deal,'' Johnson said. ``They put a stiff penalty in. As of now it looks like a four-race suspension. They pulled him out. They pulled his motorhome out. They said, 'Come get your bus and get it out of here. We don't want you in Daytona, period.'''

NASCAR chairman Brian France hinted Friday that a suspension was imminent for Knaus, who has had a history of breaking rules.

``We are not happy that he has had a progression of pushing the envelope,'' France said. ``We expect everybody to be aggressive with our rules as they're laid out. We don't expect somebody to fall into the bad zone too may times. We're going to have to check ourselves from a deterrent standpoint _ are we doing enough to make sure that these guys understand what we're trying to get done?''