MOORESVILLE, N.C.— The New Year presents abundant opportunities for growth and improvement but none perhaps as significant as Rodney Childers’ move to Spire Motorsports.
The 48-year-old driver-turned-crew chief has been a game-changer wherever he brings his tool box. And while not everything Childers touches turns to gold, his visions of wins and championships came to fruition after building the No. 4 Stewart Haas Racing team for Kevin Harvick 11 seasons ago.
Now, Childers intends to recreate that success with up-and-comer Justin Haley and the No. 7 Spire squad.
“It feels a lot like SHR in the beginning—honestly, than at the end—which is a good thing,” Childers said of the now defunct Stewart Haas Racing. “There are a lot of really, really good people here. You can stand here at our 7 o’clock meetings in the morning and look around the room, and it’s all A+ people. There are no B or C people standing around.
“That’s really hard to come across right now. It’s really hard to find good help. It’s hard to find good engineers and good mechanics—every single position. Here, I haven’t come across anybody who wasn’t an A+ guy or A+ woman. That’s the number one priority to handle that side of it.”
Childers had a head start when he left Michael Waltrip Racing after a five-year stint and began to develop what would become the flagship team at SHR. In his first year with Harvick, the No. 4 team scored five wins and won the Cup title. Over the next decade, the pair qualified for the Playoffs 10 times and advanced to the Championship 4 round in five of their 10 seasons together.
The nucleus of the No. 4 crew—including longtime car chief Robert “Cheddar” Smith and more recently engineer Dax Gerringer — accompanied Childers to Spire. Smith will continue in his role as car chief alongside Childers. Gerringer, who holds a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina A&T, was named Spire’s Technical Director in November
Certainly, the familiarity and confidence Childers has with his former SHR fraternity has eased the transition.
“It’s been pretty special, honestly,” Childers said. “To go what we went through—all of us trying to find jobs was tough enough. But to find a home here at Spire, to have a lot of the guys that…We were talking about Cheddar a minute ago. Cheddar and I won 37 Cup races together. There are not too many times you can come across people like that who have your back through thick and thin.
“That’s helped since I got here—at least on the 7 side. I definitely feel like we’re headed in the right direction and putting together some nice cars, some nice equipment. Hopefully, Justin feels a lot more comfortable and we’ll have some fun.”
Haley’s “comfort” level has risen exponentially under the direction of Childers and Smith. Just this week the 24-year-old Winamac, Ind. native was custom fitted for his race car seat, a common place practice among elite teams that Haley had not experienced despite starting his 10th season in NASCAR, his fifth full year in Cup. Childers said the driver felt so at home he didn’t want to leave the cockpit.
In racing, as in any competitive endeavor, the little things matter. And Haley has never witnessed the attention to detail exhibited by the new leadership at Spire.
“With Rodney and Cheddar, nothing is ever good enough for them,” Haley said. “It’s been refreshing to me that there’s nothing overlooked—no stone unturned. If you need something done, it was done five minutes ago. It has been truly incredible to go through the process of the offseason with the two of them.
“I didn’t quite understand what level they were racing on. I feel like I was completely on a different planet, honestly. That’s nothing against where I’ve been, it’s just to compete at a high level and win races like Rodney and Cheddar have done, it requires something else. I’m super thankful for this opportunity.”
After Stewart Haas Racing announced its impending demise in May, Childers became a hot commodity. Two months later, he accepted the position with Spire. Not only did the championship crew chief see the potential of what co-owner Jeff Dickerson was building, but the culture also put Childress feel at ease.4
“There are so many of these teams now that the crew chiefs don’t have a lot of say in a lot of things,” Childers said. “That’s not really me. I’m not really built that way. I felt like this is a place that I would fit in well and so far it has been good.
“When you have a family where everyone trusts each other and gets along and looks out for each other and cares for each other, you’re going to do a lot of special things. Every day people see how much people care.
“People win races. When you go racing, because we have all the same parts and pieces to put the cars together, you win races with the people side of it, getting along and doing things the right way.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
