Editor’s Be aware: This marks the second story in a three-part sequence as Spire Motorsports permits NASCAR Digital Media to cowl its preparation for the 2025 Daytona 500.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Rodney Childers walks the store flooring at Spire Motorsports feeling invigorated. There’s a rekindled spark in his eye.
The hallways he strolls right this moment are starkly totally different than these he patrolled 12 weeks in the past at Stewart-Haas Racing. When he walked into SHR within the fall of 2013, the group had already gained 20 NASCAR Cup Sequence races, amongst them a Brickyard 400 and a Cup championship.
Pacing the pristine white flooring of Spire, Childers joins a workforce that has only one Cup victory to its identify, courtesy of Justin Haley in 2019. And but, to Childers, the echoes of these SHR recollections aren’t fairly so distant. There’s a putting familiarity, actually, that he may very well be constructing his subsequent title contender in Mooresville, some 18 miles north of the Kannapolis store wherein he cast himself right into a Corridor-of-Fame-caliber crew chief. He joins Haley and the No. 7 Chevrolet workforce at Spire for the 2025 Cup marketing campaign.
“It feels extra like SHR to start with, actually, not the tip — which is an efficient factor,” Childers mentioned Wednesday.
Coming from the man who led Harvick to a Cup Sequence championship of their first 12 months collectively at SHR, maybe the sequence ought to enter on excessive alert.
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A CLEAN SLATE
At his earlier place of employment, Rodney Childers constructed a championship-winning workforce from the bottom up as a crew chief. With a legendary driver behind the wheel in Kevin Harvick, Childers established himself as Corridor-worthy with an astounding 37 wins at Stewart-Haas Racing over a record-setting decade within the NASCAR Cup Sequence.
These had been the nice days — the nice days — that grew to become the usual for his method of working. As we speak, Childers stands earlier than the 2025 season winless throughout the previous two seasons, relationship again to Harvick’s closing celebration in August 2022. An inner downturn and eventual closing of the doorways at Stewart-Haas Racing dimmed each the success and the enjoyable from Childers’ run within the solar till the doorways shut in November.
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That’s the place the folks at Spire have made their impression already. Childers is surrounded by a gaggle of racers with optimism and expertise, all wanting ahead at what alternatives lie forward as a part of what may very well be a shiny future.
“You possibly can stand right here on a 7 o’clock assembly within the mornings and also you look across the room, and it’s all A-plus folks,” Childers mentioned. “There’s not C folks standing round, and that’s actually exhausting to come back throughout proper now. It’s exhausting to search out good assist. It’s exhausting to search out good engineers and good mechanics in each single place. And right here, I haven’t come throughout anyone that’s not an A-plus man or A-plus girl.”
Sitting on a grand stage centered alongside the wall in Spire Motorsports’ foyer because the workforce hosts a well-attended media day occasion, Childers estimates 18 folks from Stewart-Haas made the pilgrimage to Spire for the 2025 season. Of these 18, one of the necessary was Robert “Cheddar” Smith, who follows Childers as his automotive chief after 11 years serving the identical function on the SHR No. 4 automotive. Former lead engineer Dax Gerringer now serves as Spire’s technical director. However the brand new journey isn’t about Spire turning into SHR Lite — although with only one win to its identify, Spire would like to chip into SHR’s 70-win whole. It’s about using everybody’s power at a corporation that took tangible steps ahead in 2024.
“How can we turn out to be higher teammates with one another? How can we work collectively higher?” Childers mentioned. “There’s simply so many sides of it. And proper now, we’re extraordinarily lucky for what we’ve. I can’t wait to go racing.”
NOT-SO-SECRET WEAPON
Championship expertise shouldn’t be one thing deeply engrained in Spire Motorsports’ pre-existing fiber. That’s no slight on a still-blooming group and as an alternative the truth of the runway that continues to be forward of it.
Childers, alternatively, carries that pedigree with him wherever he goes. His expectation to win is a part of what separates him from those that merely need to.
The extent of preparation that comes with that’s new for Haley, who returns to the No. 7 Chevrolet in 2025 after a reacquainting appetizer of seven races in 2024.
“I’ve shortly realized what Cup racing is thru Rodney and Cheddar, and nothing is ever adequate for them,” Haley mentioned Wednesday. “And that’s been refreshing to me, that there’s nothing neglected, no stone unturned. Should you want one thing completed, it’s completed 5 minutes in the past. It’s actually been unbelievable to undergo the method of the offseason with the 2 of them, after which Matt McCall, Ryan Sparks, and clearly (Michael) McDowell and Travis (Peterson) as effectively.
“I suppose I didn’t fairly perceive what stage they had been racing on. I really feel like I used to be residing on a unique planet, actually. And that’s nothing towards the place I’ve been. It’s simply to compete at a excessive stage and win races like Rodney, Cheddar, all these folks have completed, it requires one thing else.”
For instance, Haley’s seat place in prior Cup vehicles was set in such a method that his core and backbone had been negatively impacted, leaving his tailbone extremely uncomfortable after races. Childers prioritized recalibrating that place in order that Haley sits as comfortably as attainable shifting ahead and may merely deal with driving.
What comes with somebody with Childers’ caliber is the need of others to be part of what he builds. Mechanics, engineers and different crewmen know the expectation that pairs with working for Childers. They need to be a part of that journey.
“It’s the those that Rodney introduced with him too and the those that had been already right here which have been right here for the reason that inception of Spire Motorsports which have lived each second of it,” Haley advised NASCAR.com. “So yeah, Rodney clearly is a large plus to us — having him and having that confidence, figuring out that he’s going to deal with it. I feel that’s what’s given me a whole lot of confidence, too, is there’s nothing that I can ask that’s an excessive amount of for them that they aren’t going to deal with. It’s simply been refreshing it’s actually. Simply been a complete change of life-style.”
Jeff Dickerson, co-owner of Spire, has seen that injection of life from Childers, McCall, McDowell and Peterson firsthand — however in a method that has been complementary somewhat than earth-shattering.
“I feel it’s been extra additive,” Dickerson mentioned. “What I actually respect about these guys is that once they received right here, they didn’t have a look at us as an issue that wanted to be solved. They weren’t coming in being like, ‘Take a look at these idiots. We gotta repair this and repair that.’ They’ve actually simply are available with an additive type of tone the place it’s like, ‘Hey, you guys are have already got completed this. We’re not making an attempt to reinvent the wheel right here. How do I simply take you to a different step?’
“Definitely, when any person like Rodney Childers talks, he has the legitimacy of all these wins and championships that you just hear, proper? So I imply, he carries a whole lot of weight.”
SEEKING DAYTONA GLORY
Childers has completed lots in his profession — two Brickyard 400 victories at Indianapolis, two Southern 500s at Darlington, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte amongst them.
Notably absent from that record of crown jewels, although, is the Daytona 500.
“It simply type of hangs over my head yearly,” Childers advised NASCAR.com.
Most of the sport’s greats by no means get to expertise Daytona’s most wonderful victory. Mark Martin’s a long time of unhappy journeys stay distinguished in Childers’ thoughts, as does Dale Earnhardt’s 20-year wait.
“We’ve all the time been in rivalry,” Childers mentioned. “We’ve been main on the final perhaps two laps or final lap. I imply, counting all of the speedways, it’s 10 instances we’ve been main on the final lap. After which it simply doesn’t work out.”
There’s a budding optimism for Daytona that runs parallel to his season-long hopes. Childers felt the No. 4 automotive he ready for Josh Berry within the August 2024 Daytona race was one of the best car in present till it crashed from the lead late. This 12 months, he additionally brings on lead engineer Jonathan Branzelle, who beforehand served as McCall’s engineer on the No. 6 RFK Racing entry with Brad Keselowski — one other superspeedway powerhouse.
“I feel we’ve lots going for us,” Childers mentioned. “In actuality, I feel Justin may be one of the best speedway racer we’ve ever went to a speedway race with. So I feel that’ll be key for all of us to go down there and carry out effectively.”
On Jan. 29, simply two weeks earlier than vehicles will unload at Daytona for a ten a.m. ET apply session, the shell of the No. 7 Chevrolet that Haley will pilot sits unwrapped on jack stands. That is an enchancment, nonetheless, from the final check-in, when Daytona vehicles had been but to be clipped collectively. The chassis are constructed, physique panels put in, however no engines but in place.
Nonetheless, there stays no anxiousness of working not on time. All is on observe for the three-car operation, and Childers has no worries.
“To be sincere, I felt like at Stewart-Haas, we pushed that too far out on a regular basis,” Childers mentioned. “They wished to begin constructing the Daytona vehicles two months earlier than after which they’d simply sit round. It was totally different over there too as a result of we had like a speedway man that, type of like (Jimmy) Fennig does at Roush is like, you recognize, for those who had any person to take a seat there and simply child them to dying, then yeah, perhaps begin constructing them earlier. However proper now, we don’t actually have that individual.
“However, yeah, they’re in good condition. I really feel like they’re coming collectively effectively. They give the impression of being good, down to only the element stuff. Should you had been to open the hood on one among them six months in the past in comparison with now, it appears method nicer. So everyone’s doing a very good job with all of it and be ok with it.”
What’s subsequent is performing instantly when the automotive rolls onto the race observe.
“Going to the Daytona 500 is admittedly what issues,” Childers mentioned. “We need to go down there and qualify effectively. We need to race effectively within the duels after which have a shot at it within the 500.”
