Tag: Rodney Childers

Spire Motorsports signs crew chief Rodney Childers for 2025 NASCAR season

Spire Motorsports announced on Tuesday morning that is has signed crew chief Rodney Childers to join the No. 7 team for the 2025 season.

[autotag]Spire Motorsports[/autotag] has been making big moves over the last 365 days, and it has struck again. On Tuesday morning, Spire Motorsports announced it has signed crew chief [autotag]Rodney Childers[/autotag] to a multi-year contract starting in 2025. Childers will lead Corey LaJoie, who will return next season, and the No. 7 team as they look to improve upon their performances in 2024.

Childers currently leads Josh Berry and the No. 4 team at Stewart-Haas Racing, but the organization will shut down after the 2024 NASCAR season. Childers and Berry hoped to work together in 2025, but they couldn’t find a way, as the latter will drive the No. 21 Cup car for Wood Brothers Racing full-time next year.

This is a significant move for Spire Motorsports, as Childers has 40 wins in his Cup Series career and one championship with Kevin Harvick in 2014. LaJoie has been struggling in 2024, sitting 31st in the point standings; however, this move will allow the No. 7 team to flourish. Childers is a great addition to Spire Motorsports, which continues to make big signings.

Childers signs multiyear deal with Spire

Rodney Childers has signed a multiyear deal to be Corey LaJoie’s crew chief at Spire Motorsports from next season. The deal was finalized on Monday night, with Childers joining the organization from Stewart-Haas Racing where he won the 2014 …

Rodney Childers has signed a multiyear deal to be Corey LaJoie’s crew chief at Spire Motorsports from next season.

The deal was finalized on Monday night, with Childers joining the organization from Stewart-Haas Racing where he won the 2014 championship with Kevin Harvick.

“We are beyond excited to announce Rodney Childers as the crew chief for Corey LaJoie and Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 team beginning in 2025,” said Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson. “There are decisions that professional racing teams make daily that take courage, require deep thought, and have some element of rolling the dice. To be clear, this wasn’t one of them. Rodney is a hall-of-fame-worthy, championship-winning crew chief with 40 wins.

“He is one of the best in the garage and when a guy like Rodney is available, it would be malpractice if we did anything but our absolute best to bring him into our growing organization. He will make us better the moment he walks into our shop, and we look forward to his contributions to our collective success.”

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Childers has been a Cup Series crew chief since 2005 and has more wins than any other active crew chief in the NASCAR Cup series. He has won races with three different drivers (Harvick; Brian Vickers; David Reutimann). In addition to his victories, Childers has 34 poles as a crew chief.

LaJoie goes into his ninth full season as a Cup Series driver next year. He has nine top-10 finishes in 256 starts and is still looking for his first career victory.

“I think the biggest thing is seeing how Spire Motorsports has grown over the last couple of years,” said Childers. “They are investing in people, and that’s what makes a difference these days. We all buy the same chassis, bodies and parts. What makes a difference is the people. Spire continues to invest in the people within the team and they seek out good people to add depth to an already strong group. Corey is a veteran of the sport and I think we have a tremendous opportunity in front of us.

“Spire has been on my radar for the past year. I had quite a few guys from the No. 4 team go over there and they keep telling me how much they enjoy it, what the culture is like and how well everybody gets along. That started it from my side. The rest was the way Jeff (Dickerson) and Doug Duchardt (Spire Motorsports President) handled my situation. They told me how much I was wanted and how I could make a difference.

“For anybody in this world, all you want is to feel wanted and loved, and I felt that through them. I also see it as a place that can be good for my family, long term. My kids are three years from graduating high school. With the truck teams there, it’s somewhere they can grow, learn and possibly work one day.”

Ryan Sparks, LaJoie’s current crew chief, will transition to full-time competition director for Spire Motorsports next season. He has been with LaJoie since 2020.

“Ryan Sparks is an amazing leader and has been a huge part of our organization since the first moment he clocked in,” Dickerson said. “As he transitions from managing two roles to focusing on Spire Motorsports as a whole, it’s important to point out that he was one of the first guys who talked to me about bringing Rodney in.

“Lots of guys say they’ll put the team first but there aren’t a lot of guys who follow through and that speaks to the type of competitor and human Ryan is. He has been balancing being a crew chief and the competition director the last couple seasons. This move will allow him to focus solely on the competition director role. As we continue to grow, his knowledge and leadership will become even more instrumental to our success.”

Berry enjoys best run yet at Iowa as job hunt continues

A seventh-place finish on Sunday night at Iowa Speedway meant more than usual for Rodney Childers, Josh Berry and Stewart-Haas Racing. “It’s interesting looking for a job all week and still coming and running like this,” Childers said. “That’s just …

A seventh-place finish on Sunday night at Iowa Speedway meant more than usual for Rodney Childers, Josh Berry and Stewart-Haas Racing.

“It’s interesting looking for a job all week and still coming and running like this,” Childers said. “That’s just icing on the cake, honestly.”

Stewart-Haas Racing is shutting its NASCAR operation at season’s end. It puts a couple of hundred employees out of a job, including Childers, a championship-winning crew chief and his rookie driver.

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The Iowa Corn 350 was the No. 4 team’s best run since the news. Berry led 32 laps, the most he’s led in a single NASCAR Cup series race, and the finish was his second-best result of the season and third top 10.

“Everybody has stayed focused and keeps racing their hearts out,” Childers said. “Everybody that we race against knows what the 4 car is capable of and the people that I have, and Josh is just driving his butt off. If he didn’t show that he deserves to be in this series tonight, something’s wrong.

“You look back at Darlington, here, Richmond; he’s doing a really good job, and our short track stuff has been good. We need to give him a little bit better car at the intermediate tracks. But we’re going to continue to fight to give him better cars every week and push forward.”

Berry was leading the race when the final caution flew on Lap 260, sending the leaders to pit road for the final time. A four-tire call by Childers sent Berry off in fourth place behind a trio of two-tire calls.

Ryan Blaney won the race after taking two tires. Berry restarted sixth, the third driver on the outside lane behind Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who also took two tires.

“Looking back on it, we probably needed to take the bottom on the restart,” Childers said. “I think if we could have taken the bottom, we would have had a shot at it. But our car had kind of bled on the longer runs all day. I was probably higher on air pressure than a lot of these guys, and after the last two weeks of having two DNFs, I didn’t want to take that chance again.

“We were falling off a little bit too much on the long runs but I just didn’t feel like our car would hang on on two tires. We did it earlier in the race, and it just got extremely tight and fell off.”

But regardless of the call, Childers felt it came down to the restart. Stenhouse didn’t launch well in the outside lane, which held up those behind him.

“The other side of it, too, is having somebody who is new to this you need to be on offense with him,” Childers said. “He’s done a really good job on restarts all year, and you need to take advantage of that. You don’t need him mirror driving for the last 80 laps.

“So, I hate it didn’t work out any better than that but hell of an effort from Josh and everybody.”

The strong showing started early in the weekend. Berry was 20th fastest in practice but qualified third. In the race his average running position was sixth, and everything went as well as the team hoped, from the car’s speed to Berry doing his job on restarts and overall execution.

“I thought we had a really good race and a really good car,” Berry said. “To score stage points like we did, we had some great restarts in there and just that last restart didn’t really go our way. We lost a little bit of track position and just could never get it back, but, all in all, just really proud of everybody on the 4 team. They did a great job. That was a lot of fun, for sure. We’re going to keep digging to keep getting better.”

No regrets for Berry despite brief Stewart-Haas stay

It’s been less than a year since Josh Berry and Stewart-Haas Racing announced a union for the 2024 NASCAR Cup series season, but the driver is back on the free agency board. “It’s definitely been an up and down time going from what we had a year ago …

It’s been less than a year since Josh Berry and Stewart-Haas Racing announced a union for the 2024 NASCAR Cup series season, but the driver is back on the free agency board.

“It’s definitely been an up and down time going from what we had a year ago ironing out the deal with the 4 team and now to Stewart-Haas going away,” Berry said this week.

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Berry and his teammates are looking for jobs after Stewart-Haas announced at the end of May that the doors will close at season’s end. A short track ace turned 33-year-old NASCAR national series rookie, Berry finally got his shot at the sport’s premier level, only for uncertainty about the future to crop back up sooner than expected.

“Without a doubt, I would do it all over again even if I knew the outcome,” Berry said. “The opportunity to race for Stewart-Haas and the job that they’ve done, meeting the people that I have and working with Rodney [Childers] and this 4 team. I would 100% do that all over again.

“I hate that part of it is coming to a close, but from their side of things, the time was right to make a change and go a different direction. I think all of us respect that, and we’re going to work through it and try to find the next opportunity.”

Berry and crew chief Rodney Childers are hoping to stay together post-Stewart-Haas. Nigel Kinrade/Motorsport Images

Berry inherited the No. 4 Ford Mustang Dark Horse upon the retirement of 2014 champion Kevin Harvick. The team, led by champion crew chief Childers, has gone through the expected growing pains but is on an upward trajectory in the championship point standings. There are only a pair of top-10 finishes on the stat sheet, but results have not been entirely indicative of the performance.

And from here on out, every performance is an audition for Berry and his team. If any part of the team stays together beyond this year is to be determined, but Berry admitted he and Childers are hoping to be a package deal.

“That’s 100% our goal,” he said. “If that’s going to be possible is yet to be seen; if that’s going to be realistic or not. I think we most definitely want to continue (down) that path. We feel like we’ve really had a strong last month (or) month and a half. I think we’ve gotten a lot better; we’re working together better; we’re learning each other and continuing to grow. I think we’ve had some really solid runs.

“So, for us, we want to be able to continue on that trajectory and keep working with each other. And if that’s going to be possible or not is yet to be seen but that’s certainly the goal.”