Rodney Childers’ tenure at Spire Motorsports lasted only nine points races before the team announced his departure ahead of this weekend’s Cup Series race at Talladega. Childers had joined Spire after the closure of Stewart-Haas Racing at the end of the 2024 season.
“NASCAR is an ever-evolving sport and the path to improvement isn’t always comfortable,” Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson said in a statement. “The break in the Cup Series schedule gave us a chance to evaluate where we are as a program. We took the opportunity to discuss the best paths forward for everyone involved and the team and Rodney agreed that it would be best for us to part ways. Rodney has worked at the highest level of our sport for 20 years, and he knows what it takes to win championships. With that in mind, we collectively acknowledged challenges with the team dynamic. Having the right combination of talent is just as important as the results on track. As we move in a new direction it is not lost on us that Rodney has been an invaluable asset to our organization, as he will continue to be for others in this sport.”
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Childers had been paired with Justin Haley on Spire’s No. 7 car in 2025, but their performance has been lackluster. Haley currently sits in 23rd place in the standings with an average finish of 20.2 and only one top-10 finish. This top-10 finish came at Homestead, where he finished 10th after starting in 21st place.
Among the three Spire drivers, Haley ranks second in the standings. Michael McDowell is in 19th place, while Carson Hocevar is in 25th place. Hocevar, who secured a second-place finish at Atlanta, has the best finish of any Spire driver this season.
Childers’ departure follows the exit of car chief Robert “Cheddar” Smith, who left to take on the same position at Joe Gibbs Racing with Ty Gibbs. Smith had been working with Childers since their time at Stewart-Haas Racing.
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Childers was highly sought after ahead of the 2025 season due to his success at SHR. His drivers had accumulated 40 wins over 21 seasons, with the majority of those victories coming from Kevin Harvick. Childers and Harvick joined forces at SHR in 2014, winning five races and the championship in their debut season. Harvick went on to win 21 races from 2018-2020 and consistently finished in the top five in the points standings from 2017-2021.
However, Harvick’s performance declined in his final three seasons at SHR, winning only two races. Josh Berry took over for Harvick at SHR in 2024, achieving two top-five finishes and four top-10 finishes with Childers as his crew chief in the previous season. Midway through 2024, SHR announced its closure, with Gene Haas retaining one of the team’s charters and fielding Cole Custer for the Haas Factory Team, while the remaining charters were sold to different teams.