Veteran NASCAR Cup crew chief Rodney Childers made no bones about it when he had his first conversation with former driver Kevin Harvick.
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“The first time he called me, I said there was no way I was going to get along with this guy,” Childers recently told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s SiriusXM Speedway with Dave Moody.
But Childers and Harvick surprised each other and the rest of NASCAR. Not only did they get along, they combined for one NASCAR Cup championship in 2014 and 37 of Harvick’s 60 career Cup wins. It became one of the more successful driver-crew chief bonds in the last 20 years.
Harvick was a fiery driver, particularly during his previous tenure at Richard Childress Racing. But once Harvick was paired with Childers at Stewart-Haas Racing, they clicked incredibly well, essentially becoming best friends.
“It was the easiest relationship that I’ve had in my life,” Childers told Moody. “We talked every single day. We’d have 100 text messages a day, he’d call me every day and make sure things were going okay, what did he need to work on, what did we need to do.”
Unfortunately, Stewart-Haas folded after last season, leading Childers to take a new job with Spire Motorsports for the 2025 season as crew chief for Justin Haley. The relationship lasted just nine races before Childers was let go two weeks ago.
Unfortunately for Childers, the timing of his release from Spire couldn’t have been at a worse time. With the season so relatively young – Sunday’s race at Texas was only the 11th event in the 36-race Cup schedule – all other full-time Cup crew chief roles are occupied. It’s unlikely there will be another opening until later in the year, at the earliest, if not until after this season.
Ergo, Rodney Childers will have to continue waiting, making phone calls, sending emails and trying to find a situation that will be more like what he had at SHR with Harvick rather than with Spire and Haley.
Childers will be more cautious in taking his next job
Moody asked a rather poignant question: will Childers – who is tied for second among active Cup crew chiefs with 40 wins – be more cautious and deliberate about finding the right next opportunity after the disaster that quickly evolved at Spire?
“I think you could say that, but on the other side of it, none of us would have ever thought it wouldn’t work in the beginning,” Childers said. “Those guys were great to me, everybody in that building treated me like family. That wasn’t part of it. With our situation, you don’t get to date before you get married. You just don’t know. With Kevin Harvick, I got so lucky, we both did.
“After you’ve been in a situation like that that was that easy and that comfortable, it makes it really hard to move on from that. You’ve just got to figure that out. There’s guys out there that have those relationships and they run good. You’ve just got to keep trying, keep working on it and keep moving forward.”
While he continues to look for a new job, Rodney Childers has somewhat been reunited with Harvick. He helped out Harvick’s CARS Tour late model team during Saturday’s race at Ace Speedway, and likely will continue in that role until a new opportunity arises.
