Veteran NASCAR Cup crew chief Rodney Childers had made no bones about it when he had his first conversation with former driver Kevin Harvick. They were not just an unlikely pair, but an impossible one, even.
Advertisement
“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 most 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 he 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, [and] what did we need to do.”
Unfortunately, Stewart-Haas folded at the end of last season, and Childers took 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.
For Childers, his release from Spire couldn’t have come 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, if not until after this season.
Childers will have to wait, making phone calls, sending emails, 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 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,” he added.
But he knows that it is time to move on and forward.
“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 are 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,” said Childers.
While he continues to look for a new job, Childers has been somewhat reunited with Harvick. He helped out Harvick’s CARS Tour late model team during Saturday’s race at Ace Speedway and will likely continue in that role until a new opportunity arises.
