Back in April, when veteran Cup-winning crew chief Rodney Childers announced his exit from Spire Motorsports, many hoped he would land with Kyle Busch and help turn the tide for the Richard Childress Racing driver, who just doesn’t seem to have pace on his side at the moment. However, Childers has decided to take a completely different direction.
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Childers won’t be joining forces with Busch, which may disappoint fans, especially since Busch’s current crew chief, Randal Burnett, will leave the No. 8 pit box to take over Connor Zilisch’s Trackhouse entry in 2026.
Instead, JR Motorsports confirmed that Childers will join the organization in 2026 to call the shots for the No. 1 Chevrolet in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, a ride shared by Carson Kvapil and Zilisch.
A 40-time Cup race winner, Childers will take his first step into NASCAR’s second-highest division as a crew chief. He most recently guided the No. 7 Chevrolet for Spire in the Cup Series, but his most decorated years came with Kevin Harvick and Josh Berry at Stewart-Haas Racing.
The Childers-Harvick partnership, as a matter of fact, went down in the history books as one of the sport’s most dominant. From 2014 until Harvick’s retirement in 2023, the duo racked up 37 wins, 148 top-fives, 230 top-10s, and five Championship 4 appearances, highlighted by the 2014 title.
Yet, reasoning why he chose JR Motorsports instead of chasing another Cup ride, Childers pulled no punches.
“For me, the last couple of months, I just started to look at things differently. I always felt like I needed to prove something and needed to win more Cup championships or the Daytona 500, but then I realized there is more to life than that… I will learn a lot more about myself next year as we go along. Maybe I really love having Sundays at home. Maybe it’s really going to bother me that I’m not out there when I get home and they’re still racing on Sundays.”
“Maybe that will make me want to go add a Truck Series championship before I’m dead… The Cup garage is just in a different place right now, with a lot of teams either set or wanting to try something else.”
That outlook, paired with limited opportunities from Cup organizations including RCR, explains why Busch’s team never came calling.
Rodney Childers spoke with @Motorsport about the decision to join JRM, and how his perspective has changed in recent months.
️ “I always felt like I needed to prove something (in Cup) … but then I realized there is more to life than that.”https://t.co/9jDEDiz4ZZ
— Motorsport (@Motorsport) September 24, 2025
Even JRM owner, Dale Earnhardt Jr., seemed quite excited to have Childers on board, saying, his resume and career spoke for themselves. Besides that, he added, “Rodney and I grew up together and have known each other since we were kids. That’s a relationship that has always been close and has remained close to this day. We’ve always had an interest in working together in motorsports, and I’m thankful that this opportunity came about and we could bring him into the JRM family”.
In a way, Childers has come to see there is more to life than living and dying by Cup Sundays, especially when the right door doesn’t swing open. For what it’s worth, he explored the landscape thoroughly, making multiple trips to North Wilkesboro, Richmond, and Darlington before charting his next course.
