Editor’s Observe: This marks the second story in a three-part sequence as Spire Motorsports permits NASCAR Digital Media to cowl its preparation for the 2025 Daytona 500.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Rodney Childers walks the store ground at Spire Motorsports feeling invigorated. There’s a rekindled spark in his eye.
The hallways he strolls right now are starkly completely different than these he patrolled 12 weeks in the past at Stewart-Haas Racing. When he walked into SHR within the fall of 2013, the group had already received 20 NASCAR Cup Sequence races, amongst them a Brickyard 400 and a Cup championship.
Pacing the pristine white flooring of Spire, Childers joins a workforce that has only one Cup victory to its identify, courtesy of Justin Haley in 2019. And but, to Childers, the echoes of these SHR recollections aren’t fairly so distant. There’s a placing familiarity, actually, that he could possibly be constructing his subsequent title contender in Mooresville, some 18 miles north of the Kannapolis store wherein he solid himself right into a Corridor-of-Fame-caliber crew chief. He joins Haley and the No. 7 Chevrolet workforce at Spire for the 2025 Cup marketing campaign.
“It feels extra like SHR to start with, actually, not the top — which is an effective factor,” Childers mentioned Wednesday.
Coming from the man who led Harvick to a Cup Sequence championship of their first 12 months collectively at SHR, maybe the sequence ought to enter on excessive alert.
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A CLEAN SLATE
At his earlier place of employment, Rodney Childers constructed a championship-winning workforce from the bottom up as a crew chief. With a legendary driver behind the wheel in Kevin Harvick, Childers established himself as Corridor-worthy with an astounding 37 wins at Stewart-Haas Racing over a record-setting decade within the NASCAR Cup Sequence.
These had been the great days — the good days — that turned the usual for his means of working. As we speak, Childers stands earlier than the 2025 season winless throughout the previous two seasons, courting again to Harvick’s remaining celebration in August 2022. An inside downturn and eventual closing of the doorways at Stewart-Haas Racing dimmed each the success and the enjoyable from Childers’ run within the solar till the doorways shut in November.
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That’s the place the individuals at Spire have made their influence already. Childers is surrounded by a bunch of racers with optimism and expertise, all trying ahead at what alternatives lie forward as a part of what could possibly be a vibrant future.
“You’ll be able to stand right here on a 7 o’clock assembly within the mornings and also you look across the room, and it’s all A-plus individuals,” Childers mentioned. “There’s not C individuals standing round, and that’s actually exhausting to return throughout proper now. It’s exhausting to seek out good assist. It’s exhausting to seek out good engineers and good mechanics in each single place. And right here, I haven’t come throughout anyone that’s not an A-plus man or A-plus lady.”
Sitting on a grand stage centered alongside the wall in Spire Motorsports’ foyer because the workforce hosts a well-attended media day occasion, Childers estimates 18 individuals from Stewart-Haas made the pilgrimage to Spire for the 2025 season. Of these 18, some of the necessary was Robert “Cheddar” Smith, who follows Childers as his automobile chief after 11 years serving the identical function on the SHR No. 4 automobile. Former lead engineer Dax Gerringer now serves as Spire’s technical director. However the brand new journey isn’t about Spire turning into SHR Lite — although with only one win to its identify, Spire would like to chip into SHR’s 70-win complete. It’s about using everybody’s energy at a corporation that took tangible steps ahead in 2024.
“How will we develop into higher teammates with one another? How will we work collectively higher?” Childers mentioned. “There’s simply so many sides of it. And proper now, we’re extraordinarily lucky for what we have now. I can’t wait to go racing.”
NOT-SO-SECRET WEAPON
Championship expertise will not be one thing deeply engrained in Spire Motorsports’ pre-existing fiber. That’s no slight on a still-blooming group and as an alternative the fact of the runway that is still forward of it.
Childers, however, carries that pedigree with him wherever he goes. His expectation to win is a part of what separates him from those that merely need to.
The extent of preparation that comes with that’s new for Haley, who returns to the No. 7 Chevrolet in 2025 after a reacquainting appetizer of seven races in 2024.
“I’ve rapidly realized what Cup racing is thru Rodney and Cheddar, and nothing is ever adequate for them,” Haley mentioned Wednesday. “And that’s been refreshing to me, that there’s nothing ignored, no stone unturned. When you want one thing achieved, it’s achieved 5 minutes in the past. It’s really been unbelievable to undergo the method of the offseason with the 2 of them, after which Matt McCall, Ryan Sparks, and clearly (Michael) McDowell and Travis (Peterson) as properly.
“I assume I didn’t fairly perceive what stage they had been racing on. I really feel like I used to be dwelling on a unique planet, actually. And that’s nothing in opposition to the place I’ve been. It’s simply to compete at a excessive stage and win races like Rodney, Cheddar, all these individuals have achieved, it requires one thing else.”
For instance, Haley’s seat place in prior Cup vehicles was set in such a means that his core and backbone had been negatively impacted, leaving his tailbone extremely uncomfortable after races. Childers prioritized recalibrating that place in order that Haley sits as comfortably as doable transferring ahead and may merely give attention to driving.
What comes with somebody with Childers’ caliber is the will of others to be part of what he builds. Mechanics, engineers and different crewmen know the expectation that pairs with working for Childers. They need to be a part of that journey.
“It’s the those that Rodney introduced with him too and the those that had been already right here which were right here for the reason that inception of Spire Motorsports which have lived each second of it,” Haley advised NASCAR.com. “So yeah, Rodney clearly is a big plus to us — having him and having that confidence, realizing that he’s going to deal with it. I believe that’s what’s given me a variety of confidence, too, is there’s nothing that I can ask that’s an excessive amount of for them that they aren’t going to deal with. It’s simply been refreshing it’s actually. Simply been a complete change of life-style.”
Jeff Dickerson, co-owner of Spire, has seen that injection of life from Childers, McCall, McDowell and Peterson firsthand — however in a means that has been complementary quite than earth-shattering.
“I believe it’s been extra additive,” Dickerson mentioned. “What I actually admire about these guys is that after they obtained right here, they didn’t have a look at us as an issue that wanted to be solved. They weren’t coming in being like, ‘Take a look at these idiots. We gotta repair this and repair that.’ They’ve actually simply are available in with an additive form of tone the place it’s like, ‘Hey, you guys are have already got achieved this. We’re not attempting to reinvent the wheel right here. How do I simply take you to a different step?’
“Actually, when someone like Rodney Childers talks, he has the legitimacy of all these wins and championships that you simply pay attention, proper? So I imply, he carries a variety of weight.”
SEEKING DAYTONA GLORY
Childers has achieved loads in his profession — two Brickyard 400 victories at Indianapolis, two Southern 500s at Darlington, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte amongst them.
Notably absent from that record of crown jewels, although, is the Daytona 500.
“It simply form of hangs over my head yearly,” Childers advised NASCAR.com.
Most of the sport’s greats by no means get to expertise Daytona’s most wonderful victory. Mark Martin’s a long time of unhappy journeys stay outstanding in Childers’ thoughts, as does Dale Earnhardt’s 20-year wait.
“We’ve all the time been in competition,” Childers mentioned. “We’ve been main on the final perhaps two laps or final lap. I imply, counting all of the speedways, it’s 10 occasions we’ve been main on the final lap. After which it simply doesn’t work out.”
There’s a budding optimism for Daytona that runs parallel to his season-long hopes. Childers felt the No. 4 automobile he ready for Josh Berry within the August 2024 Daytona race was the very best car in present till it crashed from the lead late. This 12 months, he additionally brings on lead engineer Jonathan Branzelle, who beforehand served as McCall’s engineer on the No. 6 RFK Racing entry with Brad Keselowski — one other superspeedway powerhouse.
“I believe we have now lots going for us,” Childers mentioned. “In actuality, I believe Justin is perhaps the very best speedway racer we’ve ever went to a speedway race with. So I believe that’ll be key for all of us to go down there and carry out properly.”
On Jan. 29, simply two weeks earlier than vehicles will unload at Daytona for a ten a.m. ET apply session, the shell of the No. 7 Chevrolet that Haley will pilot sits unwrapped on jack stands. That is an enchancment, nevertheless, from the final check-in, when Daytona vehicles had been but to be clipped collectively. The chassis are constructed, physique panels put in, however no engines but in place.
Nonetheless, there stays no nervousness of working delayed. All is on monitor for the three-car operation, and Childers has no worries.
“To be trustworthy, I felt like at Stewart-Haas, we pushed that too far out on a regular basis,” Childers mentioned. “They wished to start out constructing the Daytona vehicles two months earlier than after which they might simply sit round. It was completely different over there too as a result of we had like a speedway man that, form of like (Jimmy) Fennig does at Roush is like, you understand, if you happen to had someone to sit down there and simply child them to demise, then yeah, perhaps begin constructing them earlier. However proper now, we don’t actually have that particular person.
“However, yeah, they’re in fine condition. I really feel like they’re coming collectively properly. They appear good, down to simply the element stuff. When you had been to open the hood on certainly one of them six months in the past in comparison with now, it appears to be like means nicer. So everyone’s doing a very good job with all of it and be ok with it.”
What’s subsequent is performing instantly when the automobile rolls onto the race monitor.
“Going to the Daytona 500 is de facto what issues,” Childers mentioned. “We need to go down there and qualify properly. We need to race properly within the duels after which have a shot at it within the 500.”
