"It's absolutely insane": Legendary crew chief attests to Spire Motorsports becoming a future NASCAR powerhouse

From starting out as a one-charter team in 2018 to having three charters in 2025, Spire Motorsports has made a lot of progress in a short space of time. In the upcoming season, the team will field #7, #71, and the #77 car with three promising drivers, Justin Haley, Michael McDowell, and Carson Hocevar.

Moreover, Spire Motorsports has made major moves such as hiring legendary crew chief Rodney Childers from SHR or taking over Kyle Busch Motorsports. Because of these moves in the last year, Kenny Wallace was prompted to ask Childers, the recent guest on his show, about the aggressive ownership and whether Spire Motorsports will have "their time" soon in NASCAR.

"Yeah for sure. When you stand at a weekday morning out here in the shop and we get ready to have our team meeting and you look around at the amount of talent we have in this building, it's absolutely insane," Childers replied.

"There's a lot of places where you have the A people, the B people, and the C people, D people or whatever, and you look around right now, it's like, it's all A+ people standing around in a circle. Normally when you can get that many good people together you can make good things happen." [5:00]

Following this, Wallace asked Childers about the number of people who took up the job at Spire Motorsports including him. The crew chief said that up to 20 people who worked at SHR before, would now work at Spire in 2025. He clarified that bringing SHR talent to Spire wasn't part of his plans:

"I decided to come and then it kind of worked on from there. They were trying to build and bring new people in, and like I said, A+ talent, it's hard to get right now. We just worked on it over time and we've got a great group of people over here and it's exciting to look around and realize what you have."

In July 2024, it was announced that Childers would become the crew chief of the #7 team at Spire Motorsports. Many insiders viewed it as a major move by Spire considering his past success and experience in the garage.

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Rodney Childers on why he chose to join Spire Motorsports after SHR

Discussing why he joined Spire Motorsports over his other options, Rodney Childers said it was because of the kind of people it has "invested" in over the last two years. The crew chief claimed that in the Next Gen era, the people make the difference because every team has the same parts (via Racer):

"Spire continues to invest in the people within the team and they seek out good people to add depth to an already strong group. Spire has been on my radar for the past year. I had quite a few guys from the #4 team go over there and they keep telling me how much they enjoy it, what the culture is like and how well everybody gets along. That started it from my side."

The crew chief added that the Spire Motorsports leadership made him feel wanted and loved. He said Spire is a good place for his family and him professionally in the long term.