Rodney Childers reveals the “hard to come across” reality of his new NASCAR home

Rodney Childers shared his positive experience beginning to work with Spire Motorsports in the 2025 season, after having worked with Stewart-Haas Racing for the past decade. He mentioned being surrounded by people of great caliber and skills at Spire.

Childers previously worked with Kevin Harvick at SHR. He helped the team build from the bottom, assisting Harvick to clinch his first and only NASCAR Cup Series championship in the 2014 season. After Stewart Haas Racing made known shutting down their operations post the 2024 season, Spire Motorsports announced Childers to their #7 team, which was then piloted by Corey LaJoie. However, he parted ways with the team mid-season last year.

Soon to mark his debut with the team, Rodney Childers shared the outlook that he has experienced with Spire Motorsports so far. He stated that the team has a good crew and mechanics in all positions which is a great positive.

"You can stand here on a 7 o’clock meeting in the mornings and you look around the room, and it’s all A-plus people," Rodney Childers said (via NASCAR). "There’s not C people standing around, and that’s really hard to come across right now. It’s hard to find good help. It’s hard to find good engineers and good mechanics in every single position. And here, I haven’t come across anybody that’s not an A-plus guy or A-plus woman."

Childers was initially meant to work with Corey LaJoie this season, as mentioned. This also received backlash from fans when initially announced, moreover, the team also parted ways with LaJoie mid-season and he moved to Rick Ware Racing. The driver also mentioned that he "made too many mistakes behind the wheel this year [2024]."

Justin Haley was called in to replace him from Kansas last year and will pilot the #7 full-time this season for Spire.

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What Rodney Childers said about working with Justin Haley in 2025

Spire Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing agreed to the driver trade that saw LaJoie and Haley swap their teams during the final stages of the 2024 season. Furthermore, the lineup will continue this season with Haley now taking full control of the #7 Chevrolet at Spire Motorsports.

This move also affected Rodney Childers, as he would now be working with Haley on the team. When the move was announced in 2024, he shared positive expectations of working with the 25-year-old.

"All I know is all the good things people say about him (Justin), and just what I’ve seen from being around him in the garage. It’s just clear to me that he’s a good person with good values and at this point in my career, that’s really important to me."

He added:

"There are a lot of people in this garage that believe in his ability and hopefully I do that justice. And really, at this point in my career, it’s going to be fun for me to go over there because I think it will rejuvenate me. I need to be in an environment that will challenge me like I think this one will," said Rodney Childers [via Sportsnaut.com].

Although Haley wasn't instantly competitive with the team participating in the final few races, he did manage to finish P7 at Talladega.