Spire Motorsports Signs Superstar Crew Chief

What’s Happening?

On Tuesday morning, Spire Motorsports announced they had signed Rodney Childers to a multi-year contract to serve as the crew chief for Corey LaJoie and the No. 7 team. Childers will join Spire after 11 seasons at Stewart-Haas Racing. LaJoie’s current crew chief, Ryan Sparks, will become Spire’s full-time competition director, a role he currently holds alongside crew chief duties.

• Rodney Childers is arguably the top crew chief in NASCAR today, having won 40 career wins and the 2014 Cup Series Championship with Kevin Harvick. He was one of the key figures in the rise of Michael Waltrip Racing in the late 2000s and early 2010s, with three victories, including one with part-time driver Brian Vickers at New Hampshire in 2013. In 2014, Childers teamed up with Harvick at Stewart-Haas Racing, and the pair won that 2014 Championship along with 37 races, including an average of 5 wins per season between 2014 and 2020.
• Spire Motorsports locks up Childers despite his public interest in possibly reuniting with his current driver, Josh Berry. Spire was one of the most active teams last off-season, expanding from two to three cars, signing two rookies, signing Corey LaJoie to a multi-year contract extension, and buying out Kyle Busch Motorsports. However, that has not translated into success on the track, as all Spire cars sit 25th or worse in points as of his writing.
• Fans were stunned to see Childers join Spire. Many expected he would follow Berry to The Wood Brothers or sign with a bigger team, but Spire brought Childers in.

Childers’ statement, in part, can be found below.

Spire has been on my radar for the past year. I had quite a few guys from the No. 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 rest was the way Jeff (Dickerson) and Doug Duchardt (Spire Motorsports President) handled my situation. They told me how much I was wanted and how I could make a difference. For anybody in this world, all you want is to feel wanted and loved, and I felt that through them. I also see it as a place that can be good for my family, long term. My kids are three years from graduating high school. With the truck teams there, it’s somewhere they can grow, learn and possibly work one day.

Rodney Childers

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