After Stewart-Haas Racing’s shutdown, championship-winning crew chief Rodney Childers found a new home at Spire Motorsports. His expertise, paired with the energy and talent of Justin Haley, seemed like a perfect match. But just after nine races into the 2025 season, he was shown the exit door. With a single top 10 result after 9 weeks makes you wonder, performance would’ve been a deciding factor for Childers’ expulsion. But the top brass from Spire Motorsports had a different story to tell.

“This wasn’t about results. This wasn’t about speed. You notice the energy is off, the communication is off. It just got to a point where it was like, ‘I’ll just deal with the consequences of this because it’s best for all parties involved.” Co-owner Jeff Dickerson said in an interview. It is only natural for the fans and the racing community to be curious about what Childers’ next step would be at the Cup level. However, the 48-year-old seems to have embraced a connection with grassroots-level racing and was seen helping out the KHI team at Ace Speedway.

Rodney Childers links up with Kevin Harvick once again

“Kevin texts me, Monday afternoon. Asks me what I was doing this weekend, asks if I can go over to his shop and help these guys a little bit. They’ve had a rough couple of weeks of ups and downs, just trying to get back on track. Really just having fun with Late Models again. This is my background and this is what I’ve always loved back in the day. Raced here myself growing up and it’s a lot of fun this week to hang out with these guys.” Rodney Childers said in an interview shared by Frontstretch.

There was a time when the #4 team used to dominate NASCAR Cup Series weekends. Having won the championship the very first year in 2014, Harvick and Childers would notch up 37 race wins and five championship 4 appearances between 2014 and 2019. After retiring from racing, Harvick staged a comeback for his race team KHI, which now competes in CARS Tour and other Late Model racing events. Given the history between the two, Childers didn’t think twice when he was asked to help out KHI at Ace Speedway.

A return to Late Model racing garage is indeed refreshing for Rodney, but this isn’t going to be his full-time commitment moving forward. Rather, he is looking for an opportunity to be back in the Cup Series, calling the shots at the top of a pit box for a new team. “Trying to figure it out day by day. You know, I definitely want to continue to be in the Cup Series and continue to win Cup races. So this is just a little bit of extra, a little bit of icing on the cake. It’s fun to win races, that’s what it’s all about.”

Given how stacked the entire Cup garage is at the moment, it is hard to see Childers make his comeback as of now. But is he a good candidate to lead a Cup Series team? After all, a lot has changed with the arrival of Gen 7 cars, and like many veteran drivers, he is also looking to find his mojo back.

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Denny Hamlin feels Rodney Childers can make his comeback as a crew chief

NASCAR, as a sport, moves quickly and tactics or strategies that worked a year before can get redundant very quickly. Childers might want to contend for race wins, but as far as race wins in the Next Gen era goes, he only has a couple, that too came when Kevin Harvick was behind the wheel of the #4 SHR Ford. But, despite the lack of victory lane visits and shortcomings with the Gen 7 car, Denny Hamlin believes Childers still has a place in the Cup garage.

“I won’t be surprised if a team is struggling mid-season, wants to make a change, and you look at what’s the best available and maybe you could bring someone. It is hard in the middle of the season to kind of get acclimated to the team, you kind of get jumped right into it. I don’t think he’ll sit on the sidelines for long.” Hamlin said on Actions Detrimental.

For the time being, Childers is getting a taste of Late Model racing with KHI, but his primary goal is to be back in the Cup Series. Perhaps this time around, he should find a team with links to Ford, as the switch with the Chevy team certainly didn’t work out for him.