Rodney Childers details split with Spire; intent to return to NASCAR

Ultimately, it just wasn't working out between Rodney Childers and Spire Motorsports, and the future Hall of Fame crew chief says there wasn't just one thing that happened to lead to their separation.

Childers appeared on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Monday and said it became obvious that there wasn't obvious synergy in the pairing and nine races showed both sides that the fit wasn't going to be there. Justin Haley and the No. 7 team welcomed Childers after a 10 year stint at the now shuttered Stewart-Haas Racing where he won 37 races and the 2014 championship with Kevin Harvick.

“Going into it, I was super excited about going there,” said Childers. “They had treated me really well. Our announcement last year (of his hiring) was big, and there was a lot of excitement around it. We had a great off-season. I felt like we had so much fun in the offseason… our equipment looked nice, we had a ton of really good guys come into the building, we were making, what I thought, was gains on the cars and just making them look better and nicer and lighter and all those things.

“Really, everything was going fine. You could kind of tell after we got racing a little bit that maybe it wasn’t going the way that we all wanted, and a lot of times that’s performance-based based or that can be how things are going at the shop or how things are going at the racetrack, and what’s the communication like, and just the chemistry of all of it. It’s not one person, it’s not two people, it’s 200 people, and just figuring that out as we went.”

Haley was 23rd in the standings at the time of the split, which came after the Easter break, and they only scored a single top-10 together. At the same time, the No. 7 car was 32nd in the owner standings last season.

But, things just weren't going the way both parties anticipated or wanted.

“I think it finally came to a point where they could kind of tell I wasn’t happy, and I could tell that maybe they weren’t happy,” Childers said. “It just kind of started falling apart a little bit, and I could sense it a little bit maybe a couple of weeks before that. It started getting quiet around there, and anytime it gets quiet, you start wondering.

“Overall, it was just one of those things that just wasn’t working, and they’re the type of team that is willing to pull the trigger, and a lot of teams don’t. They’re willing to take that chance… It doesn’t bother me as badly as I thought it was going to because I didn’t really feel it was working either. It just fell apart. Like I said, they were super good to me while I was there, they’re good people, they have a good race team, it was fun to be in the shop with the truck guys, and I’m going to miss a lot of those guys over there. But overall, it’s time to think about things and move on.”

Even though Childers watched a race from home for the first time 2005, it wasn't a comfortable feeling, and he made his intent to return clear.

“I want to be a crew chief in the Cup Series, like I’ve been,” Childers said. “I want to get past 700 races (on my resume). I want to get to that 50-win mark. I want to be with a good team and a good driver who can win races. I want that to be clear.

“I’m looking forward to figuring that out over the next six months and hopefully getting back in victory lane.”