After his departure from Spire Motorsports in April, where he served as crew chief, Rodney Childers, who led Kevin Harvick to the Cup Series championship in 2014, has found a new position. Childers will assume the crew chief role at JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series for the No. 1 Chevrolet, which will be shared by Carson Kvapil and Connor Zilisch. This will be the first time Childers has served as a crew chief in the Xfinity Series.
Childers worked with Justin Haley at Spire, but the team parted ways with him when both the driver and crew chief indicated that the relationship wasn’t working. Childers achieved 40 victories and a Cup title at Stewart-Haas Racing with Harvick, then worked with Josh Berry in 2024, the year Harvick retired and which was the last for Stewart-Haas Racing. Additionally, NASCAR confirmed that it has parted ways with race director Jusan Hamilton, with six races remaining to finish the season. He is no longer listed as a NASCAR employee, where his official title was general manager of competition operations. Hamilton first joined NASCAR as an intern in 2012 and returned in 2016 under various roles. He oversaw NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program, pit crew development, and NASCAR’s iRacing professional divisions, in addition to serving as a race director. Hamilton was instrumental in the elaboration of both the annual calendar and the calendar for each race weekend. His first event as race director was in 2018 at Pocono Raceway. In 2022, Hamilton became the first black race director to officiate the Daytona 500.Rodney’s resume and career speak for themselves. Rodney and I grew up together and have known each other since we were kids. That’s a relationship that has always been close and remains close to this day. We have always had an interest in working together in motorsports, and I am grateful that this opportunity came along and we were able to bring him into the JRM family.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., co-owner of JR Motorsports
