home jobs contact us
Our Clients:
Browse by Sport
Find us on ASAP sports on Facebook ASAP sports on Twitter
ASAP Sports RSS Subscribe to RSS
Click to go to
Asaptext.com
ASAPtext.com
ASAP Sports e-Brochure View our
e-Brochure

NASCAR CUP SERIES: BASS PRO SHOPS NIGHT RACE


September 19, 2020


Rodney Childers


Bristol, Tennessee

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by our race winning crew chief, Rodney Childers, for the No.4 Busch Light Ford for Stewart‑Haas Racing. Can you talk us through how you're feeling, your excitement getting another win for the No.4 team?
RODNEY CHILDERS: Yeah, I think everybody kind of knows by now this is my favorite place. You know, I love coming here. We've put a lot of work into coming here, and I feel like we should have won so many races here over the years, all the way back to David Reutimann days and how fast we always were, and we've been able to carry that through all the way through the 4 team. Just been so fast every time, and we've had a lot of awkward stuff happen here, and we've blown tires and broke a gear last fall, something that was really odd.
To just be able to come here and have a flawless race, no drama, no issues, Kevin did an excellent job on the racetrack and the guys did an incredible job on pit road, and we just had a hotrod tonight.
I wasn't sure how it was going to be. I felt like we were okay in the spring. I felt like we were pretty good for the All‑Star, ended up second there. But you just never know. Without practicing and stuff, you're kind of taking a shot at the dark at a few things, whether the splitter is going to drag the ground or not, just all those things. Overall it was on the money, and those guys, all my engineers have done such a good job all year unloading like this and barely making adjustments during the race and just doing an incredible job.

Q. Those last 50 plus laps with Kevin and Kyle were really close‑quarters racing, and I know that's nothing new to you, but being atop the pit box and knowing that you have no impact on what's going to happen from there on out, what are the emotions that are associated with watching that?
RODNEY CHILDERS: Yeah, I mean, that ended up being a little closer than what we wanted. Our car was really good on long runs, and it looked like it was a little bit too free there for a while and kind of got caught up with a lap car in the wrong place at the wrong time, took the wrong lane at the wrong time or whatever and let the 18 get by us. At that point it looked like our car was a lot better and then we all got jammed up and knocked a big hole in the right front headlight area, and after that it was just not the same car at all. We couldn't pull away, we couldn't do anything, it was too tight.
It turned out good for everybody at home and everybody that was up in the stands because it turned into one heck of a race. The 18 guys had a great car all night and fought us hard there at the end, and just great racing. To have a night race here and the stands full and people screaming and yelling and to have a race like that was pretty incredible.

Q. Kevin got him back for the second time; were you nervous Kyle was going to pass him again or did you guys think you had him covered?
RODNEY CHILDERS: No, once that big hole was in the nose it was a battle. We lost all of our turn, and we were kind of hanging on for dear life at that point. Looked like he found a little bit of something those last few laps and was able to get back away a little bit, but it was still pretty close.

Q. This stretch, this trio of races, just shows how much of a team sport this is, in my opinion anyway, because Tim called a great job from the spotter's stand, you guys had the tremendous strategy to get the win at Darlington. How pleased are you with the chemistry and camaraderie that the No.4 team has shown in winning nine races this season, and how can it only improve going forward?
RODNEY CHILDERS: Yeah, somebody kind of asked me, I think it was Dillon Welch, was kind of talking to me earlier today. I could go on about this for 30 minutes.
We've all learned a lot about ourselves this year, including me, and we've all learned to do things differently. We've learned to trust each other. We've learned to work hard no matter what the circumstances are, whether you're first shift, whether you're second shift. I haven't had one team meeting since February. I haven't got my guys together. I haven't had to tell anybody what to do. I haven't had to tell somebody they need to work harder, they need to pay more attention to details.
I have the best group that I've ever been around. I've raced my whole life, and the people in the shop, the people on the road crew, the pit crew, I haven't had one meeting. We haven't talked about how to get better. We just all do our jobs.
We expect to be the best. Sometimes you are, sometimes you aren't, and when we're not, we take it on our shoulders and we go home and we try to get better, we try to build better cars, we try to put better setups under them and we try to do better on pit road.
But through all of this, like I said, we've just learned so much. I was always the guy that I thought that had to be at the front door and unlock the door every morning or turn the lights on and set my alarm for 4:00. I look back on that, and it was dumb. I look back on so many things that probably I was doing wrong. I was completely wore out by lunchtime every single day. I could barely hold my eyes open.
And now I'm just completely focused all the time. All I do is think about how to make the cars go faster.
It's just a whole different mentality. I never thought that a pandemic and the things that we've went through in the world would change our team and the way that we think about things, and it really has.

Q. When you look ahead to the next round, what concerns you about the second round?
RODNEY CHILDERS: Everything. You know, Vegas has been a good place for us. I think everybody would say that the 4 car is normally faster when it's cooler and the track has more grip and that kind of thing. Vegas isn't one of those places. It's supposed to be 94 degrees. It's going to be hot and slick. Last year we stuck around there all night long and we had some good pit stops, we had some good restarts and the sun went down, the track gripped up, next thing you know we were leading the race with 30 to go and had a shot at winning.
Vegas is one of those places that I feel like we can take a good car, we can have a solid day and hopefully get out of there with a good finish. Obviously we'll try to win, but if we could get out of there with a top 5 and score some stage points along the way, that would be our goal.
The Roval, it's hard to say. Last year was a different aero package. We qualified well. We ran well. Same thing, we were leading with, what, all the way until, what, 10 to go, and had a shot at winning it. You know, I feel like we can go perform there. It's really just whether we hit the setup right with the new aero package.
And then Talladega, I think we've had great race cars. Our speedway guys have worked hard, and it really comes down to how do you want to race. Do you want to ride around and try to be there at the end, or do you want to just race like crazy and try to get stage points? And we've done it both ways, and we've crashed both ways. It's hard to say what's right and what's wrong.
For a stretch there here lately we were doing better riding in the back and trying to be there at the end, and we did that the other week in Daytona, and that didn't work.
You know, it's just a crazy stretch of races. It'll be exciting for the fans with the schedule and the racetracks, and hopefully we can put on some great shows, and like I said, the excitement is what this playoff format is all about.

Q. You mentioned about how you've kind of changed this year and the experiences in doing things differently. I'm curious, even with all the success that you guys have had in making it to the Championship 4 so many years, is anything changing in how you approach these playoffs or how you manage your team or things you do as a leader of the team in these playoffs, even with all the success that you had in getting to the Championship 4 so many years?
RODNEY CHILDERS: Not necessarily. You know, I think sometimes we've tried to overdo it in the playoffs and kind of just stepped on our toes when it comes Homestead time.
This year we've tried to just keep things light. But on the other side of it, everybody knows me, that I'm going to push every day. If I don't like something, we're going to cut it off, and we're going to make the car the best it can be before it loads on the truck.
That doesn't mean that it can't load until Friday. It can load on Wednesday, but it's going to be what we all feel is the best. Those guys at the shop have worked hard, the aero group, the guys in body hanging and finish fab and everything else, they've worked hard.
But for me, we're taking every week exactly like we've taken it all year. We haven't changed anything because it's the playoffs. We're still racing to win every week, and that's what our goal is is if you can't win races, you're not going to win a championship anyway, just like Kevin said. We've got nine; he didn't know if we were going to get ten. If you don't get ten, you're not going to win a championship. It's pretty simple at this point; you've got to win races to hold that big trophy at the end of the year.

Q. When you said over doing it and feels like you kind of stubbed yourself a little bit at Homestead, what do you mean by that and what have you over done? Obviously like you said it's a really great track record in getting there to the championship race.
RODNEY CHILDERS: Yeah, we've made it to Homestead every year except for one, and that year we would have made it if we hadn't blown up at Charlotte. Yeah, we've been able to get there, but we've only took the big trophy home one year, and that's disappointing. We should be able to go down there and perform, and instead we finish second or third every year.
Honestly, that's unacceptable. We have to go perform when we have to. I think you've seen with the 4 team over the years if we get in a situation where we have to perform, we go perform. That's what we've got to do. To be honest, the guys we race against in that deal are tough. If you're going to race against Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin and the whole Gibbs group, they're going to be tough. It doesn't matter what racetrack we're at. If it comes down to Homestead, they're going to be tough again, and we have to perform and we have to take the best car and give Kevin what he needs.

Q. Throughout the regular season you guys and the Denny Hamlin team were really kind of neck‑and‑neck, 1A, 1B. It seems in this round you maybe have separated yourselves a little bit. Do you see that, that your performance is better now on a week‑to‑week basis than the 11 team?
RODNEY CHILDERS: I don't know. I mean, we won the Southern 500, but we really didn't have a very good car. Right before the 9 and the 19 got into each other, I looked down and I told my engineer Dax, I said, we're a half‑second lap off. You can't win races at a half‑second lap off. We just happened to that day. We've done a good job, yeah. I think you look at the 11 guys, and they've had a little bit of bad luck. They've had some weird things happen. But that's just part of it. We all go through spells.
We can have something go wrong and not win another race the rest of the year, but for all of us, we have to have good teams behind us and good people and just keep the effort, whether you go through a bad spell or not. If you keep the effort going, it'll come back to you.
But I think that they've just had some crap luck and some things that haven't went their way, and I think they're going to continue to be tough the rest of the year.
THE MODERATOR: Rodney, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, and we will see you at Las Vegas.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




About ASAP SportsFastScripts ArchiveRecent InterviewsCaptioningUpcoming EventsContact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297