Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Rodney Childers Interview

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Kevin Harvick sits down with his longtime former crew chief, Rodney Childers, for an in-depth and candid conversation on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour. Rodney shares what life has been like since parting ways with Spire Motorsports, including his hands-on work with Cars Tour late model teams and why that experience has reignited his passion for racing. The two also dive into what makes Childers more motivated than ever to return to the pit box and chase wins at NASCAR’s top level. From breaking down the challenges of the Next Gen car to the differences in crew chief responsibilities compared to the previous generation, this interview gives fans an unfiltered look at one of the sport’s most respected minds. 0:00 - Intro 0:31 - Rodney Childers Joins The Show! 4:45 - Up-And-Coming Drivers 6:36 - Childers’ Future In Motorsports 9:41 - Adjusting To The Next Gen Car 18:31 - Improvements To The Next Gen Car 27:59 - NASCAR Playoff System 30:42 - Championship Predictions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The way we were racing was, you know, taking a knife to a gunfight. At Stewart House racing, we just race different. The teams have too much control. At some point, we have to blow the thing up. I've got rid of every distraction that I have. I just want to smash them. You're on to race. California's Kevin Harbock does it.

Hey, I see you, Bernie. Welcome to Kevin Harbock's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR on Fox. I figured it was a good time for a mid-season update with my old buddy, good buddy, good friend, old crew chief, Rodney Childers. So thanks for taking the time. Yeah, thanks for having me. Okay, so I guess the big question is, I know what you've been up to you. But tell everybody else kind of, you know, what you've been doing.

Hanging out with you a lot. Yeah, just, you know, I've been enjoying going over to KHA and working on the late models normally about three days a week and going with them on the weekends. Yeah. You know, just going to those cars tour races. And honestly, it's been a ton of fun. Getting to work with Landa and getting to watch Keelan race. You know, just a great group of guys that work really hard.

And, you know, that's kind of my roots. You know, I enjoy being around the late-mile stock cars and just a lot of fun. Well, I mean, you know that it's your fault that that thing even exists. You know that's your fault, right? I was actually thinking about that this morning. Yeah, that was kind of my doings from the get-go. But it's all worked out good. It's been really cool to see it grow over the last few years

and what it's been able to do. And, like, you know, the people that you've assembled over there in the shop is great. So it's neat to see, you know, how far it's come. Yeah, when you look at a kid like Landon, you know, I think that we've seen this a few times now. We saw, I mean, Lane Riggs, he got in the car and won, and all of a sudden his career kind of took off. Josh Barry really set the precedence as far as being able to run the late model stock and get

into something else and move on. Now you see Butter Bean moving on. When you look at a kid like, we'll just use Landon, because we know him, for instance, how has the cars tour kind of change the dynamic of what a young driver can do from a late model standpoint to get the recognition that he's getting on the cars tour and being able to get in these next vehicles, as we've seen with those guys and be competitive, kind of change the whole landscape of what you can do in a late model stock and jump in the next vehicle. Yeah, and I've always said, really, my whole life, at Lake Mall stock car racing is probably

one of the hardest things out there. It's the most competitive. You see it week in and week out, just how close qualifying is throughout the field. But it's just a great place to learn. You're racing against some of the best people there is. And, um, You know, to be able to do that on TV every single week and have a big audience is huge. And, you know, to go do it at North Brooksboro and FS1 and just a lot of different things that we've been able to do with this is just grown and grown and grown. And, you know, there's no better place for a young kid to be able to get recognized right now. And I think the part that, so I didn't grow up on the East Coast with late model stock racing, but our late models were very similar to what they are now. owning and watching the West Coast kind of get back organized and regroup.

It's a much different environment than it is on the East Coast because people are doing it for a living. And the intensity that comes with late model racing on the East Coast, I mean, it's competitive on the West Coast, but these guys are not necessarily all doing it for a living. Most of the cars to our late model stock teams are racing for a living. And you can do it by not racing for a living. And that just, it changes the competitive environment. And for me, it was a little bit eye-opening in the beginning just because I didn't really recognize late model racing as ever getting to that point of being that competitive.

But I don't think that's slowed down, do you? No, not at all. And coming back to it this year, and after we went to the first few races and we won a couple of them and had, you know, really dominant cars, I realized real quick that the whole infield is not okay with us doing that. So it is. You know, these guys are out here doing it for a living, and they work extremely hard at it. And, you know, their expectation is the same as anybody else. They expect to go out there and win and provide for whoever's driving the car and, you know,

and put on the best show you can. But it's definitely a different landscape than what it is in some areas. As you look at, you know, you look at the truck teams and all the people that are looking for up-and-coming drivers, you know, we're around Landon, so we know that Landon does a good job. Who do you think some of the other young guys coming through the system that have the potential to come out of there

and have a chance at moving forward? Well, my number one would be Keeling. Yeah. He's still a little young. We still got a few years for that. But, you know, there's so many good ones. There really is. You know, Butterbean was the standout

for, you know, the last few years. And, you know, obviously, Landon and Connor are racing for the championship right now. but there's a lot of other good ones too. There really is. And it's not just, you know, in the cars tour, there's a lot of good late Mollstock car drivers throughout the East Coast.

So I like the Luke Baldwin kid. Yeah. I think he does a great job. I just love his approach. And, you know, I think that there's something to be said for that racing pedigree that goes with a kid that can manage his personality and his emotions. And obviously they all get out of whack at certain times.

they've seen it. And I just, I like the way he goes about it. And it seems like he can get in anything and go. He can get in anything and go fast and win. And I think the most impressive thing is, you know, he didn't really start eye racing until he was 15 years old. Isn't that wild? And, you know, I actually had that conversation with them

because the boys, you know, bugging me like they should have race. And they're like, well, Luke didn't start until he was, you know, late. But, you know, it's just, it's crazy to see that, you know, going on. And I got to talk to Tommy at, at, Darlington and both boys finish first and second, you know, right that Saturday night of, you know, Darlington weekend. So I can only imagine what that feels like as a father to watch both them go out there and do that. So just pretty special for that family, I'm sure. So you've done the late model stock stuff. You've been away from the cup garage a little bit now.

And you, where do you, where does your heart lie as far as what you want to, what you want to do going forward. Obviously, you've won a Cup championship. You've won 40 races. And I was looking down the, I was looking down the crew chief list today of, I think that Alan Gustafson and maybe Paul, maybe it was Paul. Yeah, I think it was Paul. Wolf are the only guys that are even close to that. And so, you know, your experience and everything that you've been able to go through, where does that lead your thoughts as as you go forward. Yeah, I mean, April 22nd, I knew, you know, over the next few months it was going to be a big learning curve for me.

A lot of emotion to try to figure out what's next. You know, for some reason, it's been hard to just, you know, say I'm done by any means. I still miss it. I think it's just the competitive part of it that I miss the most. I enjoy winning races. You know, I'm a little quiet at it, but, you know, even when landing wins, I try not to get all up in the middle of it.

But, you know, that's all I've ever done. You know, that's what I've done my whole life is to race and to win races and compete. And so I don't really know what's next. You know, I still want to race. I still want to win races. I feel like I need some more on my pedigree and, you know, on my record. So, you know, I'm just trying to figure it out one day at a time. and just figure out what's next.

When you look at the timing of it, I don't think it could have been worse as far as, in my opinion, the cup garage really starts to work, really any of the garages start to work now. Middle of August through the end of the year is kind of how it all works. Have you been able to even have any conversations with anybody? Because a lot of the teams are so in the middle of the season

that it seems like it's tough. Yeah, it's been really tough. has. And I think some of the things that are going on in the cup garage are making it even tougher right now from my standpoint. So, you know, it's hard to say what's going to happen. I mean, you know, to me, as an outsider looking in, there's teams that need to do something different, you know, and they're not doing things the right way. They're not, they're just not racing the way that they need to race. And, you know, whether that's a job opening or not, I don't really know. But, you know, there's plenty of other stuff around.

It's been kind of crazy. You know, the last month, it's been the truck garage that has been the most supportive. Yeah. I never expected that two months ago. It was pretty quiet. And then now all of a sudden there's a lot of interest there. Well, it's going to get more competitive. It really is.

It seems that way. Yeah. It does seem that way. So, you know, I'm still trying to just, you know, weed through it one day at a time and just figure it out. So when you look at the, when you look back, I look at, I look at, Like I look at Briscoe, and I hear him talk about his car and the way that how much different it drives from the cars that he drove at Stuart Haas Racing. And it got me really intrigued from the crew chief standpoint, how that dynamic changed. When you went from the old car to where we are today, what is the process and everything that you think has changed from Gen 6 to Gen 7 and how,

the crew chief operates and runs the team. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and it eats me up to see what, you know, people say that I'm not good at a next-gen car because, you know, these days, you know, well, first off, you're in a shit situation. Yeah. Okay. Because when, when the, when the whole, the beginning of the failure and the close down of Stewart Haas Racing really started a couple years before that. You could kind of see the bottom was falling out of Stuart Haas racing. And maybe you saw it different. But when those resources start to deteriorate, Ford shifted a lot of their

support to Penske. Pinsky became, and Stuart Haas just slowly lost piece by piece. But I think now when you're seeing Briscoe and Josh Berry and all these guys go to teams that are fully intact and functioning, it was the beginning of the end was a couple two or three years before it shut down. Yeah, and I saw that same thing from Briscoe, and, you know, that's how it is. You know, I mean, there's big organizations that have this car figured out from the smallest details.

You know, one thing at a time, you know, there's a thousand pieces to put the puzzle together, and you have to do all of them exactly perfect. And, you know, obviously they have really, really good cars right now. Even, you know, you're watching the race yesterday. Anybody that was in one of those cars was extremely fast. Toyota's come to play. Yeah, for sure. So, and you know from your past, that just makes your toolbox easier to work in, right?

I mean, your springs don't have to be perfect. Your shocks don't have to be perfect. You don't have to hit your heights exactly perfect every week. You just have a better car. And that's so much easier to race that way. You know, the way we were racing was, you know, taking a knife to a gunfight, and it's just extremely hard to do it that way. But, you know, to go back to your question, though, is, you know, the crew chief,

has to manage the people more than anything, has to run the ship and keep the ship steered in the right direction and help run the organization and keep the organization steered in the right direction. And, you know, it's mainly the engineers that are working on the setups and going to the simulator and doing all those things. And, you know, every team is different.

You know, I sit, you know, beside Billy Scott last weekend and talked for a long time and, like, you know, his department is different. than what mine would be if I was there, right? You know, he's still coming up with setups for all three cars at 2311 and does a really good job at it. So everybody's different. Every team works a little bit different.

And there's even some of them that are different within an organization, you know? So, you know, I think you just have to find those puzzle pieces that work for your organization and figure it out from there. And I think that when Stuart Haas Racing was at its best, it was about the fabricators, the Arrow Department, you could make differences. And I think that when it went to a structured, organized, very detailed piece of the puzzle from every piece being a part that matters, I think that's really when the company needed

to be restructured and how it worked. And I think that that's a Gen 7 thing. I think Penske was more buttoned up from a detail. standpoint. I think that, you know, I still think a Gibbs, Hendrick, I think a lot of those were a little more structured from that standpoint. I still think that it changed all of them, though. Am I wrong in thinking that? No, and it was just the way that different organizations were run, like you were saying, like Penske was really buttoned up at the time, and they were kind of ready for a car like this, the way that they operated in the shop. And, you know, obviously

say they've gone out and won one or three championships in a row or whatever. So I felt like they were ready for it from the get-go. You know, they had some supercar experience and all those different things. And, you know, at Sturras Racing, we just race different. You know, even today, people, you know, say that I like doing things my way. That was the only way we could race there. It wasn't that I like doing things my way, but I was going to hold people accountable and do it our way because that's the only way we could.

race. And different places were, you know, didn't race that way. Yeah. You know, they had a lot of structure and all those different things. But Stewarthouse racing was just a bunch of racers, you know, and we just worked our guts out. And with the new car, you can't do that. You really can't just outwork somebody.

I mean, you have to have all the pieces and parts and the details figured out. And, you know, every single piece and part has got to be pushed to the limit. and, you know, some people are able to do that. Yeah, and I think, you know, I think that the more that, the 19 is still Brisco's car, listening to he and James talk, because it's really interesting when you go back and you look at a Truex situation where didn't win many races at the end

had seemed like fast cars. But it sounds like didn't put the time in that Briscoe is now putting in from a simulation standpoint, time at the shop, whatever that is. And listening to James compare Briscoe and Martin, the effort level from the driver department is much higher. And I think that, like, when you go back, obviously everybody kind of knows our relationship. We didn't go a day without texting, talking about something about our race car. And then, you know, I don't know how your relationship was with Justin. Was it the same, not the same? But,

listening to James and Briscoe talk about it, I mean, it sounds like they're in there all the freaking time from a simulator standpoint. How is, how is that important, even if a sim session doesn't go bad? How does that relate to what you put in the car, how it goes to the engineers, and how does that, because we hear a lot of the drivers don't do it, we hear some that do it a lot, how does that help the engineering side from a time standpoint when it's low or high high. I've always said any communication is good communication. So going to the simulator and talking about things, that's just more communication. And it helps every standpoint of it. Yes, there's weeks that the simulator, the tire model is not perfect, and you go off the simulator and you unload at

the racetrack and you're off, right? But, you know, there's organizations that have put in the effort and have their tire models figured out and they show up at the racetrack and it matches. And I think that's where the 19 is right now. I mean, if you're spinning, that much time a week in there and you're showing up and your car is fast right off the truck, then, you know, that's the circle that you want to, you know, keep connected is to keep all those dots going in the right direction. And, you know, there's other times, I mean, we had that, you know, this year at the beginning of the year, you know, I was new to the Chevrolet side of things. My engineer was new to the Chevrolet side of things. And there was a couple of races that we went

off the simulator and we weren't very good when we unloaded. And there was other races. is that we were good at the simulator and we unloading really, really, really good. So, you know, that's just part of figuring that out and having good communication, believing in each other and working through it every week. But, you know, you don't have a lot of tools anymore, right? I mean, you don't have, you know, a lot of tests and you don't have a lot of practice. So all you got is a simulator. Yeah.

You got to make it work. When you look at this car, obviously there's been a lot of talk. And you and I were involved in it from the beginning. We've seen a lot of rule changes with the car, even though it doesn't look like it. There's been a lot of time and effort put in from NASCAR standpoint to talk about, you know, what they could do to the car. But we've gone from super big spoilers to small spoilers to the tires seem to have moved the needle as much as they can. what do you think that they can do to the car to make it so that it races better and is less bad behind each other in traffic?

I mean, let's just say you had a clean sheet of paper with the chassis. What can they do to the car to make it so that it races better? Yeah, I mean, you can always kind of pinpoint to the underbody maybe causing some of the stuff in traffic. I still think the tires are too wide. You know, I think you could narrow up the wheel from the inside, you know, leave the outside of the wheel where it's at, the face of the wheel, and just bring the inside of the wheel outboard, basically, and narrow up the tires a couple inches. But the tires have moved the needle more than anything. That's how I have felt from the get-go.

You know, it's all about what's connecting the car to the track that's going to make the most difference. Whether you're on a go-kart, whether you're in a late model, whether it's a cup car, that's really what's going to make the most difference. So, and, you know, it's hard to throw away a bunch of race cars. It's hard to throw away a bunch of bodies, a bunch of floors that cost a lot of money. You know, wheels cost a lot of money, but they're not near as bad as throwing away race cars. And, you know, I think it would be worth trying. You know, it would cost a lot of money on Good Year's standpoint to redo molds and do all that stuff. But, you know, we have to do what's right for the sport.

And it would be worth looking into that. You know, I don't know on the car side, they have tried all. kinds of stuff. They really have. Nothing from an aerosite has moved the needle. It really hasn't. God knows how much NASCAR has spent on the aerosite. If you could narrow up the tires and give them more power, you know, I know they're in a tough box on the power standpoint. You know, they want to, you know, keep it in a situation where new manufacturers can come in. And, you know, I understand that. But at some point, we need to try it. You know, I remember the first day we put those plates on going into 2015.

We were like, man, I don't know if this is good. And then, you know, that first next-gen test at Charlotte, we put a bigger plate on it without really asking anybody. And, man, it made a ton of difference. So I can only imagine going that next step, you know, and being able to use the brakes more and get the men corner speed down, you know, where there, if you had more power and a smaller tire, that men corner speed would come way down.

Yeah. And that's really where we need to get. Yeah, because that day, when we did the first next-gen test, they had the, I mean, the power was awful. And they were, as bad as they are now in traffic, can you imagine what it would have been like if we'd have started the next-gen cars with the low power that they had unloaded that day? I can only imagine. It was awful. And NASCAR had finally given up on the test that day and just nothing was working. Nothing was making anything better.

And what did we do? Who did we call? Doug Yates. Yeah, we called Doug Yates. Yeah, so we called Doug Yates and Doug sent over a bigger restrictor plate. And before it was all said and done, I don't know that NASCAR really appreciated the fact that when they said do anything that we put a bigger restrictor plate on. But it definitely moved the needle. And the next thing you know, you had half the garage over there saying, what in the hell just happened?

Yeah. Why did you do this? And then the next thing you know, you know, everybody realized that it needed more power. But I know we talk about the power thing and we talk about the manufacturers. Obviously, we see Dodge coming into the sport and doing the things that they're doing. You see the new wiring harness and things that are starting to happen with, you know, some of the changes that are going to be made to the car. But I'm like you.

I don't really understand why we just don't put a bigger restrictor plate on there to see what another big horsepower increase. I think right now they gave them enough power to just tell everybody. that they gave them some more power, it's not going to move the needle unless you get 150 more horsepower. And I understand that the manufacturers and the engines, you know, it takes time to get the parts.

But at some point, I'm like you, don't you need to try it? Even if it's just for the short tracks and road courses. Yeah. And, you know, to me, I feel like, and if Doug was standing here or Scotty Maxim, they might tell you something different. But I've always felt like the durability side

comes from the RPM. You know, we can make, 900 horsepower engines that turn 7,800 RPM and will last five races. Yeah. I don't think it would be that hard. You know, if we're going to, if we're going to go back to trying to run 9800 RPM, yeah, they're going to tear up a lot of stuff, right? And sometimes I think the engines need to blow up every once in a while.

Well, for sure. I really do. I think the engines don't blow up enough. We don't have enough stuff like that happened during the race. And I know that's not what the teams and the engine manufacturers want to hear. but I think that the teams have too much control. They have too much control of the rules, manufacturers. You know, they'll do probably whatever they have to do.

But at some point, we have to try to blow the thing up to make it better in a big way. And I don't know if there's any merit to when you go back and look at the Lamar car that Hendrick built and you look where the fuel cell is and you look at all the weight and all the different arrow devices. To me, it's all kind of sitting there with some different ideas. of things that they did with that car to be able to move the needle because the things that we're doing haven't worked. But I think even from the weight side, I mean, that car's heavy. I mean, if you could you even get two or three hundred pounds of weight out of it? I mean, with the floors and there'd be a bunch of things that have to change.

Yeah, it would be a bunch of things that would have to change. You know, you can get some weight out of the body, you know, if it went to a full carbon body. You could start getting some weight out of it. You know, the greenhouse is still pretty heavy. There's some other parts and pieces that are still pretty heavy. But, you know, I mean, I think they're trying to figure it out one day to time. I know a little bit I taught the probes. You know, they have a lot of CFD going on in the background that a lot of people don't hear about.

They do it. NASCAR actually does a lot of work with it, but they're just not moving the needle. Yeah. That's the hard part. Yeah, I think the only thing that's going to move the needle is what's connecting it to the track. and burn the tires off, burn the brakes off, and do all those things that we used to do. Yeah. And it's such an interesting dynamic as far as the, as far as the, you know, the way that the car is developed. And in my opinion, I think one thing that NASCAR has learned, they used to just say, hey, we're going to change the rules.

And the teams figured out how to do the work. And now you've got parts sitting on the shelf, you've got engine sitting on the shelf, you've got all these things. that you have to buy that you've promised the vendor that they're going to sell, it seems, it seems really complicated to go through that process. So how motivating has this whole little break for you, Ben? I think that, I know that you touched on it a little bit earlier, but, you know, I think anytime that something happens that you're like, yeah, I can show them that I can do this way better. I just want to smash them.

Yeah, I really do. That's dangerous. I've seen that. You know, it's put me in a situation where I just want to prove a point. And, you know, over time, you know, I had accumulated some things. And as you know, I like going and riding UTVs and doing different things. And, you know, over this time, I've got rid of every distraction that I have. I have no more distractions.

And the only distraction I have is a family and kids. maybe going to a cross-country meet. But, you know, whenever this next opportunity comes about, it's going to be 24-7. And I'm not going to lay down. I'll be the first one there and the last one to leave. And we'll see what happens from there. Yeah. And I think that the, you tell me this.

I think that the crew chief role in today's world, when these guys are done or you're ready to, I think there's another step now. I think that the Gen 7 car puts you in a position to lead an organization as well from a competition standpoint, more so than it ever has from a crew chief role. Is that fair, unfair? I agree 100%. And you look at what Gabehart's doing at JGR. Gabehart is, you know, we grew up together, we race together, we race go-carts together.

Lake Miles together. We did all that stuff. And, you know, really, really, you just, you want to work for somebody that's a good leader. That's a good person, you know, that has your back through thick and thin. And, you know, I feel like I could do that. You know, if the crew chief thing was over with, I feel like I can lead a group. I feel like people would want to come work for me. They would know that I've got their back and would support them and give them the best tools that I can and all those things.

So, you know, it's in a weird spot right now. Yeah. You know, I don't know how it's all going to happen. And we're just going to take it one day at a time and figure it out. So you've been able to watch now. The big topic, one of the big topics lately has been the points, the championship. Is it exciting? Not exciting.

What is your opinion on the whole points piece of it? You know, I think it's, I don't think it's a 36 race. all-out points, but I think points should matter way, way, way more than what they do. As you've watched now, and you've seen all the banter, where do you sit on all that? It's interesting because as a crew chief, you sit on the pit box and you work your guts out and you're just thinking the whole race, and you get done with a race, and you're like, man, that was a good race. And then you get on the airplane and you look at your phone and everybody's talking about it

it was a bad race. I'm like, well, I didn't see it that way from the pit box. Yeah. And after you set it home for four months and you watch all of them on TV, there's some of them that are different than what it would have felt like on the pit box for sure. And some of that is whether you're competitive that day or not, you know, from a pit box standpoint. So, I mean, there's been a few of them that I'm like, man, we've got to do something different to make this show a little bit better. But there's other ones that have been really good races.

You know, I think me and you never liked going to the new Atlanta, but it's been probably the... pretty damn exciting to watch. That's about the best one I've seen on TV. You know, this weekend at Bristol will be exciting. It always puts on a good race. And to me it does. It's one of my favorite places. So do we need cutoff races?

Do we need three or four races at the end? We need a playoff champion? I mean, what do we need? Yeah, to go back to the points thing. Yeah, doing 36 races would be pretty boring at times. You look back at those years, like 2015 for us or 2018. 2012, Lord, we would have won the points. Yeah.

What? I think I won that expedited championship one year by 820 points. So, you know, we don't need that as a sport, but I don't know what we need. You know, I've kind of got some interest in what it would look like doing the last three races. I've heard that kind of thrown around quite a bit. I like that. I think it would, I think it's better than one race. Yeah.

I mean, just one race at one track is. You know, if we're not going to move it around every week, you know, one organization kind of figures out of track and, you know, they can just go in every year, you know, and I don't think we want that. So, you know, I think we, you know, try to move it around a little bit more, you know, try to do the last three race deal. And, you know, if you have a bad race, you have a bad race. But it would definitely be exciting that way, I believe.

So who are your final four? You had to pick today? man i always pick christopher bell every time yeah um you know i just i just like what he does i really do i think briscoe can get there i think denny hamlin might be his year that he can get it done i think the relationship with chris gale's been good and i think it's only got better throughout the year yeah um but you know the normal guys the the william bairns and and uh carlarson um i think the biggest thing would be interesting and just see if blaney can make it to the final four. I think Blaney and Lugano have always got a shot, right? But the Fords haven't had the

speed that they need. Light switch hasn't gone off to start the playoffs. The light switch hasn't started like it normally does. So, and Gateway has always been one of their best tracks. So it'd be interesting to see what they can do over the next few weeks. That five car would be extremely fast this weekend at Bristol. But I feel like the light switch has flipped for the Toyota since the playoffs started. And when somebody can do that, they're going to be hard to be. Yeah. So who's your champ? You can only pick one.

You didn't even pick four for me. I know. Now I'm going to make you pick one. I'm still going to go with Christopher Bell. I think the last few years, he's deserved to be there and had a shot at it and hadn't quite had it, you know, hadn't got to victory lane for the championship. But they've got a good team. They've got a good crew chief. I know he wasn't happy after the race yesterday, but Adam's.

kind of guy that can rally behind him and make it happen. Well, I appreciate you taking the time. It was good to catch up. I know everybody's always interested in what's going to happen. So we'll be waiting around to see how it all turns out. So thanks for taking the time. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.