Rodney Childers and Kevin Harvick were an unstoppable duo at Stewart-Haas Racing from 2014 to 2022. Among the 36 victories that Childers guided Harvick to, the most controversial one was Harvick’s 2018 victory at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. So when fans brought up the topic on social media and tried to criticize Rodney Childers for supposedly cheating during the race, he did not hold back from demolishing their comments against him and his team.

Rodney Childers finally snaps back at the Las Vegas cheating allegations

The entire banter started when Rodney Childers was replying to a fan’s comments on social media. Harvick and Childers were insanely successful at the Texas Motor Speedway in particular, winning over seven podiums and three races there. This naturally made a fan ask online how the two were able to claim so much success in Texas.

Rodney Childers replied in style, “Fast cars and good people….,” laying it on teamwork and having a good car setup. But it didn’t stop there.

The fans kept pushing further to try to know if his team had a lesser-known strategy for the same, making comments like, “Come on now you had to have a little something extra… let the fans in on the secret.”

But one fan took it too far and replied to that thread with the same accusation Childers faced back then. “A bent down window for down force maybe..”

To put things into perspective, the fan is talking about the infamous cheating allegations that arose in 2018 against the Stewart-Haas Racing team and Rodney Childers. During the 2018 NASCAR race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the rear window brace of Kevin Harvick’s car broke, and the window bent. It gave some people the perception that this bent window is an aerodynamic advantage for the car. They accused Kevin Harvick’s crew chief of knowingly tampering with the wing and letting it fail.

NASCAR, however, did not find any illegalities in the wing. They considered it a racing incident and let Rodney Childers and the team get off the hook. But for Childers, going through the allegations once again reopened his old wounds, making him snap on social media.

That comment was not even directed towards Childers, but he made sure to write a cold reply to it, saying, “151 top 5’s over 10 years, and 50 years from now y’all will still be talking about that one race that the pencil brace broke at Vegas…”

Rodney Childers was naturally displeased and even tried to knock some sense into the people who were trolling him. Ultimately, when the fans were not ready to give up, Childers just decided to move on from the debate and gave them a sarcastic reply to let them assume anything they wanted.

“Yeah, we planned it to break and get thrown out. We thought it would be cool. Was hoping to get a week off in the Bahamas..”

While some still argue about the impact of the broken window brace, it is safe to say that it was not illegal according to the NASCAR rulebooks. Had it been so, Rodney Childers and the team would lose points and get suspended. Not only did they keep the win, but they were also able to avoid any official investigation of the car with NASCAR.

Speaking about the man who was at the center of this controversy, Kevin Harvick is now past his stock car racing days. But another Harvick is ready in line.

Kevin Harvick’s son gets ready to take the family legacy forward

Kevin Harvick was undoubtedly among the very best in NASCAR. But now, Keelan Harvick is the star of the show with his performances in the junior series. At just 13, Keelan enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2025 with victories in CARS Tour West and the zMAX CARS Tour.

His performance and racing prowess made his father proud of his racing., who went forward and even highlighted a major difference between both of them.

“The biggest surprise for me is that he can qualify [well] because that was never a trait I had.”

“So, the speed and the qualifying speed, and just being able to adapt to the cars as quickly as he has. We went through some learning curves at the beginning of the year, but the speed was always there.”

Harvick’s words were proven right almost instantly as Keelan showed his maturity in one of the toughest events later on in the year. Keelan Harvick participated in and won the Snowflake 125, widely regarded as one of the most difficult Pro Late Model Sportsman events.

For Harvick Sr., nothing could get better than this. He immediately applauded his son for the victory and credited him for using his learnings over the year to present as a well-known and victorious racer.