Trevor Bayne, driver of the #21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 20, 2011
Photo – Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
Chad Bonham is our next guest on Fan4Racing Fan2Fan NASCAR & Race Talk on Monday, February 10, 2014 at 9pm ET. Fans can call 347-996-5176 during the LIVE broadcast to interact with Chad Bonham and our Fan4Racing panel.
Below is Chad Bonham’s introduction of his newly released book Faith in the Fast Lane: How NASCAR Found Jesus.
It’s Sunday morning in America. Half of the country is attending some kind of church service. The other half is sleeping in or perhaps enjoying a brunch at the local dining nook. But on this Sunday, one of thirty-six that take place between February and November at various venues across the country, a remarkable sight is developing right off I-35, just north of Fort Worth at the gargantuan Texas Motor Speedway.
On this sunny but cool late-October Sabbath Day in 2009, fans are pouring into the 138,000-seat stadium in anticipation of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series Dickies 500. Race reporters are scrambling to get the last-minute scoop. NASCAR officials are making sure the track is in perfect condition for the day’s big race. Sportswriters file into the media center for a pre-race meal and work on pre-race stories leading up to the dropping of the green flag.
For the NASCAR faithful, attending a race on Sunday is almost like going to church. Stock car racing certainly can become a religious experience for those rabid fans who follow the sport on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Yet most of the people in the stands are unaware of what is happening in a theater-styled room connected to the media center.
Right before the drivers and crew chiefs are dismissed from the mandatory drivers’ meeting—a time when NASCAR officials emphasize the importance of good, clean racing and discuss whatever hot topics need to be addressed—a tall, slender man in his early fifties is asked to take the microphone. The audience instinctively rises in concert. Hats are removed. Heads are bowed.
Tim Griffin is the man who has seemingly commanded the immediate attention and respect of this increasingly diverse group of elite drivers. Griffin, the now former Motor Racing Outreach (MRO) chaplain for NASCAR’s premier racing series, takes the next minute or so to say a prayer over the drivers, the crews, the officials, and the fans. At the utterance of the prayer’s closing “Amen,” the packed room suddenly shifts from quiet reverence to noisy commotion. Many of the drivers and crew chiefs exit stage left through a secure doorway that leads back to the Sprint Cup garage area. But others stay put. Additional crew members, spouses, children, NASCAR officials, sponsor reps, and even a handful of media types quickly join the fray.
Once everyone finds a place to sit (or in some cases, a place to stand at the back or along the sides), Griffin welcomes everyone to chapel and then introduces the day’s guest worship leader. Two choruses later and Griffin is front-and-center again, sharing a message based on the New Testament book of Hebrews. It’s part of a series that started way back in February at the Daytona 500.
For the average onlooker, the scene is a study in cultural dichotomies. First of all, it’s difficult enough just getting past the fact that legendary drivers such as Mark Martin and Bobby Labonte are sitting next to each other with other popular personalities such as Matt Kenseth and David Ragan dispersed throughout the crowd. Kurt Busch sits next to Sam Hornish Jr. and his wife, Crystal, who is holding their little blonde-haired girl, Addison. Busch is noticeably, if not excusably, distracted by the playfully adorable toddler.
Busch’s presence highlights the other noticeable oddity. His uniform is covered in Miller Lite logos. Perusing the crowd, other humorous pictures from the advertising cornucopia develop. Budweiser and Jim Beam (no longer active in NASCAR) are well-represented. Another curious visual can be found four rows from the back, where two guys with the Crown Royal entourage are sitting in the same row as a crew member from the Extenze team. (For those who don’t watch much late-night cable television, Extenze is a “male enhancement” product that is regularly promoted by porn stars in innuendo-laden infomercials.) Both Crown Royal and Extenze have since discontinued sponsorship within NASCAR, but other adult-oriented products remain involved.
Clearly, this is not something likely to be seen in any other church service on any given Sunday morning, but it plainly underscores the unique nature of faith’s place in the NASCAR workspace. A day earlier, a similar scene unfolded with a smaller group of drivers and crew members from the Nationwide Series. A day before that, an even smaller group from the Craftsman Truck Series gathered to worship.
Fast forward to the present day, and we’ll find that the scene at any given Sunday race is not much different. Stephen Keller, who replaced Griffin as the Sprint Cup chaplain, now stands behind the podium. Many of the same drivers faithfully attend, while several new faces have emerged to fill the makeshift pews—rising stars such as Trevor Bayne, Michael McDowell, and Landon Cassill. Sponsors have also changed. Economic troubles have forced many to leave the sport, while other stalwarts such as Home Depot, Lowe’s, and M&M’s can still be spotted on fire suits, polo shirts, and jackets throughout the room. But for the most part, the NASCAR chapel service is a consistent element of the sport’s rou- tine and tradition.
So why do these men and women attend these Sunday meetings? The reasons vary widely from one person to the next. Some use the religious activity as a “lucky charm” of sorts, perhaps for a good race or maybe just to ensure safety. Others attend out of a sense of moral obligation. They grew up in church, so embracing chapel seems like the right thing to do. Some drivers use the time as an escape from the many demands that have been placed upon them over the previous couple of days.
It’s hard to know exactly what percentage of the chapel attendees fits into each of these categories, but it’s clear that a growing number of NASCAR racers and team members are, at some level, influenced by a deeper sense of belief or a yearning to draw closer to their Creator. While church is ingrained into their lifestyle, they have grown beyond the habitual nature of such a gathering and regularly come to worship, to fellowship with like-minded believers, and to glean life-impacting truths from the Bible. It’s a luxury that they are unable to enjoy nearly ten months out of every year. NASCAR chapel services have quite literally become the home church for these nonstop travelers.
As the thirty-minute session ends, this private display is literally taken into the public square. Amid the pre-race pageantry, viewers attending the race or watching from the comfort their couch at home or in a sports bar somewhere observe a prayer (usually presented by a local minister or series chaplain) followed by the national anthem. During the prayer, drivers stand with their spouses, children, or significant others with hats removed and heads bowed. The vast majority of fans do likewise. In a day and age when public prayer is often considered an act of political incorrectness, no one seems to mind.
As the drivers prepare to enter their cars, two men divide themselves between the forty-three cars. They offer the opportunity for a quick, personal prayer. Most accept. A very small handful of these athletes politely nod as if to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Once the race starts, most, if not all, of the spiritual activity takes a back seat. In fact, there’s quite a contrast that even the casual observer can discern. Fans loosen up with the consumption of each alcoholic beverage. Profane language is directed at
the drivers they love to hate, while equally salty dialogue reverberates over radio communications between spotters, crew chiefs, and those aforementioned drivers. Cars get wrecked, the victims retaliate, and post-race confrontations spill over into the garage.
In essence, the NASCAR race day experience is a lot like real life. Some people get along. Some people don’t. Drama happens, and sometimes it gets ugly. And often all of this occurs in places where spirituality and irreverence run congruently. Sure, there are strong measures of faith to be found here, but this is by no means a sanitized environment.
So how did this all come together? If that question is directed toward the NASCAR phenomenon, well, it certainly wasn’t created overnight. It has steadily grown from its earliest days in the South, when stock car racing was nothing more than moonshine runners having some fun on the weekends, to modern times, when support in the United States is second only to the almighty National Football League.
The same can be said about the strong faith presence at all NASCAR events. Faith and stock car racing have always been linked at various stages of its growth and at various levels of support within the community. Men and women of faith have significantly impacted the sport in both highly visible and subtle ways.
This book is unlike any other written about NASCAR. It is partly historical and partly inspirational. It shares numerous anecdotes—some that have been repeated often, others that have never been heard before now—and gives fans a glimpse into NASCAR’s inner workings as they specifically relate to matters of faith. Part 1 takes a look at how the Christian faith has been a part of stock car racing since before it was officially a sport, and part 2 gives specific examples of how the faith movement is active in today’s NASCAR culture.
But ultimately, this book hopes to reveal to us a little about ourselves through the lens of the complicated yet strangely simple world of stock car racing. Just like those who are part of the NASCAR “family,” we too wrestle with our own imperfections, hypocrisies, and impure motives, all the while doing our best to live out faith atop our own platforms. There’s much to be learned as we explore Faith in the Fast Lane.
Chad Bonham’s book Faith in the Fast Lane: How NASCAR Found Jesus is available at Amazon.