Racer Figures It's Best to Cross the Finish Line with the Lord
by Doug Greengard
February 18, 2005
(AgapePress) - Growing up in Owensboro, Kentucky, Darrell Waltrip's focus was on reaching the winner's circle. It began with go-kart racing when he was 12, and his dream was to advance to the pinnacle of stock car racing success. "That was my mission," said Waltrip. "I pursued that with everything that I had."By 1972, after working his way up on dirt tracks and short tracks, Waltrip made his NASCAR debut at Alabama's Talladega Speedway. Three years later, he decided to shift gears and hit the track full-time against the world's best drivers on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series.
The rest, they say, is racing history. Checkered flags, along with fame and fortune, followed as Waltrip quickly rose to the ranks of one of the sport's elite drivers. Everything seemed to be going just as planned. That was, of course, until one day when in 1983 when, at the urging of his wife Stevie, he attended an event not far from their home in Nashville, Tennessee, and listened to a minister discuss eternal life.
"I thought that if I was a good guy, I would go to heaven if anything ever happened to me," says Waltrip, who was NASCAR's Driver of the Decade in the 1980s. "I figured if I got killed in a race car, or whatever, I was a good person ... I never killed anybody ... I never robbed anybody -- I figured I'd go to heaven."
Waltrip, seeing his need for a Savior, surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. Stevie had already begun her walk with the Lord and was being of great encouragement to her husband and others at the race track.
"She was attending Bible study fellowship and got on fire for the Lord and starting working on me," says Waltrip, a three-time Winston Cup Series Champion. "In our sport, there's an element of danger and she wanted to make sure every Sunday that I was protected the best I -- and the other drivers -- could be."
It became a custom that Stevie would hand out notecards containing Bible scriptures to the drivers. In 1986, the Waltrip's took another giant step, joining with several other racing couples to form Motor Racing Outreach. "We saw in 1986 a huge need on the circuit," explains Waltrip. "It's our church at the track."
After retiring in 2001 and being inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Waltrip still stays connected to the sport as a television analyst. Looking back, he sees how powerfully he has been used to share God's love with others.
"Sports gives us such a great platform," he adds. "I'm glad that I can do my part, and I wish other guys would step up and do the same thing."
Sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. That is, literally, where the rubber meets the road for Darrell Waltrip.
Doug Greengard is chaplain for the NFL's New Orleans Saints and the host/producer of Christian Sports Minute, a radio feature airing on more than 300 stations in North America. To obtain Heroes of Faith, a book filled with 24 stories of well-known sports figures, send a donation of $10 or more to: Greengard Family Ministries, 2250 Gause Blvd., PMB 51089, Slidell, LA 70461.
