wfn.org | Faith, career share same track for race car driver

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

April 19, 2002   News media contact: Laura Latham7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-71BP{000}

NOTE: Photographs are available with this report.

A UMNS Feature
By Anne Dukes and Laura Latham*

If your mental image of stock car race drivers is one of outlaws and
rednecks swilling beer and chewing tobacco, adjust your attitude and meet
Mark Gibson, a driver who lives his faith at Harmony Grove United Methodist
Church in Auburn, Ga.

Gibson, 45, has been racing cars since 1974, winning the title of Rookie of
the Year from the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) in 1986. He
spends his weekends competing at tracks from Daytona, Fla., to his favorite,
the DuQuion State Fairgrounds near Springfield, Ill., which he considers a
great place for "family fun time" with his wife and daughter.

"The racing community is not like the outlaw-redneck image some people have
of it," Gibson says. " ... It's not a bunch of nonbelievers, but really a
family of faith."

Faith is what enables him to keep racing, despite the danger of injury or
worse, he says.  His family of faith includes about 20 other ARCA drivers
who attend chapel and share prayer requests with one another. "It's good to
know other drivers have the same belief you do," he says.

During race weekends, he attends regular chapel services conducted by Bill
Krick, the Charlotte, N.C.,-based chaplain working at ARCA events through
Motor Racing Outreach, an ecumenical mission to the racing world.

"I have friends who have died, and sometimes people ask me why I keep doing
it," Gibson says. "But I don't think I could climb in a race car and not
worry about dying if I didn't believe in God. I haven't worried about dying
for a long time." 

He remembers a young driver, Blaze Alexander, who died in a wreck during the
2001 season. Gibson regrets never taking the opportunity to witness to
Alexander. "It makes you want to talk to (other drivers) about your faith,
their faith," he says. 

He now witnesses to other drivers in the ARCA series, including one of his
closest friends who does not attend chapel services.  

"Mark makes no bones when he's at the track that he's a Christian," says the
Rev. Nathaniel Long, pastor of Harmony Grove United Methodist Church.

Races keep drivers, teams and families out of their regular churches on
Sunday, so Krick and his wife, Dianna, offer four chapel services each race
weekend, reaching up to 400 people a week. One service is specifically for
the ARCA officials, another is for safety workers at the track and a third
is for the drivers. The fourth service is for what Bill Krick calls "the
community" - the drivers, crew members and families. Gibson often assists by
leading the prayer request time during the community service. 

Krick also prays with each driver before the race. In his seven years with
Motor Racing Outreach, he says, he has never had a driver refuse the
opportunity for prayer. Gibson takes prayer into the race, in the form of a
typed copy of the Lord's Prayer taped to his dashboard.

Motor Racing Outreach is a nonprofit ministry based at Lowe's Motor Speedway
in Charlotte. It was founded in 1989 to make chaplains available to work
race events by holding services for drivers, their teams, track staff, ARCA
officials and medical workers. The organization currently employs 13
chaplains serving the NASCAR Winston Cup and Busch Series, the International
Race of Champions, ARCA, American Power Boat Association, the Historical
Motor Sports Association/Vintage Auto Racing Association, the West/East
Racing Association (motorcycles) and the American Motorcycle Association.

Gibson says he is much calmer in a race car than he was seven years ago, and
he attributes that to Krick and his faith. Right before the race, he feels
Christ with him in the car, he says. It's "almost like a calm comes over
me." 

During the race, he gives the other drivers the benefit of the doubt if a
mishap occurs. "You can't go in when someone bumps you thinking it was on
purpose," he says. "... As a Christian you have to forgive."

If someone ends up getting hurt, Krick goes to the hospital and ministers to
the driver, Gibson says.

"When something bad happens, I try to think about all those people who are
worse off than me," he says. When he gets in a wreck that puts him out of
the race, he gets out of his car and hugs his 4-year-old daughter, Michelle.
"I come up (to the car hauler) and get my little girl in my arms, and then
everything's OK." 

Gibson's wife, Jan, who keeps the timecard for him during the race, writes a
special prayer during each race, asking the Lord to keep her husband safe
and out of trouble. "Jan supports me 150 percent," Gibson says. She "worries
more about me being disappointed than getting hurt." He and his wife have
been married for 24 years.

Gibson comes from a racing family. His father owned a race team; his mother
currently works for Daytona International Speedway; brother Pepe is a member
of Gibson's team; and brother Tony is employed by Hendrick Motorsports as a
member of Winston Cup Series driver Jeff Gordon's team.  

"Racing is all I do," Gibson says. Although he depends on Dennis Pulte and
his crew to maintain his own fleet of Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Ford Taurus
race cars, away from the track, his day job is building and repairing race
cars and trucks for other ARCA drivers.

Gibson started his career by working on the race cars that his father owned.
Since then, he has placed as high as second in the ARCA points system, which
ranks drivers according to the number of their top five and top 10 finishes,
and has had three wins. He has also competed in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck
Series, Winston Cup Series and Busch Series, but he finds competing in ARCA
more relaxed and fun.

When he's at home, Gibson is an active member in many of Harmony Grove's
ministries.  He is vice president of the men's group and co-founder of the
church's outdoor ministries, in addition to working with vacation Bible
school and helping the building committee.  

"His leadership is helping bring about change," says Long, who has been the
church's pastor for four years. Last fall, Gibson and Long organized a
race-a-thon to raise funds for a new building at Harmony Grove. Church
members pledged an amount for each lap that Gibson drove in a race at the
Atlanta Motor Speedway. The event raised $1,600 for the church's building
fund.

Gibson uses his race car to witness to young people. He and Long recently
set up the car and car hauler at a local shopping center, where they passed
out Frisbees, offered tours of the car and hauler, took photos of Gibson
with young fans and invited shoppers to visit Harmony Grove that afternoon
for the church's spring barbecue.  

"With a small church like Harmony Grove, we don't have a big basketball
court," Gibson says. "We don't have a lot of the things that attract kids.
But we try to use the car to bring kids into the church."

Gibson also took the car to Murphy-Harpst-Vashti Inc., in Cedartown, Ga., a
center for troubled youth. He signed autographs and delivered teddy bears
that Harmony Grove's senior adults had collected for the children.

The church's congregation loves Gibson, and the children look up to him,
says Long, whose own young daughter is among the fans. 

"My church is behind me," Gibson says. "They pray for me every Sunday."

Many race fans fall into the traditionally "hard to reach" demographic for
churches - young men ages 18 to 35, Long says. For that reason, he believes
that a Christian role model like Gibson is positive for both the church and
the sport.

"I try always to portray my belief in God as what has led to my success in
racing," Gibson says. "I couldn't have done what I've done without faith in
God. The Lord's supplied me with the opportunity to race for a living, so
that's what I do."

For more information on Motor Racing Outreach, call Krick at (704) 455-3828
or Gibson at (678) 985-2394.

# # #

*Dukes is a staff writer for the Wesleyan Christian Advocate, the newspaper
of the United Methodist Church's North and South Georgia annual conferences.
Latham is on the staff of United Methodist News Service in 

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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