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The emphasis on wins, winnings, and corporate sponsorship, some say, has sucked the sport out of motorsports. "This sport will steal your soul and break your heart," says Tim Griffin, MRO chaplain at Sprint Cup races. The good news: "I'm seeing greater interest in spiritual things," he says. "I've never been more encouraged." For Griffin and others, NASCAR itself has become an effective vehicle for spreading the gospel. During hours of one-on-one conversation with CT, NASCAR's Christian insiders said they walk a fine line, being a wholesome presence and also motivating change within NASCAR when possible. (Waltrip was among many who, for example, publicly advocated for head and neck restraints for drivers after Earnhardt's death. NASCAR now requires them, and no one has died in a NASCAR crash since.)

On a cold, cloudless Sunday before race time in Atlanta, Sprint Cup drivers and crews mill about the line of 43 cars along pit road. Chaplain Lonnie Clouse mingles with them. Clouse, 38, was MRO's youth leader before adding the Nationwide Series chaplaincy to his duties. He bumps fists and pats backs, visiting each car to offer a prayer and encouraging words.

Clouse pauses by 1999 champion Dale Jarrett, leaning against his #44 UPS car. It's Jarrett's penultimate race before retiring to the broadcast booth. Jarrett's children grew up in Clouse's group. At this race, before a fan-filled grandstand, Clouse and Jarrett linger in a handshake as they bow their heads. Then Clouse walks to the next car and prays with the driver.

MRO has become a well-established presence. It deploys to most of the 36 races during the February-November season. Such was Helton's mark on the sport that when he died of cancer on March 30, 2008, NASCAR had every car in the Fort Worth races the following weekend wear a memorial sticker. The track's Jumbotron broadcasted a tribute to him before the Sunday race.

It was one more sign that any antagonism between the pulpit and the speedway had been consigned to the history books. Part of the reason for that has been the deliberate mainstreaming by NASCAR officials to make the sport appealing beyond its traditional Southern fan base. Its marketers have also been toning down NASCAR's long-standing booze-guzzling bad-boy image, and what better way to do that than to give Christianity greater visibility? But it's also due to Christians' increasing tendency to see the NASCAR world as an evangelistic mission field. In 2004, the chairman of Interstate Batteries temporarily replaced his corporate logo with a logo from The Passion of the Christ on Bobby Labonte's #18 Chevrolet.

NASCAR The faith of NASCAR drivers comes in all horsepowers. Yet few competitors can match the level of public Christian commitment geared toward a love for motorsports shown by redheaded sparkplug Morgan Shepherd. He has started more than 500 Sprint Cup events, and has at times even changed his own tires and filled his own gas tank to stay in the race. He unashamedly called his truck team "Victory in Jesus Racing."

The cops never caught up with Shepherd, son of a successful moonshiner, while he was growing up in 1940s-era North Carolina. By 1970, Shepherd had swapped the family still for racing. But the alcohol that launched his NASCAR career was killing his liver and his marriage. He came home from the 1975 Daytona 500 to find that his fed-up wife had stomped out. After a drunken, live-it-up bender with a girlfriend, Shepherd took an honest look at himself. He prayed for God to turn his life around. Over time, he determined that NASCAR would become both his mission field and a platform for ministry to the church.

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August 2008, Vol. 52, No. 8