Fiery Crash Changes NASCAR Driver Michael McDowell’s Faith

((applause)) I went straight into the wall at probably 180 185 miles an hour with not a whole lot of slowing down before I hit it. And I'd remember when it turned right thinking, "Oh, this is going to hurt." That spectacular crash proved to be a pivotal event in NASCAR driver Michael McDow's faith journey.

You're going to hear him talk more about the crash and his life on and off the track on this episode of GPS God, People Stories. It's an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I'm Jim Kirkland. Michael regularly drives around racetracks at nearly 200 mph and there's a purpose to it.

But Billy Graham says, "I find that millions are traveling on the highway of life. They have no goals, no purpose, no meaning in their life. You'll hear Billy Graham explain how you can find goals, purpose, and meaning in your life a little later in the episode or find it anytime at our website, find peacewithgod.net.

That's find peacewithgod.net. If you didn't catch the address, no worries. You can always find the link in our show notes. GPS God, people stories. On February 14th, 2021, Michael McDow got into his race car at the season opening Daytona 500, thinking this might be the day he gets his first win.

I go into every race hopeful that today's the day. Like, today's the day we're going to win. Today's the day it's going to come together. Even before the race started, Michael had a strong sense that he was going to be third on the last lap. And that's exactly what happened.

After a rain delay had pushed the race well into the night, you know, 12:00 in the morning, the white flag comes out and I'm sitting third behind two Pinsky cars. And so, did I know I was going to win? I wouldn't say that I knew it, but I had a strong intuition that this is how it's going to play out and this is what I needed to be prepared for.

His intuition was right. After 16 years in NASCAR and 358 career starts, Michael McDowell got his first win at the Daytona 500 that night. But it was not an easy road to get there. I thought that I would get my first win in the first couple races. I really did.

I mean, I did not think it would take a lifetime to get there. But when I did get there and it being the Daytona 500 in the biggest race and the one that everybody chases and that's my first one, it wasn't that we ah we finally did it.

It was more of like I just felt like God allowed me to experience something so cool. Michael credits God's provision for everything about his career in NASCAR. I literally needed God to provide and he would and there would be that next step and the next step and the next step and so that was like that really my whole career.

Maybe the last four or five years that's changed a little bit but every year has been like that where I've I've needed God to provide that opportunity for me to keep moving forward and to keep going. And early on I didn't understand that. I didn't know what that meant.

Michael was raised in a modest home in Glendale, Arizona. He doesn't recall going to church with his family other than maybe on the holidays like Easter and Christmas. I grew up in a safe home with two loving parents that taught me the difference between right and wrong and how to treat people and be respectful and kind and so all biblical principles, but no tied back to faith.

Instead, Michael and his older brother quickly became tied to racing on the weekends. Just like anything when you're young, it starts out as just like a fun hobby. You know, a lot of kids played sports, right? And T-ball and football and soccer and those things. My brother and I, we really didn't do that.

We started racing BMX bikes and then dirt bikes and quads. When Michael was eight, he got into go-kart racing. That's when it became very real that this was a passion and something that I was good at and was excelling at. And from that point forward, it's been a progression towards a career in motorsports.

I don't think, you know, at 8 years old that was the plan. But I can tell you for sure by the time I was 11, it was the plan. Like I knew this was what I was going to do and had my mind set on, you know, making this work.

To make it work, to realize his dream of racing go-karts around the country and maybe even around the world, Michael needed money. Motorsports, your ability is directly limited by how fast your car is, how fast your engines are, how many tires you have. It's a very expensive sport that has a lot of moving parts equipment wise.

And for my parents, they did everything they could possibly do, but there was no way that they were gonna be able to fund my career. And so it became very real at a very early age that I had to learn the business aspect of racing and understand what I could possibly do to one either generate sponsorship or two generate value to be able to keep racing.

And you know, I was super fortunate. My brother was always an entrepreneur, super savvy, outside of the box thinker, and you know, he really came up with a business that allowed us to do that. This is how his brother's business worked. Michael would race a go-kart on Sunday and then on Monday, he would sell it.

We would build a cart and we'd win the race and somebody would buy it and then we'd build another one and they would buy it. Before you knew it, we um had developed a pretty cool business locally where we had our own go-kart shop and our own engine shop and we were taking care of customers carts and selling parts and pieces and and that really is what sustained me through my carding career was I was working at the shop doing all the the builds and he was working the business and and making it happen.

And without that, I don't think I would have kept progressing in my career. It would have been considered a successful business for a couple of brothers of any age. But think about this. Michael and his brother were only 12 and 15. Just like anything, it started out small and then before you know it, we had a big shop and a big trailer and we had other employees and it became um a pretty big operation in a short period of time.

And by the time I was supposed to be going into high school, I was already working there full-time and taking care of everybody's stuff. And so I ended up traveling to Europe and racing and not going to high school and doing homeschooling and home correspondence. Michael would do his schooling on the road that allowed him to work at the shop during the week, race on the weekends, and continue traveling.

But even with the shop money, Michael needed more funding for his racing. There was at the time one or two quote unquote scholarships out there, different racing programs or different manufacturers that would help maybe one kid out of go-karts to kind of transition. How it really worked out for me is I got a scholarship from Mazda, the car manufacturer, to kind of take that first step into formula cars.

And I was able to have success and win some races and eventually win the championship. That championship win opened up Michael's next opportunity working at a driving school in Chandler, Arizona. And one of the men he taught was a man by the name of Rob Finley. He was a student.

He was a 35-year-old guy that was successful business guy from Charlotte. Didn't know him until he came out to the school and struck up a relationship and told him he could be a race car driver. And literally the next week I was moving out to Charlotte to help him start a race team and help him make that transition into racing.

But Michael wasn't the only one moving to Charlotte. So was his girlfriend Jamie. When I got the opportunity to move to Charlotte after meeting Rob, I remember just saying to her, "Hey, I'm going to move to Charlotte. I'm going to do this deal." Being an 18-year-old working at a driving school, meet the right person at the right time that had the means to do it is just unheard of.

And she was like, "Well, what about me?" And I was like, "I don't know." She's like, "Well, can I come?" And I was like, "Yeah, sure. That's a great idea." Michael and Jamie had met in middle school and started dating as soon as Michael had his driver's license.

While Michael saw a future with her at the time, he was focused entirely on chasing his career. I loved her and and I knew she was the one for me and I knew we would eventually get married. I knew that. But I was willing just to leave because this was my opportunity and it was the next thing.

That next thing was the arrangement he'd made with Rob Finley in Charlotte. Rob took a chance on me, a young kind of cocky, arrogant kid at a driving school, and I was able to put together a program in sports cars. And sports cars, racing is different than NASCAR.

There's two drivers or sometimes three drivers. And so, it was a great opportunity because I could coach and teach him. He could race and I could race at the same time in the same car and kind of develop as drivers. But in October 2004, a racing family that Michael had grown close to faced sudden tragedy.

A man named Ron Huber, the grandfather of one of Michael's former students, had passed away. Michael traveled back to Arizona for his funeral. While he was there, he ran into some of the other men he had coached, including Tom Barnett. Tom asked me if I thought that Ron was in heaven.

And I didn't have a good understanding of that. And in my mind, if you were a good person, you went to heaven. And if you weren't, you weren't. And that that's about as much as I understood it. And so, I didn't know how to really answer him other than, "Yeah, of course."

I mean, he was a great person. And Tom said, "What about you? Where are you at?" Michael didn't know how to answer him. He wasn't even really sure what Tom was asking. You know, he said, "Well, what if I told you it has nothing to do with you being a good person?"

And that just left me twisted up like a pretzel. Over the next few weeks, God used that question of where are you at? To challenge every aspect of Michael's life. For the first time in my life, I had conviction. I also felt challenged of and these are the things that I was thinking about and I was 18 is how I wanted to be as a man, how I wanted to be as a father, as a husband.

I wasn't married. I didn't have any kids. I started thinking about all these things of like how did I want to live my life? I thought I was losing my mind. But Michael wasn't losing his mind. What he was doing was finding God. I'm like, what is going on?

And and it was just God pursuing me. And through that pursuit, there was some challenges and there was some conviction. And it just stayed in my mind of like, what about you? Where are you at? And so, keep in mind, I didn't understand the gospel, right? I didn't know what it meant.

But he would. Just about a month later, while he and Jamie were transitioning to life in Charlotte, they traveled back to see family in Phoenix. We spent some time with her aunt and uncle and her aunt uncle invited us to their home church. So, I went into it like, "Ah, whatever.

We'll just do this and and hang out with them. It'll be fine." and didn't really know what to expect or what to think of it. It was a large church in North Phoenix and Michael felt awkward and uncomfortable. As the pastor started speaking, it just felt like all of a sudden I was the only person in that church and like the words that he was saying were like penetrating me completely, you know, like heart, soul, mind.

Michael clearly heard the gospel and that God's grace is a free gift that cannot be earned. I'm coming from a world in a place where I had to earn everything. Like I was scrappy and a grinder and that just didn't make sense to me. It didn't feel right.

In racing, if you want to go faster, you work harder, you spend more money, you do these things and that's how you go faster. And but he was, you know, saying that it's a free gift that you can't earn it. you can't pay for it. You can't buy it.

That it's a gift that we accept. And if we do, we can have a fresh start and a clean slate. A clean slate. Michael still didn't understand everything the pastor was saying. But he knew he wanted that, a clean slate. I don't even know what that looks like, but I just knew in my heart that that's what I wanted.

And I always classify that moment as like a aha moment, but it didn't change every area of my life. You know, I left there with this weird emotional feel. I left there with this I want this fresh start. I want to know what this is and I want to understand it and I can't tell you what's happening, but I feel something.

Something's happening. That something was happening in Michael's heart and mind. In much the same way he had approached racing, Michael became a student of Christianity. He wanted to learn what it meant to be a follower of Christ. There was a few people that were at Ron's funeral and Tom Barnett being one of them that I leaned into and I asked a lot of questions and what about this and what about that and what about this and um you know he got me a Bible and he got me a couple resources.

After Michael and Jaime returned to Charlotte, God continued to pursue the couple. For example, one day Jaime was working out at a gym and forgot her water. A new church just so happened to be there handing out free water bottles. Jaime took the free water and she and Michael decided to give the church a try.

We went there the first weekend and there was like eight people there and we sat at a round table and got to know everybody and and so God started putting all these people in our lives that we could ask questions, we could grow and we can learn and I feel like I went through that stage for about a year of just digging in.

Michael wanted to understand what it really meant to be a follower of Christ. I got to a a place where I'm like, "Okay, this is so real." Like it not not just because I can wrap my head around it from a knowledge standpoint, but because of all these things I've experienced and felt and seen and, you know, it just got to a place where I felt like I had to make a decision of whether I was going to surrender or keep questioning. and and I just got to a place where I just was like, "All right, Lord.

Whatever you want me to do, I don't know what it looks like, but I want to do it." Michael did what God wanted him to do, and so did Jaime. They committed their lives to Jesus Christ. Then they got baptized, but they continued to live together for two or three months before they got married.

It's a decision they now regret, even though they are still happily married. Looking back now, I think it could have been the greatest two or three months of our lives. I think it would have helped us go into our marriage with a clean slate. And I think God was giving us that window and that opportunity to come in with a clean slate and have restoration.

And we chose not to. And so God never takes away our ability to choose. He never takes our ability to say no. And he never takes our ability away to say yes. But there are consequences to every action that we have. There was also another area of Michael's life that he hadn't yet fully surrendered to God.

I felt like I had given my life to Christ. As much as you can, not understanding what you don't know, right? But racing was always something that I felt like I needed to keep a little bit separate. I wasn't doing it intentionally. I think I was doing it somewhat subconsciously and maybe a little bit pridefully and not understanding it is like, hey, I've done really well with this.

I got this. You can help me in all these other areas of being a better person and being kinder and being a good husband and all that, but like I got this. And I signed my first cup contract, which was a pretty great deal. At the time, Michael was in his early 20s.

He had transitioned from racing go-karts to sports cars and now to stock car racing, a monumental step in setting up his NASCAR career. I was young, 21 at the time, signed a three-year deal, and felt like I was in a good spot and felt good about our faith and our life, and we were married, and it's time to buy a house, and maybe start having kids, and I had a motor home that traveled to all the races.

And so, I wasn't being irresponsible because I had a very lucrative three-year deal, and I was in a good spot. Even so, the transition was not easy for Michael. NASCAR racing was very different from his previous experiences. It was like speaking a whole different language. I mean, it's like going to a different country even though I wasn't.

I mean, it's just a different world. The way that the cars are built, the technology, the resources, the people. It's a very southern sport. It's a good old boy sport. It was in particular when I came into it. And I was not that. I was the uh sports car European racer from America.

And so it was a hard transition as far as you know just fitting in and being able to understand the sport and understand the style of racing and the cars and the technology and and so it was a big transition for me. I even like would relate it to going from playing basketball to playing baseball.

It was a very humbling experience for Michael. Throughout my entire career, I'd always won and always been one of the best or the guy that you had to beat or at least one of the guys that you had to beat. I'd won hundreds of races until I got into NASCAR.

Still, Michael managed to keep up with the other rookies, but his business deal went sideways. 8 months into his three-year contract, Michael lost his job. Jamie was eight months pregnant and they had a new house, a motor home and all the bills that come with that. Life got very real very quickly.

That was kind of the first test of one is that feeling comfort from the world standards of money or contract or having those sort of guarantees or securities and they're not really secure at all. Michael realized he had to trust God completely with everything, including his racing career.

And with that came some pretty tough questions. There was moments like that of like, okay, what what is next? You know, do I need to get a real job? Do I need to go back and pursue education? Because you got to remember I'm a high school dropout, no job experience except for racing with this.

All I've ever done. I don't know anything else. What he did was keep pursuing what he knew and God eventually provided his next opportunity. I was still making phone calls and I was still talking to team owners and trying to find sponsorship and trying to line up deals and I was still pursuing it with everything I had.

And so, you know, I was working on a lot of different things and an opportunity came up where I could actually take a step backwards. I went back to the Xfinity series. I took a step down. Michael got a partial deal for a half season with the Xfinity series.

Even though it wasn't a full season, he was grateful for the opportunity to keep racing and keep following God. But not long thereafter, in 2008, Michael was in a big crash. It was at Texas Motor Speedway. It was in qualifying. And qualifying is, you know, you against the clock.

It's two laps to go as fast as you possibly can. you really put everything on the line and on the edge. And that's part of the reason why you see crashes in qualifying because you're just maximizing everything. But in the moment, I remember getting loose and it starting to turn down the hill and I went to the brake pedal, but they had the brakes pulled back for more speed, so there was no brake pedal. and it turned hard right and I went straight into the wall at probably 180 185 mph with not a whole lot of slowing down before I hit it.

And I'd remember when it turned right thinking, "Oh, this is going to hurt." And he wasn't wrong. Michael says it felt like forever as the car barreled. I had that slow motion feel where it was just rolling and rolling. Everything was super quiet except for the crunches. So, I didn't hear a lot of outside noise, but just like bang bang.

When the car finally stopped rolling, it landed right side up. Then it burst into flames. I remember wiggling my toes and wiggling my hands just like, are they still there? And do they still work? And then immediately grabbing the window net and trying to get out because there was a decent amount of fire in there.

And the fire ended up going out. Thanks to God's protection and modern race car engineering, Michael was able to walk away from the accident with only a few minor injuries, including sprained ankles and a few broken bones in his foot. I raced 500 miles the next day, which was really challenging cuz I was beat up and sore, and there was a lot of things that weren't functioning as well as they should have been.

Even after the race, Michael couldn't catch a break to recover. He was asked to fly to New York and then to Los Angeles for a media tour about his crash. The accident had become an opportunity for him to network and to build his brand and maybe something else as well.

I just remember sitting on the plane being challenged with like, man, I have this opportunity in front of me and I can go two ways. I can talk about God's goodness and that I was able to walk away and make him known or I can make myself known.

And the outside noise was make yourself known, right? Because build your brand. It's opportunity. No media is bad media. No coverage is bad coverage. That kind of thing. Michael had a 2-hour flight to make his decision. It was a pivotal point for me in my faith journey of I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about the goodness and the faithfulness of God and making him known and not building my own brand.

But honoring God didn't mean Michael would suddenly start winning or having an easier road ahead. In fact, Michael's deal soon came to an end, and he was out searching for the next one to keep racing. From 2009 to 2012 or 13, it was really tough. It was tough to stay in the sport.

The rides that I was driving, I always tell people I needed a tetanis shot for the cars that I was getting in. I mean, it was just a tough go. But those were the most important years of my life. The reason those years of his life were so important, says Michael, is because that's when he learned that his value is not based on other people's perception of his performance.

We are in a performance-driven sport. Every weekend you're judged and scaled on how you finish. And every weekend there's a score sheet that says you either won or you lost. And I could easily wrap my identity in what that score card says or what it doesn't say. And that was really removed from me because I wasn't in equipment or with teams that you even had to think about it.

In fact, Michael often knew he was going to finish last in races, but he kept going and he kept trusting in God. I had to accept that this is the opportunity that God provided. And there was times that I didn't want to do it. There was times that it wasn't fun.

But during those times, I was learning and growing and like just being discipled and discipling and just having aha God moments even though they weren't on the racetrack. And so it was like, okay, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm right where God wants me to be, even though I don't love it.

I learned how to set goals, appreciate the moment without the moments being mountain tops. From 2008 to 2016, Michael bounced around from one opportunity to another, driving for six or seven different teams. He experienced a lot of frustrations and disappointments, but he knew that was to be expected.

There's a lot of miserable people in our sport because there's one winner and there's 38 losers every week. In football, there's one winner and one loser, right? I mean, you go headtohead. In basketball, there's one winner and there's one loser. And you'll spend your entire career and if you're 50/50 is pretty good, right?

Hall of Famers in our sport are guys that have won 30 races and they've done 700. You better get used to losing cuz you are going to do it. 95% of your career is going to be losing in NASCAR. As extreme as those odds are, they didn't keep Michael from hoping or even believing that one day he would be standing in victory lane.

I never stopped chasing the dream or chasing the idea that I could win and that it was going to get better. There's a spiritual lesson in that for Michael. He didn't just say he wanted to win. He gave his all to trying to make it happen. He knew there was a cost to being a successful NASCAR driver.

And he says the same applies to being a follower of Jesus Christ. I tell people, especially new believers, in particular anybody that I feel like God's allowed me to help lead to the Lord. I always say, "What if it cost you everything? What if it requires everything?" Like for me, it was the idea of this free gift.

But it is a free gift. But it wasn't free, right? It's free to us in the sense that there's nothing that we could do to earn it. But there was a hefty price that was paid for it. And when we step into that, there is a cost. And the cost is that God doesn't just want one little area of your life.

He wants all of it. It affects everything I do because it that is who I am, right? I'm a follower of Christ. I'm not a NASCAR driver. I'm a follower of Christ who races a NASCAR. You're all I ((music playing)) need, the reason for everything. NASCAR driver Michael McDow has discovered the peace and purpose that comes from living a life totally committed to Jesus Christ.

If you'd like to know that same peace and purpose, we can help you. Visit us at findpacewithgod.net. It spells out clearly how you can become a follower of Jesus. And there's also a chat option. That's at find peacewithgod.net. If you'd rather talk with someone and have them pray with you, call us at the Billy Graham 247 prayer line.

The number is 855255 pray. That's 855255 pray. If you have wondered what's the relationship between your work and God's will when it comes to accomplishing goals in your life, Michael McDow shares his insight on that in just a moment. You're listening to GPS God, people stories, a podcast production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

I find that millions are traveling on the highway of life. They have no goals, no purpose, no meaning in their life. Billy Graham, I'm thinking of another highway mentioned by Isaiah the Hebrew prophet. He said, "And a highway shall be there and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness."

This is what Christ said. He said, "I'm the way. Stick with me. Follow me." And the Bible is our road map. Christ is our guide. And when people ask me for an autograph, sometimes I sign a little verse of scripture. Psalm 16:11, "Thou will show me the path of life."

And many of us, especially young people today, are searching for a way of life, and I say, "Come to Christ. He'll lead you in that way of life." You can discover much more about that way of life by going to find peacewithgod.net. That's find peacewithgod.net. Our guest on this episode of GPS, God, People, Stories, is NASCAR driver Michael McDow.

He won the Daytona 500 in 2021. And he's been consistently running in the top 10 ever since, but he had to remain faithful for a long time, 17 years in fact, before that first big win in 2021. God used those 17 years to prepare me and the timings now.

And I'm getting to see the results. I feel like preparation is our role in our job and what we do and and how we prepare and do our job and timing is the Lord's and sometimes it doesn't line up. Sometimes all your hard work and everything that you're doing to be successful and it's just not happening and then all of a sudden it happens and that preparation work is our role in it and timing is the Lord's.

We're thankful for Michael McDow joining us on this episode. He and Jaime have five kids, ages 16 to two, and they all travel with him to races and chase his dream of racing together. If you've enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe button. That way, you will never miss an episode.

The next one will come your way in just two weeks. I'm Jim Kirkland, and this is GPS, God, People, Stories. It's an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Always good news. You're you're all I need, the reason for everything. You're you're all I ((music playing)) need. the earth that I breathe.

You're all I need. I need all I You're all I need.