AMAZING STORY
Racing for a Purpose
By Shannon Woodland
The 700 Club
CBN.com- It’s the adrenaline, speed, and danger that make the Indianapolis 500 one of the most exciting races in the world. This year’s 99th running of the race had it all, including a stunning comeback victory.
Two weeks before the event our crew met up with the Kingdom Racing team, who sponsors the number 24 car. They gave us an inside look at the preparation that goes into sending a car and driver around the track at speeds over 220 miles per hour.
In the cockpit is nine-time Indy competitor Townsend Bell, who says it’s critical that everyone on the team has the same goal. “I think the Indy 500 is one of those goals, winning the race, where you're so totally aligned with the people that you work with. Everybody understands the reason they're here. They work very hard. They're very skilled,” remarks Bell.
They work hard to win, but Kingdom Racing has a higher calling, to share God’s word with motorsport fans. George Del Canto is the founder.
George says, “The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is known as the racing capital of the world. So, what a fitting place for us to really plant God’s seed. Race fans come to us and say ‘Hurray number 24 car!’ we can say, ‘Thank you very much but you know our real purpose, why we’re really here, is for really a greater race and that’s the race for your eternity.’”
George says the idea was birthed out of a vision he had almost a decade ago. “I kept imagining all of these crowds streaming into race tracks, thousands of people with so much hurt and so much pain. Here they are they're escaping just for a little while to watch this great spectacle. There's something else that they should be filled with, the word of God, that that's what really is the great race, to be able to share that with them. It's not the 500 miles in Indianapolis.”
This year marked Kingdom Racing’s 8th consecutive Indy 500. At every race the team hands out hero cards with scriptures printed on them, and puts on trackside festivals featuring Christian bands. To date, they’ve reached out to over 100,000 fans. George says, “We're not hitting them over the head, but we tell them what our real purpose is all about.”
They also run an outreach they call Miles of Smiles. It gives people going through hardships a VIP racetrack experience. Desert Storm veteran Mike Pyle got the chance to cruise around the track at 135 miles per hour with the legendary Mario Andretti. Mike says, “Oh, it was – it was everything that I thought it might be, but better. A lot better.”
It also gave the team the opportunity to show him God’s love. Mike also said, “Kingdom Racing’s very, very honorable. You know, they were – respected us. They treated us like royalty, so it was very nice.”
This year, Bell and the number 24 car moved up 12 positions to finish in 14th place. Even though they fell short, the Kingdom Racing team was able to minister to nearly a thousand fans. George says, “This is the burden that was laid on my heart, that I see these thousands of people coming to just kind of forget about their sufferings and their hurts and their pains for a few hours, but that maybe that we can really heal them, not by an event, but through the scripture.”
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