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I screamed on the radio.
I said, "Are you kidding me?
Are you kidding me?" The next words were, "God is so good to
us."
Man, this is cool, intense.
I've dreamed about running the Daytona 500 my whole life.
Getting fired up-- it's just going to be cool if we make
the race and get to do it.
Once they say, "Gentlemen, start your
engines," it's such a blur.
Here we go.
Looking out at the crowd-- all you see is the race track.
It requires so much focus.
It just seemed to get faster and faster and faster.
We ended up qualifying really good.
We make it in the race.
We do everything we needed to do.
Are you nervous?
Are you scared?
Here I am on the last lap, and find myself leading the
Daytona 500.
Intense.
Powerful.
Overwhelming.
Any time there's a leader on the last lap at that track, he
finishes second, third, fourth, whatever, because the
way the drafting works-- just go.
Man, there is no way that we're going to win this race.
And then I come out of Turn 4.
Going to school, racing gave me something
to set myself apart.
My dad's dad used to race cars, and then my mom's dad
used to race boats.
So, I think there's speed in the bloodline somewhere, and
then once I got into it, it was something that I had a
passion for that I can't describe.
I moved to North Carolina by myself at 15 years old.
I started thinking, "Trevor Bayne's got this." I've gotten
to this point because I'm good at driving race cars.
I'm good at everything I do.
I can handle it.
When I got to that point, God said, "Oh really, you think
you can handle this on your own?" And He gave me a few
wake-up calls.
One was a crash.
I had a H2 Hummer.
I flipped it into head-on traffic.
Three cars hit it in the roof.
It took the top of the steering wheel off, the top of
the seat off.
I shouldn't be sitting here.
But He gave me another chance to open my eyes.
I still didn't see it.
I didn't see what kind of miracle had just happened.
What ended up happening was He kind of let me slip away from
the thing that mattered most to me at that
time, which was racing.
I was saying, "I got this.
I got this." And so He kind of pulled the rug
out from under me.
I had been racing 42 weekends out of the year,
three times a week.
I was supposed to be racing Nationwide the next year.
Big time--
it was going to be the best year my life, and I ended up
sitting still on the sidelines for six months because we
didn't have sponsorship.
At that point I was like, I understand exactly what's
going on here.
God was in control the whole time.
I tried to take control, kind of push him aside--
not on purpose, but by not being intentional about study
and prayer and just spending time with Him.
I was always busy, 15-year-old, 16-year-old
thinking, I got to be on the go, hanging out with friends,
doing all my stuff.
But I didn't take time to build that relationship which
was the most important.
Right after I realized what was going on and started
getting back into the word and getting fired up, and then
prayer and just spending time with Him.
I meet a guy, we went to another team and put me back in a race car.
Not even two weeks later, after I kind of surrendered
again, and I'm like, "God, You did this all along.
Here I was thinking I've got the talent to do it.
I've got all these things, but really You've supplied all the
opportunity.
So, I'm tired of trying to do it by myself.
Come back, whatever it takes.
I'm willing to do whatever You want."
[Trevor Bayne joined Roush-Fenway Racing to run in the Nationwide Series in 2011.]
[Through a partnership with the historic Wood Brothers team,
he also secured a handful of Sprint Cup starts - including the Daytona 500.]
Before the race, we're talking about
reading books and studying.
Finally, I'm just like man, I'm kind of tired of reading.
I don't know if that's right or wrong or what, but I'm
tired of trying to learn who God is.
I'm tired of trying to see what everybody
else's take on God is.
I'm just ready to know Him.
I want to experience His power in some way, and Him just say,
"This is who I am."
I'm feeling a little bit of butterflies for the first time
the whole race.
The whole time I had been patient, just waiting and
riding it out.
And then here we are on the last lap, leading.
It's getting hotter in the car.
I start to just feel this overwhelming, man, what's
going to happen?
This is the first time I've been nervous.
I'm thinking, "There is no way that we can win this race." I
mean, it's impossible pretty much.
And then we're coming off Turn 4, and I just feel this
feeling, sitting back in the seat, and kind of looking up
in the mirror and seeing everybody behind me.
And we get to the start/finish line, and we were
still in the lead.
Even at that point, I'm still thinking, "There is no way
we're going to win this race." And then my crew chief and
spotter come over the radio, and they're like, "We just won
the race."
Man, I screamed on the radio, "Are you kidding me?" Because
that's what it felt like.
It was like, how is this even possible?
It's never happened.
Nobody has ever won that race in their first attempt.
And to know that He did it, to know that it's because of His
power, and just surrendering that.
Saying, "Whatever it is that you want to do, whatever it
takes, I just want to know You." And at that moment, it
was just a change.
It was just, this is who I am.
To experience that is incredible.
God's in control, and He's powerful, and He can do
whatever He wants to, whenever He wants to, with
whoever He wants to.
The Daytona 500 win, that stuff's great, but it
doesn't define me.
Christ defines me.
Part of being a champion is that you have more of a
platform and more of a voice to speak to people, so that
drives me to be better every day.
On the track, yes, coming across the checkered flag
first defines you as a winner.
But off the track, there's a lot more to it than that.
Me becoming second makes me feel like the biggest winner
in the world.
I want to yell it, man.
My name is Trevor Bayne, and I am Second.