LINGK: When and how did you get started with the organization? MULDEN: I actually started as a volunteer. I was working as an assistant youth pastor at a local church in Charlotte, North Carolina, Central Church of God. While working there, there was a tragic death during a race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, now called Lowe's Motor Speedway. A young man was killed. Two weeks later the track had an event and they wanted another chaplain to be out there with them. Motor Racing Outreach contacted me through a series of relationships, to ask if I would come in and be there for that weekend,mainly for the track staff. So I did and that was the first event I did with Motor Racing Outreach. From there, I volunteered to help facilitate bible studies being held in a lot of race shops. In 1997, my wife and I, served in a racing series called Unlimited Hydroplane Racing and then we had an opportunity to go out and serve that summer at a boat-racing series. I joined MRO on January 1, 1999 and I've been with them full-time ever since. I started out as director of support services, and I worked my way up through the ranks. LINGK: What is NASCAR, and how did it get started? MULDEN: NASCAR was founded by Bill France, Sr., on February 21, 1948 with the help of several other drivers. The first races were held on the beaches of Daytona, Florida and later as other races were sanctioned around the Northeast, the sport began to grow in popularity. But when television picked up on it, and ABC's Wide World of sports began broadcasting it, things really took off and it has grown in to what we see today. LINGK: NASCAR attracts a great many celebrities and national attention to the sport. How does this impact your ability to serve the community? MULDEN: Whenever you are working with a group of folks in the entertainment industry (i.e., race car drivers, team owners, officials, P.R) it can make for a challenging situation. Generally they have lots of things pulling them one way or the other, as well as the challenge of facing the pressures to perform each week. I find that the key to ministering to a group like this, is just being there consistently for them. That's why I believe that this ministry has had the twenty years longevity that it's had. We are there at the track so that when a situation happens, whether a personal challenge, trauma or a crisis situation, anyone can literally walk out and grab us from the garage area, out on the pit road, or back in the motor coach lot. We are right there, right when they need us. LINGK: Who is Mr. Joe Gibbs, and what is his relationship with MRO? MULDEN: Joe has been with NASCAR from the very beginning and he's always been very supportive of us at MRO, because he understands what we're here to do. As a matter of fact, the Gibbs Organization is one of our biggest supporters. Although Joe has gone back to coaching football, he is always there for MRO, always looking for opportunities to share his faith. In fact there have been times when we've simply put him on the back of a golf cart and taken him out into a crowd of folks in a hospitality area. He'll stand up in the back of that golf cart and share his faith with the people. He'll talk a little football, a little racing, but in the end, he’ll talk about what the Lord means to him. Joe is a model for the community, and his son JD, the president of Gibbs Racing is taking that role over for him in a great way. LINGK: When we hear about stock car racing, we envision fast cars, fast women and lots of beer drinking. What are some of the challenges of ministering to this community? MULDEN: This fan base is one of the most exciting groups of people to minister to. The unique thing about a stock car race is that on any given weekend, you can have from as few as 110,000 to as many as 200,000 people converge on one race track. Once you get there, you basically have a small city for four days around this one facility where many of these folks are camping out or coming back day after day. So what we do is work in partnership with local churches who will go into the camp grounds, into the different areas where people stay and adopt them the way a church would adopt a village in South America or in Africa. We go in there and live among the people and minister to them for the weekend. We help them with questions and information and provide them with family programming, chapel services as well as trauma intervention. The one thing you can count on with a race fan is that they'll come back to the same spot or the same track year-after-year to camp out. So we get to build relationships with these folks, over a period of two to three years and they often come back to us and say, “hey I've spoken to so-and-so who've accepted Christ”. They'll come back to tell me how they got connected into their local church back home and their lives have been totally changed. So yes, you can have wonderful ministry at a race track. Yes there's drinking going on and yes fans are enjoying themselves, but, here's what we're able to do…we are able to go in and say, Yes you're trying to escape through racing and it may relieve some of the thoughts you have on your mind, or frustration that you're dealing with, but the only thing that's going to give you permanent peace, restore permanent hope and joy to your life is Jesus Christ. It's amazing how receptive folks are to that message, especially when you're on their turf. The reality is that most of these people are never going to step foot in a church, but if you'll go to the race track and meet them on their ground, if you'll love them and show them that you genuinely care and you'll be there for them over the long haul, they'll start to take notice. They'll start to listen and it's phenomenal to see what the Holy Spirit begins to do in their lives. Continues on page 3