We just finished up the four race Winter Series at NTK. It was yet again a heartbreaking finish to give Hunter a 2nd place finish on the series. But, the lessons learned were invaluable.
With the fourth race being the deciding factor of 1st or 2nd place for him, we told Hunter that no matter how the race finished, we were so proud of him and what he had learned over the prior three races. His corner driving had improved beyond belief and after one race, he had many other adult drivers pull him aside to give him some coaching on drafting and passing on the corners and he had started applying that knowledge to his driving.
I read a quote to Hunter from an interview with Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne:
GOING FROM WHERE YOU WERE WHEN YOU WERE RELEASED FROM WALTRIP RACING AND NOT SURE IF YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO RACE AT KANSAS TO WINNING THE DAYTONA 500 A FEW MONTHS LATER, HOW DOES IT UNDERSCORE YOUR BELIEF THAT THIS IS BIGGER THAN RACING FOR YOU?Racing is great. Winning is fantastic. Learning and growing is wonderful. But it's not the big picture. For Hunter to put God first in his life and to give Him glory no matter what - win or lose - is the highest priority. Hunter gets it. At 9 years old, the kid gets it.
“You know, before this ever happened I had a meeting with some of the people that are running my business and financial stuff and my dad was involved and we sat down to figure out what was the goal of Trevor Bayne as a company, a person, anything. I told them that the goal was not to be the best race car driver or the most marketable or most popular, it is none of those things, it is to build a platform and let God use us on the platform that He is building which might require me to become the best race car driver or be the most marketable or most popular or whatever it is. I just want to stand on the platform that He is putting under me and that is our goal. If that is the goal then our highs and lows will be a lot more manageable.”
Spinning out while about to make his move to pass the leader in the last race of the Winter series knocked Hunter out of the 1st place series win. Of course he was devastated. But he bounced back quickly and counted his blessings for all that he learned in this series and will learn to come.
He's ready to take on Spring 2011.
Go Hunter!
That's awesome. And he gets it because he has two wonderful examples in his parents of what it looks like to follow Christ and put God first.
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