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Focus on the Family Broadcast

Marriage in the Stressful World of NASCAR (Part 1 of 2)

Marriage in the Stressful World of NASCAR (Part 1 of 2)

Darrell and Stevie Waltrip share some amazing stories from the NASCAR world and talk about their long-term marriage.
Original Air Date: April 16, 2016

Teaser:

Darrell Waltrip: Boogity, boogity, boogity, let’s go racing, boys!

End of Teaser

John Fuller: (laughs) Well, that’s Darrell Waltrip, mimicking how he used to kick off a NASCAR race from the television booth, and he’s our guest today on Focus on the Family, along with his wife Stevie. Your host is Focus president Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, and a while back it was our privilege to be in Charlotte, North Carolina, to record with the Waltrips at the Darrell Waltrip Museum in front of a live audience.

Jim Daly: It was a great day, John, and a lot of fun with our friends from Focus, and we enjoyed having one of NASCAR’s all-time great champions with us. Uh, Darrell really knows how to drive, and in the ’80s and ’90s, he was the guy.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: He’s fourth on the all-time NASCAR winning list, and, uh, the Lord worked in his life to make some big changes, which helped he and his wife Stevie in their marriage, and that’s what we’re going to hear today.

John: Let’s go ahead and, uh, go back to that day in Charlotte at, uh, the museum, for this fun visit on Focus on the Family.

Audience: (Applause)

Jim: There you go. Lot of good folks out there. Darrell, let me talk to you about NASCAR. Because a lot of people follow NASCAR. The TV audiences. Uh, you do the Fox coverage. There’ll be 250,000 people on, on, at the track sometimes, and millions watching by television. Uh, for those that don’t know NASCAR, what’s its appeal, watching cars go fast around a track?

Darrell: Yeah, well I, and, well, competition. It’s great competition, and, uh, and then the drivers, you know, the drivers are all, uh, celebrities. People have their favorite driver, they pull for their favorite driver. Some people may full- pull for their favorite brand of car. A lot of different ways to connect to what we do. And then we’re on TV every week. Uh, the races are all live, flag to flag, every week, and it’s a big production. You know, we’ve been over here at the racetrack since Thursday. They were over Thursday practicing and qualifying. So it’s a big, big production. It’s a big weekend of, of, uh, television, and then all the things that take place at the track. It’s a, it’s like going to a fair. If you, i- when you go to a race, you have to experience the whole thing. You know [crosstalk]-

Jim: It’s a great place for kids and-

Darrell: Yeah. You don’t just show up for the race.

Jim: That’s right. Now, let me ask you, how did you get interested in this, and how old were you when you thought, “I’d like to race.”

Darrell: Well, seriously, I was six years old.

Jim: Six years old.

Darrell: Yeah.

Jim: That’s not uncommon, though. A lot of these-

Darrell: No.

Jim: … racers-

Darrell: No. Wh- what was uncommon was-

Jim: What do you, do you fall down, hit your head, and say-

Darrell: No, no, no-

Jim: … “Oh, I want to be a racer.”

Darrell: No, my grandmother, uh, Oda Palestine Philips.

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: That was her name. Uh, my grandmother loved racing, and she was a little lady, about five-foot-tall, probably didn’t weigh a 100 pounds. Smoked. Had a cigarette in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. Some of you may have had a grandmother like that. I’m not sure. But anyway, uh, real feisty little lady, and she loved racing. And my grandfather was a deputy sheriff and Owensborough, so my grandfather would go to the race and work the traffic around the, the race on the weekend. My grandmother would go sit in the grandstand and watch the races. And, uh, my grandmother, she had a, a language of her own, at least it seemed that way to me at the time, ’cause she said words I’d never heard before.

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: Uh, I have heard since, but I hadn’t heard them at that point. So my grandfather, and, and my grandmother, she loved GC Spencer. And so that was her driver. [crosstalk] and if anybody messed with GC Spencer, my grandmother was in their face, and I mean in their face. So my grandfather calls my mom and says, “I need for DW to go the races with granny.” Mom said, “Why?” “Keep her out of trouble.”

Jim: Keep her out of trouble.

John: (laughs)

Darrell: He said, “She gonna get… I’m gonna have to lock her up-”

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: “You know, if she goes down in the pits cussing out any more drivers, so-”

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: “maybe if he’s with her, she’ll think twice about doing that.”

Jim: Did it work?

Darrell: “Keep her out of trouble.” No, I went right along with her.

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: I was mad as she was.

Jim: Well, that kind of did set you up. You were a bad boy of NASCAR.

Darrell: I could, could be said. Uh, I had a, I played a role.

Jim: You played a role.

Darrell: Yeah. I really wasn’t a bad person. [crosstalk] but I had a bad reputation.

Jim: You did, and we’re gonna get to how that changed, but one of the key ingredients in that change was meeting Stevie. And Stevie, a lot of moms and dads would say, if you were their daughter, “You want to marry who? A race car driver? Are you crazy?”

Stevie Waltrip: They said, yeah, they said that and more.

Jim: (laughs)

Stevie: Believe me. Um-

Jim: How’d that go when you came home and talked to your mom and dad about that?

Stevie: (laughs)

Jim: Well, I met this man.

Stevie: Yeah, they, they, um, I was in high school. The first time I met Darrell, I was, had just turned 16. And he was 19. And I wasn’t even allowed to, uh, go out with him. If he asked me, which he didn’t, uh, for a while. Uh-

Darrell: She was too.

Stevie: – they were not have let me go out with him.

Darrell: Way too young. Way too young.

Stevie: And, um, but then when we did, uh, I was a senior in high school, and we did get engaged, and, um, my plan up to that point was I was gonna go to Southern Methodist University, like my dad did, and, um, that changed, uh, quickly. And nine months a- after we started dating, we got married. So I had just graduated from high school. And, um, so this was not a part of what my parents had planned for me.

Jim: (laughs)

Stevie: Or had, uh, in any way. So they, they were upset, but I have to say, my mother and dad, when they realized that this was the way it was gonna go, they were very strong, um, believers in the institution of marriage. And they decided since I loved Darryl, they were gonna love him too. And so from the time we got married, until they went to be with the Lord, um, Darryl always said, if something happened between he and I, he was gonna go home to my parents, so-

Jim: (laughs)

Stevie: (laughs) They, they became very close.

Jim: That, that’s a great way-

Darrell: I, I didn’t have a relationship with, with the Lord at that time. But the Lord did speak to me. Uh, I- I- I think, you know-

Jim: How, how-

Darrell: God-

Jim: What do you mean by that?

Darrell: Well, when, uh, when I met Stevie, uh, I knew, uh, in my heart and in my soul that she was the woman I was supposed to marry. Uh, for a number of reasons. But mainly because I just knew, God said, “This is the woman you should marry. Don’t let her get away.”

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: And, and, ’cause she was gonna go to school. She getting ready to leave to go to, to Texas, to school. And I, I knew she did, we may not get married right away. And I, I wasn’t, like, pushing or anything, but I just, I just knew that she was the right woman.

Stevie: Oh, yes, he was.

Jim: (laughs)

Stevie: And, and the problem was, the Lord told him that, but He didn’t tell my parents that, so-

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: Or Stevie.

Jim: Now were you, were you racing at the time?

Darrell: Oh, yeah.

Jim: Had you hit the big track by that point?

Darrell: Oh, no, no. I was racing on the… That’s why… My father-in-law, who had worked in the pits at Indie as a, as a, uh, one of the safety workers in the Indie. They had volunteers up there at that time, and he had worked at the pits in the Indie. He had been to the Daytona 500, so he knew about big leagues racing, but he didn’t know about our little local racing at Whitesville Speedway or Ellis Speedway or Hobb Star, or some of the dirt tracks that I started out on. So his image, or his vision of racing was not very good. I mean, you know, he thought about beer drinking and fighting-

Jim: Right.

Darrell: And that kind of thing. And so, in a way, that was true. That’s the way it was. But I had a much bigger vision than that. But it was gonna take a while for that vision to, to come true, so I was racing at that level that he didn’t like, and so when I talked to him about marrying Stevie, so he says, “So how are you gonna support my daughter?” I said, I’m gonna be a professional race car driver,” uh, and he didn’t think that was gonna work out so hot.

Jim: (laughs) What did he say though?

Darrell: I wasn’t real sure myself.

Jim: What, then what, I mean, yeah, it’s all unknown at that point, and really, it’s like any professional sport. One in a million.

Darrell: Yeah.

Jim: Can actually make it.

Darrell: Yeah.

Jim: But you did, and you did in a big way.

Darrell: Yeah. I, I was just determined. Uh, from the time I was a little guy, I raced my first race when I was 12 on a go-cart. I’d never driven a go-cart. I’d seen them race, I’d watched them race. I’d been to the shopping center parking lot where they raced these carts every Sunday, and for whatever reason, in, in my mind, if I ever had a chance, I could drive one of those things as fast or better than anybody out there. And that’s what, it’s kind of like a race fan that sits in the stand, says, all, “Yeah, I got a Chevy SS like that. Or I got a Camry like that. I guarantee you I could do that.”

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: But that’s kind of how I felt when I was a little guy. Said, “If I ever get the chance, I know I could do that.” And the first time I got on it, I won.

Jim: And you liked it.

Darrell: And I loved it.

Jim: Darrell, talk about that, and Stevie, I want to hear your perspective on that. So you have success from 12 years old on, and you then eventually make it to the big track, NASCAR, the big leagues, the big sponsors, all the brand names we talk about. What kind of person, let me turn it to Stevie. What kind of person was Darrell, um, with that much success-

Darrell: Let me-

Jim: And that much-

Darrell: Remember they’re recording this now.

Jim: (laughs) And that much competition.

Darrell: Got an audience.

Jim: I mean, it’s a really unique environment that a lot of people don’t get to, where it’s about winning every day, and you got to have a fierce desire to win that’s unusual.

Stevie: Um, at that time, in his life, that was what his focus was completely and totally all about. His was to be a successful race car driver, and like he said, he was very determined, probably would have done just about anything to make whatever it was he thought should happen, happen. So we were married at the time, and my focus was on him and our marriage. His was on racing, and, um, obviously our focus was not where it needed to be.

Jim: Hm.

Stevie: And our relationship was not like I wanted it to be. And I’m not sure he even thought about our relationship at the time. So-

Jim: But he was all consumed, right?

Stevie: He truly was.

Jim: Yeah.

Stevie: And, uh, but because, um, the Lord uses everything to, um, he can redeem anything, and because was miserable in our relationship, then I started looking for the Lord. And I believe at the time I was a Christian, but I was a baby Christian, and we didn’t go to church because we raced. And so, um, I asked the Lord on our tenth anniversary, I wrote Darrell a, just a note to tell him how much I appreciated him and loved him, and we said our vows to each other again, and, um, but I said, “I, I truly want to love the Lord more than I, I do you.”

Jim: Hm.

Stevie: And I, I, the Lord took that as a prayer.

Jim: Huh.

Stevie: And from that, I’m, I’m, the Lord was working to get us both to that point-

Jim: Did you convey that to Darrell though?

Stevie: Oh, yeah, I wrote that in that note.

Jim: Now, his, your competitive spirit-

Darrell: Well.

Jim: Did you say, “Okay, now I’m in a race with God?”

Darrell: Yeah.

Jim: For Stevie’s heart.

Darrell: Here’s, here’s what I had to figure out. Our God’s a jealous God. I mean, the Bible says so. He is a jealous God. You will put no gods before Me. Well, this building is full of things that I put before God. From the very first time I ever drove a go-cart, until 1983, I put a lot of things before God. The, my racing career, uh, Stevie and my marriage, I kind of threw God in there every now and then, you know, when I needed help. Uh, you know, I, it, it was hard for me to let go. Uh, ’cause I’d always done it my… I always felt like I did it myself.

Jim: Right.

Darrell: The races I won, the things I did, uh, it was things that I had done. And I wasn’t giving God any glory.

Jim: Well, and you were winning, and you were again, all the accolades are coming your direction, the quietness of your heart, Stevie, and your marriage, feeling lonely. A lot of women feel that way with their heart charging men. Now, I don’t, it’s the 80/20 rule. I get that. It can be reversed. But, but you were lonely, I’m sure.

Stevie: I was.

Jim: But you, Darrel, uh, there was a particular race that got your attention because of what happened. Set the stage of what happened, and how God spoke to your heart.

Darrell: What, an athletes, and, and race car, I can only speak as a race car driver. That’s kind of how I think. But I think athletes in general think they’re invincible. Uh-

Jim: Sure.

Darrell: There’s, you know, I’m, when something would happen, and to other drivers, I’d say, “Well, he didn’t know what he was doing, he wasn’t that good, you know, he made a mistake.” All those things. And, uh, I never really been hurt in a race car. Uh, had some wrecks. Not saying I never wrecked, but I never had a serious wreck until 1983, uh, in ’83 I had a wreck at Daytona, that I spun off, turned four, into the inside wall, and, uh, had a serious concussion.

Jim: I mean, you, that car flipped how many times?

Darrell: No, they didn’t. That, that’s not a flip.

Jim: Oh it was head on.

Darrell: This wasn’t flipper. This was, this was in ’83, and I backed it into the wall and had a concussion. Went to two races and didn’t even remember going to them when I finally woke up.

Jim: Wow.

Darrell: A lot of people said that wreck knocked me conscious.

Jim: (laughs) What do you mean by that?

Darrell: I, I think they were right because at that point, that’s when I realized, woo, you can get hurt doing this.

Stevie: And before ’83, I had had an epiphany moment with the Lord, and, um, had started going to Bible study fellowship, and listening to Chuck Swindall-

Jim: (laughs)

Stevie: On the radio. And would turn it up really loud, so that when Darrell was shaving or –

Jim: You’d have to listen.

Stevie: He would have to hear Chuck.

Jim: This sounds like a normal marriage. I like this. You’re so subtle about this.

Stevie: I know, yes. And, and a lot of the, uh, races that we would go to, I’d have my Bible study fellowship notes, and I’d be reading them out loud. Darryl, you won’t believe what, this is so cool

Jim: (laughs)

Stevie: Listen to this. And, um-

Darrell: Hold on a minute, Hammond’s on the other line. Hang on.

Stevie: (laughs) But no, he, he actually was very receptive. Or he said he was. He said he enjoyed hearing them, and I would read those out loud to him, and we would talk about them, and I was, that was a first Bible study that I’d ever done and my life, and to this day, it’s one of my best periods of my life. Best memories.

Jim: You’re just hungry for God’s word.

Stevie: Just I truly was.

Jim: Yeah.

Stevie: Just couldn’t get enough. And so, you know, the Lord was working. The Lord was using His words and His, um, in Darrell’s life. He probably wasn’t aware of that, but, but he was.

Darrell: One of the things that really, uh, spoke to my heart, uh, was Michael Carden. Um, [crosstalk]

Jim: Christian, Christian singer back-

Darrell: Yeah.

Jim: Back in the 80s and 90s.

Darrell: Well, he still is, and writes.

Jim: Yes.

Darrell: Most all of us songs are right out of the Bible scripture, most all of them are. Beautiful. Beautiful songs. And we had met Michael, and became friends with he and his wife Susan, and, uh, I can’t tell you how many times going to the track on Sunday morning, uh, we would listen to Michael Carden music. And, um, and it really kind of touched my heart, and then, uh, in ’83, after that accident in February, uh, we started going to a, um, a church that met on Wednesday nights.

Jim: Hm.

Darrell: All those years before, my excuse was, well, I can’t go. I don’t have time. I can’t go to church on Sunday because I work on Sunday. All the races, they were on Sunday afternoon, so I don’t have time. I can’t make it to church, so, and I’m not one of those guys. I’m either all in, or I’m not gonna do it, so we’re not gonna go. And then we found a, she did. Found a church that met on Wednesday night. And, uh, Dr. Cortez Cooper, uh, became a great friend and a great mentor, and he helped me, uh, rededicate my life.

Jim: Well, and he asked you some very specific questions, didn’t he?

Darrell: Yeah, oh, yeah. He was… But accord- Dr. Cooper was, he was a man’s man. He knew, he knew about baseball, he knew about football, and he knew who I was. Uh, I wouldn’t ha- I didn’t have any idea he knew me or that he knew any- about what I did. But he knew who I was, and we just connected.

Stevie: He knew the good, the bad, and the ugly, and he loved him in spite of it.

Jim: Well, that’s the-

Stevie: You know, he truly did.

Jim: Yeah, that’s a key-

Stevie: He just-

Jim: Point though.

Stevie: Yes, it is.

Darrell: Yeah, he would, uh, put his arm around me and then hug me and comment that God loved me. Not, he didn’t tell me he loved me. He did, but he said, “God loves you, and God has a plan for your life.” And, um-

Jim: Hm.

Darrell: I said, “I don’t know, bud. Um, does He like racing?”

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: He a race fan?

Jim: And you and I have talked before. You also had the doubts that your character didn’t measure up, right? How could God love me?

Darrell: In a lot of ways, that’s true. And it, even in some ways that, uh, that maybe you don’t even realize, but we wanted to have children. And we couldn’t. We kept trying, and we, we couldn’t. And, uh, we tried for 18 years to have children. And, uh, I was, at one time, I was convinced that it was because of me.

Jim: In what way, like, your behavior, or-

Darrell: Yeah, yeah, because of my lifestyle. That way, I didn’t, I thought maybe God didn’t think I’d be a good father.

John: So God was stopping you from being a father.

Darrell: Yeah.

John: In your mind.

Darrell: In my mind. Uh, and I know that’s not true, but by the same token, uh, when you try and you try and you try, and it, it’s not happening, I kind of convinced myself that, you know, maybe God thinks I wouldn’t be a good dad.

Jim: When your first child came along, did, how did that your heart and it changed your mind?

Darrell: It was… Well, you, you, listen. I got sick.

Stevie: We, we lost-

Darrell: I had morning sickness.

Audience: (laughs)

Stevie: We lost babies before I finally got pregnant with Jessica, and, um, and I had such a peace about this pregnancy. Darrell on the other hand, when I, when I got morning sickness, and I’m celebrating-

Jim: (laughs)

Stevie: Because this is the way it’s supposed to be, and it had not been that way in the previous pregnancies, so I’m celebrating being sick, and he actually got morning sickness. He actually got sick-

Darrell: Tough nine months, I’m telling you.

Audience: (laughs)

Stevie: And, and that was the first time in many years that he went from January until September, which is my pregnancy, those nine months, uh, that he didn’t win a race.

Jim: Oh.

Stevie: He, I mean, he (laughs) he was completely changed by this little unborn baby.

Jim: Huh. Yeah. Why was it such an impact on you? The hard-core winning driver?

Darrell: Well, yeah. Mainly we had prayed a lot, and my walk with the Lord had gotten stronger, and we were doing everything right. We’d kind of done everything wrong, or at least I had, and now we’re doing everything right.

Stevie: Or trying to.

Darrell: Yeah, or trying to. And then, then I felt like I got right with the Lord, and, uh, then this baby comes along, and, and I changed teams in, uh, I quit driving the 11 car for Junior Johnson, and I went to drive the Tide car for Rick Henry. And that was in 1987. And we had what they called the dream team. I mean, it was like the best of the best, me, Wadell Wilson, all the best crew members you could assemble. We were gonna win every race. I mean, we, there was no question about it. With the talent we had, and the driver, and the sponsor, we’d win every face. And we didn’t win a race until September.

Jim: Huh, all year.

Darrell: All year long. I mean, we had a good car, decent car, fast car. Upping the points good, but we just did win and, uh, the weekend that Jessica was born, we won that race. That was our first win that year.

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: And, and what was amazing about that was, and it’s hard for me to tell these things ’cause it touches my heart, but, um, we’re at Martinsville, one of my favorite tracks, short track, and I won a lot there. And, uh, Jessica was born on Thursday, I think it was, and, uh, so I had to go to the track, and I left Stevie, and, and Jessica at home. And I get to the track, and Sunday morning, I get to the track. And I’m, I’m on cloud nine. We got a beautiful little baby girl, things are good, man, they’re good. Car won’t run worth a flip, but (laughs) everything else pretty good.

Jim: It didn’t matter that much.

Darrell: Everything else pretty, good, and I don’t really care.

Jim: (laughs)

Darrell: So I get to the track on Sunday morning, I go down to the car, and it’s the pits here, and I look and see in the car there’s a vase with a rose in it.

Jim: Oh.

Darrell: And a note, and I, I said, “Wow, what’s this?” Open up the note, and it said, “Win this one for me, daddy.”

Audience: Aw.

Jim: It’s still chokes you up.

Stevie: It does. (laughs)

Jim: It’s great.

Darrell: Like a big old baby.

Stevie: (laughs)

Darrell: But anyway-

Jim: Wait a minute.

Stevie: (laughs)

Jim: So you won it, right?

Darrell: Yeah, but it’s, this even better. Um, so we hadn’t won a race all year, and I show the note to all the guys, and they said, “Yeah, right.” They hadn’t won a race all year. But anyway-

Stevie: (laughs)

Darrell: In the race, we’re not, the car’s decent, but it’s not great. Late caution, get some tires on the thing, and we got a run at it. We go- we gonna get a pretty good finish out of this. White flag comes in the air, and I’m running third. I’m running behind Earnhardt’s leading, Terry Labonte second, I’m running third. And, um, we go down in the first turn, and Terry tries to get up on the outside of Dale, and Dale pushes him up the hill, and Terry gets in the wall coming off a turn, bounces off the wall. Well, now, I, I know how Terry drives, I know how Dale is. Terry was hot, and he was gonna go down in the third turn. He was gonna boot old Dale. He was gonna do the bump and run on him. Well, while they’re up there two knuckleheads messing with each other, here I come, I got a head of steam. I’m coming down the back straightaway too, and I’m thinking, I’m gonna at least get by Terry. So I drive down in the third turn, and Terry over drove the corner trying to get Dale. I over drove the corner trying to get to Terry. I bumped Terry. Terry bumped Dale. Dale and Terry went up the racetrack and backwards, and I went by and wav- and when I went by, I waved.

Audience: (laughs)

Darrell: Waving. And I didn’t lead but 600 feet of that race, but I won that race.

Jim: You led only 600 feet of 500 miles.

Darrell: From turn four to the start finish line, that’s all I led.

Jim: (laughs) I guess that’s all that matters.

Darrell: That’s all that mattered, I won that race.

Jim: Now after the race, did they come to you and-

Darrell: Oh, yeah.

Jim: Pray for you?

Darrell: Oh, no.

Stevie: (laughs)

Darrell: No. They used some of those hyphenated words that we don’t, we might not ought to be repeating.

Stevie: Those grandmother words, right?

Darrell: Yeah, those grandmother words.

Jim: Your grandma came back [crosstalk]

Darrell: Grannie was there. Yeah. But it was amazing ’cause it’s the only race I won that year, in 1987.

Jim: Oh, that’s something. Stevie, let me ask you this, ’cause so many people, they may not have a spouse who knows the Lord. And they’re where you were. Um, speak to that wife who knows that her husband isn’t there yet. And you could tell there was a change in Darrell. You know, so many times people say, “Well, how do you know if you encounter God?” You saw a changed life and a changed heart.

Stevie: I did.

Jim: Describe who he became, the kind of man.

Stevie: Well, first of all, I never gave up on the hope that we have in Christ. And the Lord’s the one that does the saving. And my part is to pray. And that’s what I did, and I asked people that I could confide in that would love Darrell regardless, um-

Jim: Now this, you got to paint that picture because Darrell was that driver that everybody hated. I mean, they would throw beer cans at him and yell at him.

Darrell: Chicken bones.

Jim: Right?

John: You were the bad boy.

Jim: Chick- even chicken bones.

Darrell: Oh, yeah.

Jim: I mean, that’s pretty bad.

Darrell: That’s pretty bad.

Stevie: (laughs)

Jim: But you were. Everybody you-

Darrell: ‘Cause I like both.

Jim: You were the, the bad guy. Today who would that be?

Darrell: Oh-

Jim: Who’s kind of that guy?

Darrell: Well, it could be a couple of guys. It could be Kevin Harvick. Uh, he’s got a kind of hot temper and Tony Stewart kind of got a hot temper.

Jim: So that hot temper. So that paints the picture.

Darrell: Kyle Bush, Kyle Bush is a pretty, probably a good representative of somebody that I acted like.

Jim: Right. And so then, continue from there, Stevie, so that paints the picture.

Stevie: Yeah, and then, um, so I just, I prayed and so did a few of my close friends. Then I would, like I said, I read my notes to him, and I… He could not help but notice the enthusiasm that I had in regards to the Bible and what I was hearing. And he grew up going to church. So it’s not like it was completely foreign to him. But, um, it, I’m sure it did have some sort of influence, and, uh, so I would just tell a wife that, um, “You might give up on your husband, but don’t give up on God.”

Jim: Hmm.

Stevie: You know, um, the Lord wants, um, wants all of us to be in His kingdom. So that was my approach with Darrell. And I also, you know, he, he, there is this picture of this aggressive, angry, young man, and he was. But also he had an incredibly tender heart. And I probably was maybe the only person that recognized that. You can’t have what he’s got. I always think of him, his heart was so tender that he did whatever he could to protect that. And that’s kind of how, how I saw him, and little by little the Lord just chiseled away, chiseled away, chiseled away at that hardness. And it was-

Jim: And you could see it.

Stevie: I could see it.

Jim: And you knew he changing.

Stevie: Yes.

Darrell: She likes to say that she’s been married to two men with the same name.

Jim: (laughs) That’s a good thing though.

Stevie: And that’s the truth. Yep.

John: We’ve been listening to a special Focus on the Family conversation with Darrell and Stevie Waltrip from Charlotte, North Carolina, that was recorded in the Darrell Waltrip Museum in front of a live audience, and, uh, there was a steady rain coming down all day. You might have heard that, actually, in the background. It didn’t dampen the spirits, though, of those of us in the room listening to this couple share so insightfully and candidly about their marriage and their experiences in NASCAR. And as you’ve heard about their spiritual journey, it may be that you’d like to know more about having a relationship with Jesus Christ. Uh, we would love to share a little booklet we have with you. It’s called Coming Home, and it explains the Christian walk more fully. It gives you some next steps to grow in your faith, and we’ve got that online, or we can send a printed version to you. Our number’s 800-A-FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I’ll invite you back next time as we continue the discussion with Darrell and Stevie Waltrip and once more, help you and family thrive in Christ.

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