Region 6 – NorthWest

Tell us a little about you & your family. Linda and I have been married for more than 50 years. We are blessed with two children, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

How did you first connect with RFC?  How long have you been on staff, and how long an RD? Seattle International Raceway usually ran races on Fridays and Saturdays. When they started running on Sundays, I asked the track manager Jay Livingston if I could do a chapel service in the mornings. He said “Sure, but you should get in touch with Racers For Christ.” That was over 20 years ago.

What’s the best part, for you, about serving with the ministry? We really enjoy the friendships we’ve made over the years. Even those who aren’t of any particular faith know we can talk any time because we have those great friendships. We just enjoy helping and making people smile. Linda is known as The Cookie Lady. She had noticed the long days the track workers were putting in and started making cookies to take around each afternoon when they needed a “pick-me-up.” It’s a real source of joy for her to see people’s faces light up when they see her cookie box heading down the lanes!

Tell us about a favorite “God sighting” at a motorsports event where you were serving. Linda likes to use the term “It’s a God thing” when something out of the blue just happens. At one of our events, a Top Dragster roadster not only went off the end of the track but also left the property. After a low seven-second run, the throttle stuck in the open position. By the time the driver had tried everything to shut the car down, he was already at the end of the track. With the motor finally off, the chutes didn’t deploy, the brake pedal broke, and he was still doing over 190 mph. He skimmed over the soft dirt designed to slow him down, plowed through a three-strand barbed wire fence, over an eight-foot-wide, five-foot-deep farm irrigation ditch, across a dirt road, and was headed for a group of people standing in front of a house. The car made a 90-degree left turn, mowed down a mailbox, went through a hedge, and missed a five-inch steel-pipe farm gate that was head-high pointing right at the driver, then into an apple orchard. He came to a stop five rows into the orchard without hitting a single tree. After all of that, without anyone being hurt, the driver was able to get out of the car and load the roadster back into its trailer. It was a “God thing,” for sure!

What’s a random fact most people don’t know about you? For more than 20 years, Linda and I have been hosting a “skate church” in our church’s gym. One night a week during the school year, we provide movable ramps for skate boarders to skate for an hour, then they stop and gather for a 15- to 20-minute message, and then they go back to skating for another hour.  We’ve had several boys go on to be sponsored pro boarders.