Y MOM SAYS I WAS excited about race cars ever since I could talk, and I have to believe her, because I can’t remember when I wasn’t,” says Nashville, Tennessee, resident Carlin J. Alford.

C. J. Alford, as he is known on the track, is an up-and-coming race car driver who serves his friendly God both on and off the racetrack. This 30-year-old Andrews University graduate takes every chance to share his faith—whether he’s directing a church youth group or simply hanging out with fellow drivers in the garage.

His passion for cars started when his dad helped him build his first car for a neighborhood Soap Box Derby league. A next-door-neighbor stock car owner put him in a go-cart, and at 8 years old Alford set the track record for his age group. The record set at Michiana Raceway in Mishawaka, Indiana, still stands.

C. J. Alford’s fast facts: Racing team: Logan Racing Fastest speed in a car on the track: 189 mph Speeding tickets: two Dream car: 1967 Shelby GT (Mustang)

“I was hooked from that point, and I just kept moving up,” says Alford.

Alford is continuing to move up in the racing world, but talents alone are not enough to make it to the top. Alford explains that racing is very expensive, involving paying for track time, tires, gasoline—and that’s not even borrowing the car. He has now teamed up with Logan Racing, a team wanting to develop minority drivers of any ethnicity.

A lot of professional drivers want to see Alford move up because of the diversity he brings to the track. “They want NASCAR [National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing] to reflect America, and right now it doesn’t,” he says.

Team Logan’s resources combined with Alford’s talents and a sponsorship will give him the break he’s been looking for. In fact, a corporate sponsor could very well put him in next year’s Indianapolis 500.

“Don’t get me wrong,” says Alford. “There are many things that need to happen first.” He still needs to obtain his IRL (Indy Racing League) license, and the sponsorship is crucial.

Alford once turned down a very lucrative sponsorship deal with a tobacco company. Some people in the industry, including other drivers and team owners, say he’s crazy, and Alford hasn’t been able to get sponsored since.

But Alford looks at it differently. In a sport already graffitied with beer and tobacco logos, Alford says he has a chance to overpower that message by not having it on his own car. He doesn’t smoke or drink and will not promote it.

“I don’t believe I’m here for just any old reason,” he says. “The Lord knows exactly what He wants to do with my racing, and it’s going to happen the way He wants it to happen.”

Taking Every Chance
Alford feels that the Lord has brought him through a lot already. Two years ago he was diagnosed with bone cancer. Doctors found a tumor in his accelerator leg (right leg, for nonracers).

He underwent aggressive chemotherapy that caused a reaction in his body, putting him in the hospital for a week with a temperature of 104°F.

“At one point I didn’t feel like I was going to make it,” he says. “I actually asked God to let me die during that time.” God didn’t, and it’s changed his perspective on life. “I take every chance I get to tell people that I love Him,” says Alford.

He walks with a limp now because he has a steel rod in his leg from the operation. The disease ended up diagnosed as benign. Some have told Alford it was simply a change in diagnosis; others are sure it was a miracle.

Alford just knows that he’s healthy now, and it’s changed the way he treats every day. On the track he says: “I actually drive harder now than I did before. Life can be taken from you at any moment, and it doesn’t have to do with racing. You’d better drive as hard as you can, because you may never get another chance.”

Favorable Finishes
His main racing job now is testing cars for other teams when their drivers have sponsorship responsibilities, such as meeting with company employees, interviews, or fan clubs. As a result, Alford has developed a rapport with many good teams who know he can drive well. Recently he has tested with Anderson Motorsports in Alabama in the Craftsman Truck Series.

Alford is licensed for the NASCAR lower division, Goody Dash Series. In 1999 he tested at Huntsville Speedway in Alabama and at the Louisville Speedway in Kentucky. His official test time at Lanier Raceway in Georgia would have qualified fifth for the previous Goody’s Dash race.

He has also tested for NASCAR Craftsman Truck and with ARCA (Automobile Race Car Association). In 1997 he raced a 911 Targa in the Porsche Club of America in events in Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; and South Haven, Michigan.

Alford says his best race was with the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) in the Pontiac Firebird Club on a road course in Elkhart, Indiana, where he had a very favorable finish in the top three.

But even with an unfavorable finish, Alford still has a positive attitude. He explains that in racing, many cars don’t even make it into a particular race. For example, in the last Daytona 500, 43 cars started the race while 49 showed up to make the race. Other races may have 100 cars trying to get into a 30-car field. Alford exclaims: “Even if I come in last, I’ve still beat 70 other cars.” Unlike other popular sports in which there is a winner and a loser, many races offer every driver prize money.

And while there is only one champion, drivers consider taking a twentieth-place car and finishing in the top 10 a win. “My whole career—and this is no excuse—I’ve driven junk,” says Alford. He’s taken cars with holes in the floorboard to top five finishes. He’s had to do last-minute welding on cars just so they could pass technical inspection. He’s raced cars with oil-leaking motors, cars with smoke coming out of the tailpipe, cars that make some people wonder how he’s making a lap, let alone finishing in the top 10.

“I’ve never had the money to buy the equipment that I’ve needed to compete at that level.” And thus he says his dream car for the track is a car that doesn’t need any work.

Fast Times
C. J. Alford has been involved in one significant crash. He describes it as a mentally numbing experience. “When you’re in a race car, you’re looking half a track ahead, because that’s how fast it’s moving. A crash happens in a split second and you’re not there; mentally you’re in the future.

I wasn’t scared until after I got out of the car and looked at it.”

Of course, once in a while we hear about something terrible happening on the track, even death. Alford says, “There are only two types of drivers: those who have crashed and those who are going to crash.”

Some people would criticize Alford for participating in what they think is a dangerous activity. But Alford says a person is more likely to get killed walking across the street than racing around a track.

“Those cars are very safe; they’re made to crash,” he explains.

So just how fast do those cars get going? 

“I’ve been up to 189 miles per hour in a car,” says Alford.

And what, pray tell, does his mom think of all this?

“Well, she’s never actually seen me race,” explains Alford. “A few years ago I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t want to hear about it. She thought I would grow out of it. She didn’t realize I was going to the track a lot of Sundays and Saturday nights.”

However, now that Alford has made the commitment to turn professional, his mom has been supportive. She plans to make the trip to her son’s next race.

Off the Track
Off the track Alford works in marketing for Dialogic Communications, a company in Nashville, Tennessee, that is committed to helping him get his Indy Racing League license.

Alford also directs Unity, a contemporary gospel youth choir. But he says his fiancée is the one that really sings. She is Robin Gellineau of the group Addae.

“Our ministry together is with young people,” says Alford. “Hers is ministering to them from the stage; mine is ministering with them as director of a youth choir.”

His youth choir, by the way, took second place at April’s United Youth Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana.*

Alford also operates a program that he started in September 1999, Raising Academics with Computers for Education (RACE). He has recently partnered with Logan Racing and its program, Racing to Read. These programs, both of which are out to help students, visit corporations after upgrades and ask for the donation of their old computers. The donated computers then go to inner city youth who don’t have computers at home.

Alford says the digital divide is getting greater between the haves and the have-nots. It’s one of his burdens to help. “If we can provide a few young people with the resources they need to compete educationally, then I’m satisfied,” he says.

Race Car Christians
Many folks might wonder if being in a racing environment is conducive to an Adventist lifestyle.  

“Many people don’t realize this, but there are a lot of Christians in racing, and I mean a lot,” says Alford. He gains inspiration from many other Christian drivers, such as last year’s Winston Cup champion Bobby Labonte, who had “John 3:16” on the back of his car; Jeff Gordon, who leads out in many worship services; and Darrell Waltrip, who opens his house for Bible studies.

Alford says that not racing on Sabbath hasn’t held him back, pointing out that short tracks race on Saturday night while much of big-league racing takes place on Sundays, with qualifying on Friday afternoons.

Alford—A Fan of God
Does Alford have lots of fans?

“A 6-year-old kid asked me for my autograph the other day,” he says. “That’s about it for my groupies.”

But just talk to those who know him well, and you’ll find out that Carlin Alford is an inspiration to his youth group and those who want to see him move up in the ranks as a professional driver.

And while not everyone may appreciate the sport of racing, certainly Christians can understand his relationship with his God.

“God to me is someone who’s ever-present, like a best friend,” says Alford. “If you have good news that you want to share, you jump on the phone and call your best buddy—that’s the way God is to me. I talk to Him constantly. He’s very real to me. He understands that I’m not perfect, but at the same time He doesn’t encourage me to wallow in my imperfection. I try to introduce Him to everybody that I know. My relationship with Him is everything to me.”

*See a report on the congress in Adventist Review, May 2001, pp. 40-42.

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Ansel Oliver works for the Communication Department of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.