Mike Edwards doesn’t want a valuable message lost in the midst of his recent success.

It’s a message that transcends any No. 1 qualifying effort or round win.

Through a relationship with Young Life, a Christian-based non-denominational youth organization, Edwards reaches out and provides encouragement to teens when others may turn their back on them. Mike Edwards Motorsports calls itself a “Team on a Mission,” and provides trips to camp for every round win. Several drivers, companies and individuals have stepped up the plate to make the program work. In 2008, the project was able to send 140 kids to Young Life camp for a week.

The Young Life logo can be seen plastered across the hood of his car, but Edwards and his team receives no financial support from Young Life.

Mike Edwards doesn’t want a valuable message lost in the midst of his recent success.

It’s a message that transcends any No. 1 qualifying effort or round win.

Through a relationship with Young Life, a Christian-based non-denominational youth organization, Edwards reaches out and provides encouragement to teens when others may turn their back on them. Mike Edwards Motorsports calls itself a “Team on a Mission,” and provides trips to camp for every round win. Several drivers, companies and individuals have stepped up the plate to make the program work. In 2008, the project was able to send 140 kids to Young Life camp for a week.

The Young Life logo can be seen plastered across the hood of his car, but Edwards and his team receives no financial support from Young Life.

“Young Life is on the car because of our love of kids and trying to lead them to Christ,” said Edwards. “We receive no financial support from Young Life; we do it because we want to. Applied Racing Technology, A.R.T., is a mail-order business in Florida. They have been with me for seven or eight years, and they’ve stepped up this year and really helped me a bunch. They’re great friends to us.”

“It is a great chance to bring the kids to the races, because most of them don’t get the opportunity to do that. It has been a great privilege and a blessing to be around those kids. It is a great program and I wish I could get more people involved with it. These kids are good kids; they just have had a bad start in life. They need a little help and encouragement. It is a great program and I’m just glad to be a part of it.”

Not only does Edwards work to send kids to camp, he lets them meet on Thursdays in his pit area.  The opportunity to mentor the kids is not lost on Edwards.

“They have club once a week at schools or wherever they have it. Instead of having it there, they can come to the race track to my pit area and we have club there. We supply them with hot dogs and drinks. Some of them get to come back out on Saturday to watch the race, so it is a pretty exciting weekend for them.”

He hopes the kids will have a great time watching him win in Bristol.

“When we get there, it is usually packed out, so I like that,” he said of Thunder Valley. “It is just a laid-back atmosphere with good down-to-earth folks. I’ve been around those kind of people my whole life, so I enjoy coming there. The fans are all about racing, so I just enjoy going there and putting on a show for them. I’d like to win there one time. I’ve been close, but I’d like to win this year.”

Edwards is not the only one that would like to see himself win in Bristol … a few members of Young Life also would be pretty happy.

“The Young Life program is the most rewarding part of racing,” Edwards admitted. “I would love to win every race I go to; I know it isn’t possible, but we do our program on Thursday nights and if I can turn one of these kids’ lives around, that would be better than any trophy I could ever win. I promise you.”

Mission accomplished.

Advertisement