On Saturday November 19th, NASCAR crowned their 2016 Camping World Truck Series Champion. This year series regular Johnny Sauter took home the coveted trophy in the last race of the season.
What is really turning heads is his post-race interview. Check out the video below at the 3:40 mark. After the usual formalities of thanking pit crew, family, sponsors and various other people Sauter made a statement not often heard:
“I thank Blessed Mother and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”
This was not Sauter’s first public showing of his Catholic faith. In a 2004 interview Sauter stated that the “whole NASCAR family is religious” and that “from prayers in the trailer to the public invocation from clergy before the green flag drops, the sport wears its belief on the sleeve of its fireproof jumpsuit.”
In that interview he also acknowledged how the power of prayer allowed him to walk away from a horrific wreck in 2002 where he “end over end and just kept flipping. That, to me, tells me that somebody’s looking out for me.”