Title: "The Race Continues in the off season."

With the 2009 racing season fast becoming a memory, the paddocks are empty and the engines have gone silent, but life still goes on. The day to day events of life continue to unfold, bringing with them the same joy, hardship or trials. In the midst of it all we are still called to raise a lamp of hope, even though things may seem to have slowed down, hereís a snapshot of meeting the needs of the people God places us daily in the path of.

Well look here, if it isnít CSBRacing Team Captain Mike Pruitt, standing with that impossibly fast looking #220 chaplain, and the staff of Cyclegear in Daytona Beach, meeting and greeting the riders at a Cyclegear sponsored event. We met a bunch of riders, handing out posters and even a couple Bibles. But you would find it most surprising that the one thing many of the guys who approached us wanted mostÖwas to "belong", to belong to something that had adventure and purpose.

Roebling Road Raceway outside of Savannah Georgia found a group of us trying to keep our edge in the off season. But these bros also had a great need for someone to just listen as they shared their struggles with broken relationships. I met a Red Bull Rookie and champion racer who had been severely injured in a horrific crash a few years back, and he wanted to hear more about getting involved with helping others. And there was another very fast racer who was extremely outgoing and full of energy, but when we got alone his heart was very somber over failed opportunities to have a family.

The Marines celebrated their 234th birthday and CSBRacing was there to support them on a rainy night in Jacksonville Fl. The Marine Corp benefit bike night not only helped raise money for local ROTC training needs, it provided an opportunity to encourage a bunch of the guys, and I also performed the marriage ceremony just a week earlier at the Mayport Naval Base, for one of the Marines pictured.

The garage becomes a banquet hall for an early Thanksgiving celebration, bringing together the guys who we ride the streets with. Sharing our home and friendship to strengthen them and their young families.

And finally, even a chaplain can find himself tempted to cause mischief, but the guy inside the port o john is a French Canadian, and that justifies a little bad behavior, right?

It's not that we can work our way into heaven like the many false religions believe, for the true God of the Bible offers us salvation as a gift of His loving grace, not as a result of works where we could be able to boast of ourselves. But the more you fall in love with God, realize His mercy and forgiveness towards us, the more you just naturally fall in love with other people and want to bring hope and love to them, by meeting their needs in real ways. But you must be willing to step out and meet them. Look, when Jesus healed the crippled man, the man was already waiting by the healing pool of Bethesda. When Jesus restored the blind manís sight, the man had called out to Him. When Jesus felt the woman reach out and touch His clothes, He healed her. All of these and many, many moreÖwere searching, searching for hope. These guys we reach out to arenít going to have their hands raised and be crying out to Jesus, but just like the blind man, they are usually eager...to see. Go meet them. - Art Lohman