The Nashville Superspeedway is known for its extreme race finishes, guitar trophies, and that one time Kyle Busch smashed a guitar on the floor. One other event that goes in sync with the track’s memory is the prayer that pastor Joe Helms delivered before the 2011 Xfinity Series race. The ingenuity of his comedic genius during the 53-second invocation lives more than a decade on.
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“Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight for all your blessings you send, and all things give thanks,” he kicked off. He continued to thank god for the high-performance cars, Goodyear’s tires, and Sunoco’s fuel when things got spicy. He said, “Lord, I want to thank you for my smokin’ hot wife tonight, Lisa, and my two children, Eli and Emma – or, as we like to call them, the Little Es.”
He then returned to what is usually said every week and prayed that the drivers put on a show worthy of the race track. “In Jesus’ name. Boogity, boogity, boogity. Amen,” he concluded and made a name for himself in the books of NASCAR. Helms’ words received widespread attention for being so out of the ordinary and earned him much love from the fandom.
“Lord, I want to thank you for my smoking hot wife.”
Joe Nelms’ pre-race prayer at Nashville in 2011 might be the greatest in NASCAR history. pic.twitter.com/caH1q5oPK2
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) June 26, 2024
He told Fox Sports in 2021 that he had seen one too many boring invocations and wanted to connect with the fans. He certainly did that as was evident from the roars of laughter that erupted from drivers, crews, and the stands. Unfortunately, he wasn’t called up to say the prayers when the track returned to the NASCAR schedule in 2021.
However, those 53 seconds did lead him to deliver another invocation at the Richard Childress Racing holiday party and to serve as the track chaplain at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. “I’m just an old, country boy from North Georgia that don’t deserve any of it, but I’m not giving any of it back,” he says. Even Darrell Waltrip once recognized him at a gas station. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Austin Dillon summed up what every driver was feeling after hearing the prayer. “The cool part about it was it kind of pumped me up before the race,” he said. “Some people use music, but that prayer was like, ‘Man, I want to go out there and race and put on a show for the fans and do it for the big man above.’ It was cool. It got me fired up. It gave me goosebumps.”
The prayer landed Helms multiple interviews with leading broadcasters. Videos of the prayer are on YouTube with multi-million views and a song that was written about the prayer has more than 7.3 million views.
