Gentlemen, Start Your Prayers : Father Phil De Rea Keeps Spirituality Alive Amid Life in the Fast Lane

Father Phil De Rea is a priest with a pit pass.

At the recent Long Beach Grand Prix, he continuously lapped the garage areas, hospitality trailers and pit road, offering hearty smiles, handshakes and words of encouragement in his role as parish priest to Indy car racing.

De Rea is official Catholic chaplain to the Indy car circuit, which spans 17 racetracks from Portland, Ore., to Miami Beach.

“I don’t think there’s been a wedding, a baptism or a funeral on the racing circuit that Father Phil hasn’t done,” says Kevin Diamond of Patrick Racing.

De Rea and his Protestant counterpart, the Rev. Hunter Floyd, make up Motorsport Ministries to serve the 2,500 team members, course workers, corporate reps and media types who form the itinerant caravan that travels and races from March through September.

“The motor racing community is one big, tight family, and Phil and I are their home church,” Floyd says. “We provide total pastoral ministry and a spiritual resting place.”

In describing De Rea, everyone from cooks and set-up crews to the biggest of wheels mentions his warmth and sincerity, his buoyant sense of humor and accommodating attitude, and that he evangelizes by the power of his personality.

“I consider Father Phil my brother,” says Walter Czarnecki, executive vice president of Penske Corp. “For a practicing Catholic it is truly a blessing to have a priest with us on the series, to pray Mass with us, to provide counseling and to develop a personal friendship.”

De Rea sees his work as “caring for people, sharing all the little things that go on in people’s lives”--with the added dimension that, in this parish, disaster is never far away.

“Though there are many safety measures, with racing speeds greater than 200 m.p.h. and the proximity of volatile fuels, there is always that element of danger,” he says. “Racing is very ordinary, very common--until there’s a tragedy.”

In 1992 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, when driver Jovy Marcelo died from injuries sustained in a practice session, Floyd stayed with the driver’s father through the ordeal at the coroner’s office and in making funeral arrangements.

Later, on race day, when Mario Andretti and his nephew Jeff were injured in separate accidents, De Rea was given a police escort to be with them at the hospital before surgery.

“You have no idea what a comfort it was having Father Phil there,” Mario Andretti says. “We look to him for strength and he is part of our lives in every way.”

On Sunday mornings, De Rea usually celebrates five Masses--in his trademark checkered-flag vestment--including one at the Andretti motor coach. “We look forward to that quiet moment as we get ready to embark for battle,” Mario Andretti says.

Although the priest offers prayers for those in harm’s way, most of his work is the routine, even ordinary, activity of any parish. One Mass was offered for the 48th wedding anniversary of driver Danny Sullivan’s parents, and special prayers were requested for a member of the Indy family who would begin chemotherapy treatments the following day.

For a 53-year-old man with diabetes, the priest sets a withering pace. His day starts early and ends late. He walks all day long through the carnival that is the garage area--when he isn’t riding his personalized “Father Phil” motor scooter, a gift from Debi Rahal, wife of Indy 500 winner Bobby.

She calls the priest “my father confessor, my confidant. He is just part of the family and he brings such a peaceful atmosphere, a sense that life continues while away from home.”

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De Rea’s interest in motor sports dates from his youth in the racing town of Nazareth, Pa., where he met future legend Andretti when they were both teen-agers. He was ordained in 1968 and has worked as a missionary and a hospital chaplain. The following year he began attending some of the nearby races to celebrate Mass at the Andretti motor coach. Bit by bit, his Masses became so popular that 14 years ago his participation became official.

He now has a permanent all-access pass and spends Fridays through Sundays on the circuit. Although his ministry is not a salaried position, his expenses are picked up by the racing fraternity.

De Rea credits former racer and current director of competition and chief steward for Indy car racing Wally Dallenbach with elevating the ministry to its official status.

“All our races are on Sundays, and it’s unthinkable not to have any kind of religious services,” Dallenbach says. His wife, Peppy, added that racing is a difficult life, in which many struggle with the temptations of living away from their families. “Father Phil isn’t here to promote religion, but to provide a spiritual connection.”

Religion and sports often intertwine. Many baseball teams have Bible study groups, local priests celebrate Mass at the hotels of professional football teams, and there is even a traveling ministry to the professional golf tour.

ESPN auto-racing broadcaster Jon Beekhuis and his wife, Jennifer, lead a Bible study fellowship group for the Indy racing community one night each week.

De Rea or Floyd opens each of the drivers and mechanics meetings with a prayer. Brash young men in brightly embroidered team uniforms, who within 24 hours will be careening their cars inches from concrete barriers, solemnly remove caps and bow heads.

“The blessing is very important,” says driver Emerson Fittipaldi. “The priest’s presence gives us much more faith, a stronger belief in a safer race that transmits to a greater faith in the presence of God’s helping hand.”

“Racing is a delightful experience, definitely the high of my week,” De Rea says, “but it also connects with my other work.”

Weekdays he is the national director of the Missionary Vehicle Assn., which provides American missionaries around the world with all types of vehicles.

So, if missionaries in Ghana or Haiti or the Andes need even the slowest of vehicles to advance their work, they appeal to the U.S. priest who is at home with some of the fastest automobiles on Earth.

“Our most peculiar request was from an 83-year-old missionary in Madagascar who wanted an ox and an oxcart,” he says. “But the most frequent request is for four-wheel-drive vehicles.”

De Rea’s work with racing has helped to fuel his missionary work. MIVA has received large donations from Penske, Marlboro, J.R. Reynolds and from Newman’s Own food products, owned by actor and racing enthusiast Paul Newman.

Many of MIVA’s directors, including a number of non-Catholics, come from the racing world. The priest estimates that one-third of MIVA’s annual $400,000 budget comes from the motor sports community.

“For me, the greatest joy has been that I really feel I can bring Christ’s gospel in a special way to so many people by being where they are, where they work,” he says. “I would never want to leave the auto-racing community, because I feel, spiritually, it’s very fruitful. Christianity is a lived experience, not a spoken experience.”

Father Phil’s ministry is recognized by the Catholic Church under Pastoral Care of Migrants and Tourists, which includes airport chaplains and chaplains to traveling circuses, a connection De Rea finds appropriate because of the risks faced by those who work with wild animals or in trapeze and high-wire acts.

But he also sees a kinship with the military chaplain. Because of the dangers for all in the choreographed chaos on the deafening pit roads and in the racers’ closeness to the edge, there is the greater awareness of the higher power in their lives.

“Drivers never ask me to pray that they will win,” he says, “just that it be a safe and good race.”