Bayne Strives to Match Tebow in Faith, Values at BetLM

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Day­tona 500 win­ner Trevor Bayne said Fri­day he admires Tim Tebow and wishes he dis­played his faith as strongly as the quar­ter­back does.

Bayne was the upset win­ner in a thrilling fin­ish last year in the Day­tona 500, and the 20-year-old Bap­tist has used his new­found fame as a plat­form for his reli­gion. He said he talked to Tebow over the phone in the whirl­wind media tour fol­low­ing his vic­tory and that the Den­ver quar­ter­back gave him use­ful advice.

The two met in per­son briefly at the ESPYs and have since exchanged occa­sional text messages.

“He gave me a lot of great advice because he’s been through things that I had not yet got to, and now I’ve expe­ri­enced them and his advice really helped out,” Bayne said. “Tebow is a great guy. He is every­thing that he says he is, and I think that’s what’s so awe­some because we see so much in our world of peo­ple talk­ing up a good game … but they are not what they say they are. I think he really is.

“It’s def­i­nitely some­body I look up to and I’d like to wear my faith on my sleeve a lit­tle more like he does.”

Tebow is the son of evan­gel­i­cal mis­sion­ar­ies and does not hide his reli­gious con­vic­tions, and Bayne said he under­stands why that’s so polarizing.

“It’s polar­iz­ing to me because it’s some­thing dif­fer­ent that I think our world needs and I think it desires,” Bayne said. “When you look at some­body and see some­thing dif­fer­ent, you won­der what that is and I think Tim Tebow’s made that very clear what it is. I think that’s our mis­sion is to make it very clear if we look dif­fer­ent to the world it’s because of Jesus.”

Bayne said he started rac­ing with the goal of becom­ing a famous cham­pion, but his pri­or­i­ties have shifted as he’s got­ten older. He talked after his Day­tona vic­tory of using his new plat­form for his faith, and his father, Rocky, insisted that Tebow’s No. 15 being among the NFL’s best-selling jer­seys was evi­dence that an ath­lete with strong reli­gious views can attract fans.

Bayne missed six weeks of rac­ing last year when he was hos­pi­tal­ized for a mys­tery ail­ment that was ulti­mately diag­nosed as Lyme dis­ease. He spent a week under­go­ing tests at the Mayo Clinic.

“I wanted to win races and I wanted to have the most fol­low­ers on Twit­ter or the most fans, but I think that’s changed over the last few years,” Bayne said. “It’s not about me, it never has been, it’s not about what I do here. But it’s about what hap­pens for the King­dom and I think this year I am a lot more fired up about stor­ing my trea­sures in heaven instead of here.

“So I think it’s a really great thing that Tim Tebow is stay­ing firm in what he believes in. He’s not let­ting that change him. I can see how that would be really hard when you have that much flak that you are catch­ing. It would be easy to change and waiver, but I think the rea­son he doesn’t is because it’s real.”

Bayne this year put out a book called “Dri­ven By Faith” for 9– to 12-year-olds to edu­cate on NASCAR and detail his faith.