Photos by Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Joyce Youpp (right) and Whitey Taylor pray for Brenda Simmons (background) a long-time friend now in hospice care.

Whitey Taylor prays for Jason Lynn-Hicks, who has been suffering from health problems, at Hicks' home in rural Franklin County.

Whitey Taylor preaches from the pulpit at Church 180 Turn or Burn.

CALLAWAY -- From hard-drinking racetrack operator to holy man, few have traveled life's journey faster or farther than the Rev. Donald "Whitey" Taylor.

Long known as ready with his fists when hot-rod drivers got out of hand on Saturday nights at Franklin County Speedway, Taylor now rallies the down-and-out on Sunday mornings in the racetrack's storage building -- converted home of the theatrically named Church 180 Turn or Burn.

The turnaround in Taylor's life invites skepticism, the burly 58-year-old acknowledged. His mission of spreading faith among sinners includes personal confession. "I was a hellion," he preached in a sermon to about 40 congregants on Nov. 9.

Still, Taylor added quickly, he was never all bad: "I always had respect for my mother."

If she was sacrosanct, hardly anyone else was. The Haysi native jabbed just about every other authority he encountered for decades. Taylor was walking, talking, wheeling and dealing evidence of the old advertising saying that "there's no such thing as bad publicity."

By promoting a Willie Nelson concert in 1980 at which up to 100,000 people were expected, Taylor provoked then-Franklin County Sheriff Quint Overton into readying armored cars for crowd control.

After the sheriff warned that public drinkers would be arrested -- Nelson was known to tip a few on stage -- the country singer soon canceled his appearance.

Taylor still staged the concert, but without a major star. Someone, apparently angry over Nelson pulling out, burned down the barn of one of Taylor's neighbors. Taylor said he paid to have it rebuilt.

After a dispute with Franklin County supervisors in 1988, Taylor put up a billboard on U.S. 220 that proclaimed the county "the moonshine capital of the U.S."

When he ran for public office in the white-dominated county -- which to this day has roads named after Confederate heroes -- he posted campaign signs that proclaimed "Vote Whitey." He said he meant no racial connotation with the signs.

Taylor paid federal taxes when he felt like it, which wasn't often enough for the Internal Revenue Service. An IRS audit in 1990 found that he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was forced to sell his house in Hunting Hills, his Mercedes-Benz and his personal helicopter.

Merit badges for ministry

That was a different Whitey Taylor, he now insists: "I was lost."

Of course the stories of worldly men transformed into proclaimers of God's word are staples of 20th-century evangelism. There's a taste of Sinclair Lewis's 1926 novel, "Elmer Gantry," in Taylor's true-life tale. Gantry, a boozy traveling salesman, took to the pulpit -- reinventing himself with the help of a woman preacher.

Taylor's metamorphosis includes falling in love with a minister's daughter, Kim Cook, whom he met after his first wife died of breast cancer in 1990. They wed in 1991. He was he was 41 and she was 22.

Even Kim was put off by her suitor's notoriety: "When God said, 'He's going to be your husband,' I said, 'God, are you sure?' "

Taylor flaunts his irreverent yesterdays like merit badges that paradoxically qualify him for the ministry.

"My past has made me what I am today," he said. "I would much rather learn how to lose weight from a guy who has been fat than one who hasn't."

Taylor's origins are unpretentious. He is the son of a nursing home cook and a coal mine construction worker. He quit high school in 10th grade and soon after left Haysi, a tiny town in Dickenson County that's just a few minutes' drive from the Kentucky border. That was in 1967.

His nickname came on his first job at 17 as a roofer in Roanoke, where the sun bleached his already blond hair. He saved to buy a gas station with $200 down, parlayed that business into a convenience store and, in 1978, the speedway.

He made the track a virtual mint, beefing up attendance by introducing races among drivers of unlikely cars, including some that appeared to have been salvaged from junkyards. "I called them 'any cars,' " said Taylor. "Pretty soon I was rolling in money."

He lived large, treating friends on trips to NASCAR races in Charlotte and Daytona Beach, where his ownership of the relatively small speedway gained invitations to drive fancy pace cars and to live it up in VIP suites full of buffets, beer and liquor.

The old Taylor partied so hard that today, even some of his closest friends have doubted his spiritual sincerity.

"At first when I heard Whitey was preaching, I thought, 'What kind of deal is this?' " said Ronnie Kingery, who raced a souped-up Chevelle at Taylor's track in the 1970s and 1980s for $300 purses.

But in early October when lung surgery forced Kingery into a rehabilitation stint at a Roanoke nursing home, Taylor visited several times. After bedside reminiscing, Taylor turned the talk to salvation. Kingery, never much for church-going, saw a changed man.

"I got to thinking, if he wants to give his life to Christ, who am I to criticize? And if Whitey Taylor can find the Lord, why can't I?' "

'Like an earthquake'

Others who have known Taylor over the years are more reserved. James Jefferson, a Franklin County attorney, who has heard about Taylor's religious pursuit, said, "I have had contact with Whitey over the years. I wish him well. And I hope everything is what it appears to be."

To be sure, successful independent churches may provide income from the offering plate and tax exemption. But Taylor is emphatic that Church 180 isn't intended as a path to personal gain.

Taylor said his income from the track isn't mingled with the church's operations and he doesn't get any personal or business tax advantages from his ministry. "It's strictly volunteer. I have stopped building Whitey's kingdom. I just work on God's kingdom now."

Many in his congregation of about 40 people on Sunday are clad in well-worn clothes, and their morning offering typically totals less than $50.

"My people are mostly those that nobody else wants," Taylor said.

Kathy Boatwright, a retired secretary who said she has fallen on "financial hard times," found Church 180 through word of mouth. She said Taylor has given her several boxes of donated food -- "More than I can carry."

Taylor's inspiration to found Church 180 came from Teamwork Ministries International, a nondenominational school in Martinsville that ordains fledgling pastors for a few hundred dollars.

During a Thursday night class in 2003, the school's founder, John Chacha, "looked at me and said, 'If not now, when? In this lifetime or next?' " recalled Taylor. "It was like an earthquake -- as if God himself spoke to me."

The church's name is Taylor's way of symbolizing the turnaround in his life. He advises turbulent souls against speeding through their lives for as long as he did before hitting the brakes of contrition: "No one knows how much time they have left."

Out of the limelight

Taylor said he still owns the track, but since 2006 has leased it to an operator who continues to hold Saturday night races between April and September. "It still makes money, and I have income from it. But after 28 years of racing, I finally got burned out on it."

The Taylors have two sons, James, 16, and Joshua, 10; Kim home schools both. They live in a doublewide manufactured home on his property near the speedway.

"I don't have a big house in Hunting Hills anymore. The IRS made me get rid of that and most of what I had."

He recalled his racing success as a gold-paved route to ruin. "I made millions, but I didn't give the Lord his share or pay attention to him. I've made $50,000 on a Saturday night and by Friday I was looking for somebody to borrow money from."

Today, he drives a dented Chevy Venture van. On a recent jaunt to visit a bedridden congregant, Taylor took one hand off the steering wheel and gestured as if trying grasp treasure that's slipping away. "I don't even know where that money went. I just blew it, squandered it. Crazy stuff."

Taylor returned to the public eye briefly in September, offering his help to law enforcement in the long-unsolved murders of the Short family of Henry County.

He organized a three-day fast to lead prayers for the slain family and for the solving of their murders. The event came soon after the sixth anniversary of the shootings of Michael, Mary and their daughter, Jennifer. Taylor said he once employed Michael Short.

Taylor said the case has remained a mystery "for a long time," and he urged those at a small gathering "to join your faith to mine so that whoever murdered this family is going to get caught this week." There still haven't been any arrests.

These days Taylor mostly stays out of the limelight. He seems at peace with himself and his modest church.

"I don't worry about anything," he said. "It's like being on vacation all the time."