Finding Inner Peace...Through NASCAR

Big-time stock car racing has long had some interesting sponsors, like Goody's headache powder or Viagra, but one local weekly racer in Southern California has entered a whole new market with his sponsorship:

Tom Cruise came to Charlotte in 1989 to film "Days Of Thunder." Little did we know that someday his idealogy would come zooming back to NASCAR as a sponsor.

Racin' fans, brace yourselves for some couch-jumping news: Scientology is ridin' shotgun.

A No. 27 red Taurus emblazoned with "DIANETICS" and featuring the volcano from the cover of L. Ron Hubbard's book has been tearing around California's Irwindale Speedway.

(No word on whether the car can fix itself; Cruise recently bragged that wife Katie Holmes needed no anti-depressants for her post-partum depression.)

NASCAR is decidedly reluctant to comment on scientology's sponsorship. "This has generated a lot of interest the past few days," NASCAR PR man Scott Warfield tells me. Not surprisingly, he didn't want to say much more. "It's not really something we want to comment on. It's a minor league, small-team sponsorship deal."

Yes, and it's also the weirdest sponsorship since Boudreaux's Butt Paste, the diaper-rash cream that began sponsoring a Busch Series car in 2005.

There's only one rational response to a Scientology car: The Baptists are going to have to sponsor one of their own. Or maybe a "Purpose Driven Life" Chevy taking to the track to oppose the "Dianetics" car (Lord knows that book has made enough money for Rick Warren to sponsor his own multi-car team. He could probably field one for each of the 40 Days).

Before long announcing a NASCAR race will be like calling the three-legged race at an interfaith picnic. Of course, after an accident, the PDL driver will be able to say he wrecked the Dianetics car "on purpose" and get away with it.

Related Tags: Scientology, NASCAR, Purpose Driven Life