A year ago, Day decided that instead of going to Saratoga to ride full-time, he wanted to compete mainly weekends while doing a tour of racetracks to raise money for and awareness of the RTCA. As he was explaining to reporters that, in retrospect, he believes that was intended to be his farewell tour from race riding, a two-way radio squawked to an on-site television engineer, "There's no audio!"

"That's exactly what I was saying to God for a week when in fact he as talking to me all the time," Day said without missing a beat.

Day said he left Louisville last Thursday afternoon to spend whatever time was necessary to determine what God would have him do. He said he stayed in isolation at a cabin on the Kentucky River near Wilmore, reflecting on his life, reading scripture and Christian books and singing worship choruses with the only other sounds coming from nature.

After the press conference, Day said he spent his first night, "crying out to God to fan the flame, to restore unto me the joy of participating and the thrill of victory.'

"'C'mon, God,'" he recalled saying. "I'm healthy. You've repaired my hip. I can do this. You showed me this with Two Trail Sioux. I've still got it! Just give me back the competitive fire.'

"And there was basically no response. No audio."

While Day has experienced thunderbolt-type revelations, including when he turned his life over to Christ on Jan. 27, 1984, he said this was "like a slow dawning, like the sun coming up. ... I really think it was that way because this has been a part of my life 32 years, and it's not something that's easy to give up."

Early this week, driving along the river, "It just slowly became evident," he said. "Once I said it out loud, I kind of posed the question to God and said, ` You know what? It's time.' With that, it was like a watershed. Then I was excited about it. It was like, Yeah!'"
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Labels: David C. Price