Falwell's Liberty University has decided to sponsor "one of its own students on the late model stock car circuit of NASCAR," WBDJ7 reported on March 28. "Car Number 71 was unveiled to students during [a university] convocation ceremony."

Not to worry, the Reverend himself will not be behind the wheel. The car's driver is 18-year-old Stephen Berry, who will be one of the youngest drivers on the circuit. "However," the television station reported, "he's not letting that stop him."

"That's a good advantage for me because I have a better chance of hopefully getting into the next levels. That's what Stacy [Compton, Berry's agent] is trying to do.  NASCAR owners are looking for really young drivers now, so hopefully I fit the shoe," says Berry.  

Berry's first race of the season will be on April 14th at the Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, VA. The television station reported that "Berry's agent ... helped put together the deal with Liberty," and that "the school plans to charter bus trips to the Radford Motor Mile so students can see Berry race."

Election 2008

For Falwell, the most important thing about a GOP victory in 2008 is that it will just about ensure that at least one or more conservative judges will be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  In early February, Reuters reported that "Despite his years in the trenches of America's culture wars, Falwell ... said a major victory in his broader crusade to restore the country's moral righteousness has so far eluded him."

"For now," Reuters reported, "he is focusing on voter registration drives and rallying the faithful with his eyes on the twin prizes of the 2008 presidential election and control of the Supreme Court."

Falwell told Reuters that while the Religious right had managed to get "the social and moral issues on the front burner," and it has "made progress," it had "not won any of the battles yet. "It is a long road back. We are at least one U.S. Supreme Court Justice short of a socially conservative court."

While it is clear that his newly revived Moral Majority Coalition will not be nearly the powerful political player that the original Moral Majority was, "Falwell still carries some weight among religious conservatives but he doesn't have the organizational power that he once had," John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron, told Reuters.