Jeff Gordon Headed For Congo Refugee Camp As Part Of Clinton Global Initiative

Most NASCAR drivers will spend the final off-week of the Sprint Cup Season lounging on some beach in the Caribbean or taking it easy at home.

Not Jeff Gordon, though.

Gordon left the United States following Sunday night's New Hampshire Motor Speedway race. Destination: Congo.

It's part of Gordon's work with the Clinton Global Initiative. Check out Gordon's explanation of his reasons behind the trip:

I became a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, what they call the lead group which is just a smaller, younger group of philanthropists in all different areas of philanthropy. It's a very ambitious group, a very prestigious group to be a part of, obviously led by former President Clinton.

You know when you get into a meeting with this group of people and you've been brought together by President Clinton, you decide to do some very ambitious things and one that we decided to do collectively as a group, because we wanted to find an initiative we could all be a part of.

Obviously mine at the time was through my Jeff Gordon Children's Foundation Pediatric Cancer Treatment Research, so I wanted to know maybe what the health issues were abroad that I could be a part of. Others had women's rights, some had deals with trade issues, it's a pretty amazing group.

So we decided our initiative to come collaborate together was a refugee camp in the Congo. First it started as a refugee camp and that led into the Congo because of a very ambitious group, they want to go to the harshest environment and make the biggest impact.

That was last July, so at that point we decided that we needed to go and visit a refugee camp because it's hard to talk about it and to really say you're making a difference if you haven't truly experienced it. So we've been planning this trip ever since.

This is the only time it fits into my schedule so I leave Sunday night, I get there Tuesday and I come back Thursday night and get home Friday so it's a very quick trip but there's a lot packed into a short period of time.

My expectations are to see some jaw-dropping, eye-opening experiences that are going to change my life forever. Hopefully we can do some very good things to try to change that in the future.

Is Gordon nervous about taking the trip?

I'm not saying I'm scared, because I have confidence in who we have organizing the trip and you look at the names on the list that are going with us, people like Ashley Judd, I know we're in good hands. Then you read about the Congo and you realize that the government has a tough enough time controlling and keeping things safe, so there's definitely a little bit of fear that's built in there and it's a long way to go, it's a short trip but I think it's very valuable and I think it's important to what our cause is about.

If we are really going to stand behind the work that we're wanting to do, how can you do it from that far of a distance without really getting in there and truly understanding it? So I'm excited from that standpoint, but you see some of the photos and some of the worst living conditions that you could ever imagine.

That's in a photos so when you get there and you actually get to see it with your own eyes, I'm only expecting it to be worse. Just follow me on Twitter; I'll be tweeting all the way from the Congo letting you know what's happening.