Jimmy Carter was a NASCAR fan, but the possibility of Middle East peace got in his way when several drivers came to the White House for ham and cornbread in 1978.
Carter, the 39th President of the United States, died Sunday in Plains, Georgia. He was 100 years old.
While governor of Georgia in the 1970s, Carter attended races at the Atlanta Motor Speedway and hosted racers at the governor’s mansion. For the previous decade, he had worked speedway events as a ticket seller.
Jimmy Carter, then a presidential candidate, visited Bud Moore during a race weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the mid-1970s.
During his run for president in 1976, he pledged to bring NASCAR to the White House for a dinner if elected.
But when the dinner bell finally rang, in the summer of 1978, Carter was at the presidential retreat at Camp David, where he was working on a landmark peace deal with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
In the President’s absence, First Lady Rosalynn Carter hosted the NASCAR contingent, which included numerous drivers, including Hall of Famers Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Benny Parsons, as well as NASCAR executive Bill France Jr. . and Sr.
First Lady Rosalyn Carter hosted the 1978 dinner in her husband’s absence. Alongside him, from left: NASCAR drivers Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Benny Parsons, as well as team owner Bud Moore.
The evening ended with a concert by Willie Nelson. And no, it wasn’t Willie’s landmark visit to the White House – it wasn’t until two years later that Nelson joined Carter’s son Chip on the White House roof and smoked weed.. Carter and his son confirmed the widely shared rumor in “Jimmy Carter: President of Rock & Roll“, a documentary released in 2020.
After serving just one term in the White House, Carter, a former peanut farmer and Navy submariner, became one of the most enduring figures in modern American politics.
Expelled from the White House at age 56, he would retain the status of former president longer than anyone in American history, and in 2019 he surpassed the late George HW Bush as the oldest living ex-president in the country.
He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, 22 years after leaving the White House.
Contributors: Susan Page and Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared in the Daytona Beach News-Journal: President Jimmy Carter’s love of NASCAR interrupted by Mideast summit
