{"id":106625,"date":"2025-08-24T13:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T13:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/106625\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T13:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T13:31:12","slug":"donald-trump-was-beaten-to-piece-of-nascar-history-by-former-potus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/106625\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump was beaten to piece of NASCAR history by former POTUS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan share an interesting piece of history having both attended the iconic Daytona 500 race twice during their tenuresDonald Trump attended the race back in 2020 and ahgain this year(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Long before Donald Trump <\/a>made history as the only sitting President to attend the Daytona 500 twice, Ronald Reagan was the first active POTUS to grace a NASCAR race.<\/p>\n

Trump made a grand entrance at Daytona International Superspeedway back in February and led the field around the historic track before departing just 11 laps into the race<\/a>. Over four decades earlier, Reagan also visited the venue to witness one of the most iconic moments of the Cup Series.<\/p>\n

In 1984, Reagan attended the Fourth of July Firecracker 400 – marking the first time in 1,421 Cup Series races that a sitting President had visited a race. While on his way to Daytona Beach aboard Air Force One, he gave the “Gentlemen, start your engines” command via a rotary telephone.<\/p>\n

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“I’ve noticed one thing already,” Reagan told Jarrett after the introductions were over. “I’ve been here only a short time, but I’ve noticed that if you’re trying to look at the number on the car, you better look when they’re down the track a ways. You’re not going to see it when they go by here.”<\/p>\n

Despite his background in sports broadcasting, Reagan admitted afterwards that he struggled to keep up with the fast-paced nature of motorsport. “I’m glad when I was a sports announcer it was mainly baseball and football and a few things like swimming,” he joked.<\/p>\n

“I was having an awful lot of laps when I was trying to figure out who was where.”<\/p>\n

While Reagan might’ve been a newcomer to NASCAR<\/a>, he didn’t need to be a devoted enthusiast to grasp the importance of what unfolded that day.<\/p>\n

Following a late-race crash, Richard Petty barely held off Cale Yarborough under a yellow-white flag to claim his 200th and final victory in the Cup Series.<\/p>\n

After the commanding display, Petty was met by Reagan in his garage, where the duo shared Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pepsi-Cola.<\/p>\n

\"RonaldReagan made history as the first sitting President to attend a NASCAR race(Image: Getty)<\/p>\n

Speaking to the crowd assembled inside Curb Racing’s facilities, the 40th President of the United States declared: “I think I can understand why stock-car racing is so popular. Americans have always cherished mobility, and we greatly admire innovation.<\/p>\n

“And by combining man and machine, stock-car racing brings out the best of both of these American impulses.”<\/p>\n

Shifting his focus to the holiday at hand, Reagan went on: “Our Founding Fathers gave us a wonderful gift 208 years ago – a free country, a country where no one need live in fear, and where everyone can speak and pray and live as he or she sees fit.<\/p>\n

“I’m certain that if Jefferson and Adams and Washington were here with us today, they’d be sharing in the festivities.<\/p>\n

“And if Patrick Henry were here, from what I’ve read about him, he’d have been out on the track with one of the cars. Our Founding Fathers were kind of gutsy, and we’d better not forget that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan share an interesting piece of history having both attended the iconic Daytona 500…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[12,425,99],"class_list":["post-106625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-donald-trump","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}