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Jimmy Carter was a fan of NASCAR, but the possibility of peace in the Middle East got in the 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.
While governor of Georgia in the 1970s, Carter attended races at Atlanta Motor Speedway and hosted racers at the governor’s mansion. In the previous decade, he had worked speedway events as a ticket vendor.
Then a presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter visited with Bud Moore during a race weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the mid-’70s.
Upon running for president in 1976, he pledged to bring NASCAR to the White House for dinner if elected.
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But when the dinner bell eventually rang, in the summer of 1978, Carter was at the Camp David presidential retreat, where he was working on a breakthrough peace accord 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 many drivers, including Hall of Famers Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Benny Parsons, as well as NASCAR leaders Bill France Jr. and Sr.
First Lady Rosalyn Carter hosted the 1978 dinner in her husband’s absence. Flanking her, from left: NASCAR racers Cale Yarborough, David Pearson, and Benny Parsons, and team owner Bud Moore.
The night was capped off with a Willie Nelson concert. And no, this wasn’t Willie’s high-rollin’ White House visit – it wasn’t until two years later that Nelson famously joined Carter’s son Chip atop the White House roof and smoked weed. Carter and his son confirmed the widely shared rumor in “Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President,” a documentary released in 2020.
After serving a single term in the White House, Carter, the onetime peanut farmer and Navy submariner, became among the most durable figures in modern American politics.
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Evicted from the White House at age 56, he would hold the status of former president longer than anyone in American history, and in 2019 he surpassed the late George H. W. Bush as the nation’s oldest living ex-president.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, 22 years after he had left the White House.
Contributing: Susan Page and Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: President Jimmy Carter’s NASCAR love interrupted by Middle East summit