Back in 2020, Donald Trump made history when he became only the second sitting president (along with George W. Bush) to attend the Daytona 500 – and the first to take the presidential limo for a spin on the track and lead the field around the 2.5 mile superspeedway.
But that wasn’t the first time that Trump had stopped by the Great American Race.
He was also there for the 1999 kickoff to the NASCAR season – and greeted Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, who served as Grand Marshal for the race.
And he was also in the pits for one of the most infamous runnings of the Daytona 500, on February 18, 2001.
Of course that’s a day that no NASCAR fan will ever forget, when Dale Earnhardt was tragically killed on the last lap of the race after a crash in turn 4. And as it turns out, Donald Trump had a front row seat to it all.
I actually had no idea that Trump was at that race, but I recently came across some home video that shows the future president mingling in the pits on that fateful day.
Obviously this was long before he became president, but even in 2001 Trump could still draw a crowd as he posed for pictures on pit road ahead of the race. And the commentary in the video is hilarious, as one woman remarks on the future president’s hair:
“He needs a haircut really bad.”
It’s an interesting piece of NASCAR history, knowing that the future president who would later serve as Grand Marshal of the race was actually there on the sport’s darkest day.
And it’s one that I had no idea about until now.
