Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat devotee before NASCAR Nation turned solidly Republican

In the wake of Jimmy Carter’s death at age 100, the former president’s NASCAR connections have been mentioned in many of the reflections.

President Carter’s love of NASCAR was genuine and not just a campaign opportunity. As a young man, he worked the ticket booth at Atlanta Motor Speedway in his native Georgia. As governor (1971-75) and presidential candidate (in 1976), he returned to the track.

Several years after he hosted NASCAR drivers at his Atlanta governor’s mansion, he famously welcomed an all-star cast of NASCAR racers to the White House in 1978, though Middle East peace talks at Camp David made him an absentee host.

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But just as Ronald Reagan ended Carter’s tenure as 39th president, the politically historic “Reagan Revolution” seemingly ended the warm relationship between NASCAR and Carter’s Democratic party — that relationship included former Alabama Governor George Wallace’s longstanding friendship with NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. (Wallace was grand marshal of the 1976 Daytona 500).

While Carter campaigned at a NASCAR race prior to winning the White House in 1976, Reagan became the first sitting president to attend a race when he served as grand marshal of Daytona’s 1984 Firecracker 400, where Richard Petty won his 200th career race.

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Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, served as honorary starter of the 1983 Daytona 500, and returned as president nine years later, for the summer race, when he was running for re-election in 1992 — it was a race he would lose to Bill Clinton.

Did someone mention Bill Clinton and NASCAR?

Some might say the apparent Democrat-to-Republican party switch among the NASCAR fan base began with President Richard Nixon’s so-called “Southern strategy” in the late 1960s and early-’70s — it was an appeal to Southern conservatives that began with Nixon and continues today.

Bill Clinton is a southerner from Arkansas, sounds the part and can talk the talk. His visit to Darlington to serve as grand marshal for the 1992 Southern 500, two months before election day, didn’t derail his eventually successful presidential bid, but it became the historical dividing line signifying NASCAR Nation was indeed a one-party state.

Within minutes of each other during pre-race festivities, Clinton was lustily booed when introduced to give the starting command, and a small plane circled overhead trailing a banner reading, “NO DRAFT DODGER FOR PRESIDENT,” referencing Clinton’s 1960s college deferments and controversial ROTC maneuverings during the Vietnam War.

Clinton could also read a room, so he gave the starting command and no other words, and early in the race he and his campaign entourage were on the road to another stop on the trail.

Adding insult to injury, or maybe vice versa, Darlington race winner Darrell Waltrip wore a Bush-Quayle campaign button on his uniform during his post-race press conference.

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Adding to the image of a clear dividing line, Clinton’s ill-fated campaign stop at Darlington came two months after his campaign rival, President George H.W. Bush, was greeted enthusiastically at Daytona when he attended the Firecracker 400 and spoke for a few minutes to the tens of thousands in attendance.

Bush had previously served as a Daytona race official as CIA director (1978) and vice president (1983).

Clinton never attended another NASCAR race after Darlington.

His successor, George W. Bush, was grand marshal for the Daytona summer race in 2004 during his successful re-election campaign. And Donald Trump, who’d attended the 1999 and 2001 Daytona 500s as private citizen and potential business partner with NASCAR (a Trump Speedway never came to fruition, however), returned to the 2020 Daytona 500 as grand marshal and was greeted enthusiastically by fans and competitors.

Between the George W. and Trump presidencies, Barack Obama never attended a race, though he routinely invited the reigning Cup Series champion to the White House for a splashy celebration during the following season. That, of course, was a controlled environment free of any hostility from onlookers.

First Lady Michelle Obama wasn’t as lucky in 2011. She and Jill Biden, wife of the sitting vice president, attended NASCAR’s season finale in Homestead to serve as co-grand marshals and promote a new organization designed to facilitate the training and hiring of military veterans.

An accompanying U.S. Army Sergeant was cheered when introduced, but the two women had noticeable booing mixed into their greeting from fans.

NASCAR fans made an unlikely star of Brandon Brown, at the expense of Joe Biden

President Joe Biden didn’t attend a NASCAR event, but he sure had an unfortunate connection to a race deep in the bread basket of stock-car racing: Talladega.

In October 2021, Brandon Brown won an Xfinity Series race there and during his post-victory TV interview, his interviewer suggested the throng in the nearby grandstands was chanting, “Let’s go, Brandon.” That misrepresentation launched a widely used political slogan, even though the fans were chanting something very different.

Trump, during this past election season, attended the Coca Cola 600 in Charlotte on Memorial Day weekend. He was greeted and treated well. There will be no more presidential campaigns for Trump, which suggests there will likely be no more NASCAR race-day visits.

It may be 2028 before another presidential candidate waves a green flag or gives the starting command at a NASCAR race. Any chance a Democrat breaks up the Republican grip on stock-car fans, or even dares to try?

The trends say no, but lord knows, stranger things have happened in recent years.

— Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: After Jimmy Carter, NASCAR flipped Republican, from Reagan to Trump