President Trump will attend NASCAR’s Daytona 500 race in Florida

Author: Associated Press
Published: Updated:
(Getty Images/CBS)

Daytona International Speedway is going to be a little more crowded than usual for the annual Daytona 500 on Sunday.

President Donald Trump will attend NASCAR’s season-opening race, White House spokesman Judd Deere said Thursday.

“Daytona International Speedway has been privileged to have hosted several sitting presidents of the United States over our history,” track president Chip Wile said. “We’re honored that the president of the United States has chosen to experience the pageantry and excitement of ‘The Great American Race.’”

FILE - In this Feb. 11, 1999, file photo, drivers in the first 125-mile Daytona 500 qualifying race start the race at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla. Daytona Beach became the unofficial "Birthplace of Speed" in 1903 when two men argued over who had the fastest horseless carriage and decided things in a race on the white, hard packed sand along the Atlantic Ocean.(AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)
FILE – In this Feb. 11, 1999, file photo, drivers in the first 125-mile Daytona 500 qualifying race start the race at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla. Daytona Beach became the unofficial “Birthplace of Speed” in 1903 when two men argued over who had the fastest horseless carriage and decided things in a race on the white, hard packed sand along the Atlantic Ocean.(AP Photo/Chris O’Meara, File)

Trump is scheduled to spend part of the Presidents Day weekend at his private club in Palm Beach, Florida.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a flight restriction for Sunday and the U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible for presidential security, also tweeted to fans that drones are prohibited within 30 miles of the race in Daytona Beach — a restriction put in place for presidential visits.

Trump has hosted previous NASCAR champions at the White House and last October awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to motorsports titan Roger Penske. Last year, Trump also praised retired driver Mario Andretti, the Daytona 500 winner in 1967, reminiscing about a ride Andretti gave him in a race car for his reality show “The Apprentice.”

“I said, ‘Mario, get me out of here. I want to get out of this car,’” Trump recalled. “We went so fast. We literally — we covered four blocks in like a second.”

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