President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, were driven in the presidential limo around an IndyCar racetrack shaped from the streets of downtown Washington on Sunday afternoon. It was the final, major event planned for the city as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum shouted, “Gentlemen, start your engines!” Mr. Trump waved a large green flag up and down while his wife smiled and clapped. The Qatari jumbo jet that he now uses as Air Force One flew low overhead.
Twenty-five racecars screamed around a 1.7-mile track that wended between white marble monuments and Smithsonian museums along Pennsylvania Avenue, cut across the National Mall and passed before the Capitol.
The city’s downtown was transformed for this. More than 200 manhole covers were welded shut. Flights into Ronald Reagan National Airport were redirected. Museums along the course put protective measures in place around their artworks.
It has been a fun summer in Washington for Mr. Trump. In June, he hosted a cage fight on the South Lawn of the White House for his 80th birthday. In July, he appeared as the headliner at the rally in front of the Washington Monument on the Fourth. Now he was being driven around a racetrack.
“We’re going to make a little circle in a nice, secure car, slightly slower than the ones we’re going to witness,” he told a reporter from Fox Sports. “But we’re going to have fun.”
He brought two of his sons with him, and his aide Natalie Harp, and several cabinet secretaries were there, including Pete Hegseth (defense), Linda McMahon (education) and Chris Wright (energy).
Crowds watched the street race from screens set up along the National Mall. Others preferred to watch up close, from the sidelines, gripping the chain-link fencing along the track to see the racecars zoom by. One car came around an especially tight turn near the Capitol and crashed straight into a retaining wall. The next car to come around the corner crashed into that car. The other cars coming through the turn slowed to avoid the two-car pileup. The announcers said that both drivers were OK.
The car with the “Sam’s Club” logo pulled into a pit stop. A crew materialized and rapidly changed its tires.
A stretch of Constitution Avenue by the National Gallery of Art and the Federal Trade Commission building was turned into a makeshift, open-air garage referred to as “the paddock.” In the shadow of Freightliner tractor-trailers, drivers wandered around in three-layered flame-retardant “fire suits,” holding helmets and eating hot dogs. Pit crews stacked crazy-thick Firestone tires high.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, himself in a regular suit and tie, approached a group of racecar drivers hanging out by the paddock. “All right, let’s take a selfie,” Mr. Lutnick said. The drivers jumped in the frame.
“Good luck today,” Mr. Lutnick told them. “Enjoy it. This is all of Washington, just for you.”
He walked away. One of the drivers turned and shrugged.
“I honestly have no idea who that was,” he said.
Clarence Williams contributed reporting from Washington.
