 In the early 1980s, Nesmith teamed with satirist P. J. O'Rourke to ride his vehicle "Timerider" in the annual Baja 1000 off-road race.This is chronicled in O'Rourke's 2009 book "Driving Like Crazy".During the 1990s, Nesmith, as trustee and president of the Gihon Foundation, hosted the Council on Ideas, a gathering of intellectuals from different fields who were asked to identify the most important issues of their day and publish the result.