{"id":25062,"date":"2025-06-29T17:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T17:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25062\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T17:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T17:44:10","slug":"5-things-you-didnt-know-about-tom-cruises-nascar-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25062\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things You Didn’t Know About Tom Cruise’s NASCAR Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\"DAYS<\/p>\n

Everett Collection<\/p>\n

Four years after 1986\u2019s Top Gun, Tom Cruise<\/a> reteamed with director Tony Scott<\/a> and producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer<\/a> for another high-speed action drama \u2014 the NASCAR-racing pic Days of Thunder<\/a>. (Around Hollywood, the production got the nickname Top Car, Slate<\/a> reports.)<\/p>\n

Released on June 27, 1990, Days of Thunder has Cruise playing young racecar driver Cole Trickle, who finds adrenaline, rivalries, and romance (with a neurosurgeon played by future wife Nicole Kidman<\/a>) as he puts the pedal to the metal in NASCAR events. And as we race past another Days of Thunder anniversary, check out trivia about the film below.<\/p>\n

1Characters were reportedly based on Dale Earnhardt and other real-life NASCAR figures<\/p>\n

AFI Catalog<\/a> notes the reported real-life analogs of Days of Thunder\u2019s characters. For example, Trickle is believed to have been based on Tim Richmond, a driver who died in a crash similar to one Cruise\u2019s character survives and who had a physician girlfriend.<\/p>\n

Robert Duvall<\/a>\u2019s Harry Hogge was a stand-in for crew chief Harry Hyde, who also served as a technical advisor on the film. Rowdy Burns (Michael Rooker<\/a>) and Russ Wheeler (Cary Elwes<\/a>) were reportedly inspired by NASCAR racers Dale Earnhardt<\/a> and Rusty Wallace, respectively.<\/p>\n

And Fred Thompson<\/a>\u2019s Big John, who threatens Trickle and Burns with NASCAR dismissal over dinner, was reportedly inspired by former NASCAR president William \u201cBig Bill\u201d France Jr., who did the same to Earnhardt and fellow racer Geoff Bodine in 1988.<\/p>\n

2The cast and crew shot at actual NASCAR events<\/p>\n

For the filming of Days of Thunder\u2019s race scenes, Rick Hendrick of Hendrick Motorsports constructed five \u201cpicture cars\u201d with cameras mounted on the front and rear, according to the AFI Catalog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And those picture cars raced in real NASCAR events, albeit under strict rules: They had to qualify in the preliminaries, they could only race in the first 100 miles of 500-mile events, they\u2019d stick to the back of the pack, and they\u2019d let other cars pass.<\/p>\n

NASCAR drivers Greg Sacks and Bobby Hamilton drove two of the picture cars, for example, in the Autoworks 500 at Phoenix International Raceway in November 1989. But Hamilton apparently couldn\u2019t help zooming into first place, leading to frantic calls from Hendrick, per The New York Times<\/a>. \u201cC\u2019mon, Bobby, back off; let \u2019em go by,\u201d Hendrick said over Hamilton\u2019s headphones.<\/p>\n

3The rental-car demolition derby really happened with NASCAR drivers<\/p>\n

In the film, Trickle and Burns settle their feud after Big John\u2019s dressing-down by smashing up rental cars on the beach. That aspect of the film, too, has real-life parallels.<\/p>\n

Curtis Turner told Sports Illustrated<\/a> in 1968 he and fellow NASCAR driver Joe Weatherly wrecked rental cars in an informal road race one night. \u201cJust tore those U-Drive-Its all to pieces,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they was still runnin\u2019, and when we got to the motel where we wanted to stay that night, Joe just kept his engine wide open and went straight into the swimming pool \u2014 the deep end.\u201d<\/p>\n

4For such a high-speed film, Days of Thunder had a slow shoot
\n\"DAYS<\/p>\n

(c) Paramount\/courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

Amid disagreements between Scott and Days of Thunder\u2019s producers \u2014 and between the director and screenwriter Robert Towne<\/a> \u2014 the film\u2019s production ran months longer than expected, and crew members even joked they had racked up so much overtime, they could take 16 weeks of vacation, Spy Magazine<\/a> reported. Legend has it the production was so plagued with problems that principal photography ended without a shot of Trickle\u2019s car crossing the finish line, per Slate.<\/p>\n

5The film may get a sequel \u2014 and maybe even an F1 crossover
\n\"F1,<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Warner Bros. \/ Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

Cruise was in conversations with Paramount about a Days of Thunder sequel as of November 2024, according to The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>, which added that the studio was reaching out to writers about the idea. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be what comes together first in terms of a script,\u201d a source told the magazine at the time. \u201cIt depends on the idea and, ultimately, the script.\u201d (Cruise had previously shot down the prospect of a Paramount+ Days of Thunder TV show<\/a>, according to THR.)<\/p>\n

Then, in June 2025, filmmaker Joseph Kosinski, who directed Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick<\/a> , imagined a possible crossover between Days of Thunder and F1<\/a>, which he also directed, in an interview for GQ Magazine UK<\/a> : \u201cWe find out that [Trickle] and Sonny Hayes [Brad Pitt<\/a>\u2019s F1character] have a past. They were rivals at some point, maybe crossed paths\u2026 I heard about this epic go-kart battle on Interview with a Vampire<\/a> that Brad and Tom had, and who wouldn\u2019t pay to see those two go head-to-head on the track?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everett Collection Four years after 1986\u2019s Top Gun, Tom Cruise reteamed with director Tony Scott and producers Don…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-25062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114767899188419086","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}