The Datsun 280Z is a classic sports car made by Nissan in the 1970s. It's known for being fun to drive and has a stylish design that many people love.

Car

Datsun 300Z

The Datsun 300Z, later known as the Nissan 300ZX, is another classic sports car that came after the 280Z. It was known for being powerful and having modern features for its era.

Term

F1 car

An F1 car is a type of race car used in Formula 1 racing, which is one of the fastest and most technologically advanced types of car racing in the world.

Concept

Formula One

Formula One is a type of car racing that takes place on special tracks. It's famous for fast cars and exciting races that happen in different countries.

Concept

stock cars

Stock cars are racing cars that are made to be similar to regular cars you see on the road. They are all built to the same rules so that the races are fair.

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IndyCar

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sprint car racing

Sprint car racing is a type of racing where very fast cars with big wings race on dirt tracks. The races are usually short and exciting.

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open wheel series

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NHRA

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Indy 500

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Ford Galaxy

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Talladega

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Daytona

Daytona is a well-known racetrack in Florida where a big race called the Daytona 500 happens. It's famous for fast cars and lots of fans.

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Norton

Norton is a brand that makes motorcycles, famous for their speed and style. They have a long history in racing and are loved by bike enthusiasts.

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sponsorship

Sponsorship is when a company pays a racing team to put their name or logo on the car. This helps the team with money and gives the company advertising.

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Richard Petty

Richard Petty is a famous NASCAR driver, often called 'The King' because he won many championships. He's a big name in car racing.

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STP

STP is a brand that makes car products, like oil and fuel additives. They are well-known in car racing, especially NASCAR.

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Pontiac Grand Prix GTP

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BMW E30

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Mercedes-Benz 300E

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Chevrolet Monte Carlo

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Holden Caprice

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blows the motor

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leaking oil

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LIVE

Hello, and welcome back to the Bring a Trailer podcast.

My name is Alex Porter.

I am the operations director for the company.

I am coming to you today along with a couple of my colleagues

from the San Francisco headquarters of Bring a Trailer.

We are doing another of our popular

BAT at the movies episodes,

this time focused on Days of Thunder,

the 1990 Tom Cruise NASCAR classic,

also a Robert Duvall classic.

I am joined on today's episode by Randy Nahnberg,

our president and co-founder,

Beck Diefenbach, our white glove manager,

and Tyler Greenblatt,

who oversees our motorcycle team here at the site.

We had a lot of fun researching, re-watching,

and chatting about this movie.

Hope you all enjoy the episode.

As always, thanks to our producer, Chris Baxter,

for putting this podcast episode together.

Bring a trailer podcast.

This is pretty darn well,

except for like one scene, which we'll get to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like, we all know what we're talking about.

I'm curious what you're doing.

Yeah.

But I'm not.

I have nobody seen.

I was gonna say there's a couple, maybe.

Yeah, there's some waving Confederate flags.

We can talk about that.

Oh, that's true.

Yeah, but anything you guys wanna say before we go?

Yeah, Alex, I just wanna tell you that.

This is the best damn podcast I ever seen or heard about.

Okay, great.

Wonderful.

Well, we're gonna cast our minds back.

He loves it.

We're gonna cast our minds back to 1990

to talk about Days of Thunder,

a movie that we all love.

Let me start here, Randy, with you.

Let me read you a list of movies

produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer,

the minds behind this.

You ready for this list?

Let's go.

84, Bev Hill's Cop, 86, Top Gun,

Days of Thunder, 90, Bev Hill's Cop 2, 87, Bad Boys, 95,

Crimson Tide, 95, and The Rock in 96.

Welcome to The Rock.

Is it the best duo of producers of all time

for movies that we love?

That is a greatest hits right there.

And they all have cars in them.

All of those movies have Crimson Tide, though.

I don't know if Crimson Tide hits us.

Well, and vehicles, nuclear cells.

It's pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I mean, all of them have, I mean,

the Ferrari Humvee scene in The Rock through San Francisco.

I mean, these guys must have had some angle.

I don't know if they've ever been quoted on their car take,

but a lot of those movies are worth watching

just for the background.

That's like the Randy Alex film festival.

Let's go.

And we're starting in with this one,

which is, which is terrific.

Which is a great one.

Tell me your guys' history with it.

I presume you're all veterans of this.

Well, no, everybody has to say their age in 1990.

Yes, I was, I was 13.

Did you see it in the theater?

I haven't, this is going to blow your way.

And I don't know if it disqualifies me,

so I almost don't want to say it.

But this is my first time this week

watching it all the way through.

Oh, you've only seen scenes or something.

I grew up with Days of Thunder being on TV

and like catching the last part

or catching a race or I mean,

the scene with him like running through the pits

and it pauses at the end.

I've seen that probably 50 times, right?

But like sitting and watching it all the way through,

I had never, ever done, never rented it,

never streamed it, never done any of that sort of stuff.

So anyway, I had seen like so many of the scenes,

but then there were some that were brand new to me this week.

So anyway, I'm stoked.

But you and I grew up in the VHS era

when you were flipping through TV station,

you know, like I didn't know there was the romance

take my breath away scene in Top Gun

until I was like 12.

Because my mom had-

Because you saw the unedited.

VHS recorded it off TV and taken that part out.

Totally, a lot of effort.

Anyway, so I was 13.

How old were you guys when it came out?

I was two.

Two years old.

Two and 19.

Five years old.

Seven years old.

Yeah, so I was the old man at 13 and I still did.

I thought for sure you were gonna say you saw it in the theater.

No, dude, I wish, I wish, but no,

it would have been a little raunchy to see in the theater at 13.

Tyler, shout out to Jack.

He said that you're like word perfect in this.

So is this like a lifetime project for you,

the Days of Thunder rewatches?

Yeah, it is.

I think I probably saw it for the first time when I was 13.

There you go.

So maybe we're on the same page here?

Yeah.

Yeah, God, yeah.

I mean, just this is one of those movies that just every second you're like gripped.

There's something going on that you just can't look away from.

I quoted all the time, too.

Yes, we know how to do that a few times.

We need to have a best quote and competition.

There's a lot.

What about you, Beck?

First exposure to it was actually my Godfather took me to Great America

where they had like a documentary behind how they made it.

They did it like in, I don't know, 92, 93 or something like that.

But my Godfather was confused.

He thought it was a new ride.

So we got there thinking it was going to be like the Top Gun ride.

And then he was incredibly disappointed.

Wait, Top Gun or Days of Thunder?

Days of Thunder.

Because there's a Top Gun ride.

I see.

Great America.

He thought it was going to be like that one.

I see.

So we then just sat in a regular movie theater and watched the documentary.

But it was great.

I think I probably may have seen it on TV as well.

I don't recall if I rented it from like Blockbuster at some point,

but definitely all the memories of all the different clips.

I remember most of the racing.

I had totally forgotten who is in this movie out of Tom Cruise,

which was a lot of names.

Intro credits.

Love a movie with intro credits.

So good.

And the music comes right in.

And these soaring guitars and everything right in.

And when like John C. Riley's name shows up in the intro character,

my wife doubled over laughing.

She just had no idea what she was in for.

He's a serious character in this film, right?

And after like the journey of all the other movies we've seen with him,

you're kind of like that dude was the upset son about his dad.

Your dad with Buddy Brederton?

Totally. Right?

Oh, my gosh.

Is he the greatest actor in NASCAR themed films ever?

John C. Riley.

It's on both hands of the spectra.

Both. I don't know.

There's many more.

We got to check out.

It's a really interesting production story on this.

I wonder if that was covered in the documentary or not, Beck,

but went way over budget.

Everyone was fighting.

Did you guys read about this?

Yeah, it was slow.

Yes.

It was expensive.

Like there was a lot of drama.

Yeah.

And it wasn't a box office smash.

No. Right.

So it didn't justify that the drama.

$60 million budget made 150 something in the end.

But the budget went over.

It was too ex what it was supposed to be.

Our guys, Simpson and Bruckheimer, allegedly had a $400,000

gym built in a storefront and were having parties with tone

low can stuff to read about that.

This is in Florida.

Yes.

So they filmed the majority in Florida.

I was trying to figure out on the scene where they're like racing

the rental cars on the beach.

I was like, is that like his mode?

Yeah. Where are they?

They said Charlotte and Daytona.

They ran down there, which I thought was cool,

which is also kind of gone.

Everything is like in Atlanta or Vancouver or whatever now.

So seeing it in the places is cool.

Just the shots of all the racetracks are awesome.

Yeah.

They like show the race season go through.

And then I saw online in a sort of days of thunder trivia

wormhole that I checked out.

The order of the races is different than it was in 91.

Oh, and they were talking about like how the points were

scored and how they got to Daytona and whatever else.

You can go really deep.

You can go super deep.

And I actually had to stop myself.

I've already got like five pages of notes.

I'll just say a couple other quick things on the background.

It's our guy, Tony Scott, another list.

Here's Tony Scott's run.

Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop 2, Days of Thunder, Last Boy Scout,

True Romance, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Man on Fire, Unstoppable.

Like incredible Ridley Scott's brother.

He was with and then diverged from the other two.

Unstoppable is incredible.

That was his last movie.

It's Denzel and Chris Pine on a runaway train.

If you've never seen that, that's a big recommendation to you guys

and also to the community.

It's an amazing movie.

Other Denzel movie with him, Man on Fire.

Man on Fire is unbelievable.

That is a don't show it to a 13 year old.

So like all of these are anything film 90 or before, pretty much.

But then written by Robert Town, another guy with an incredible resume,

Chinatown, The Firm, Days of Thunder, Mission Impossible,

the original one, Shampoo and a co-writing credit from Cruz,

which I don't totally know the story on.

I mean, they're basically recreating Top Gun, right?

This is the Top Gun team.

It was apparently Tom Cruise met Rick Hendrick via Paul Newman.

Oh, amazing.

And Tom Cruise came together with basically a general storyline,

which then obviously got.

Was it just like Top Gun in cars, basically?

Basically, I mean, look at the opening.

The opening is the opening seeing the Top Gun.

It even has, if you're watching for like the color

striation of just the gradient filter where it's like orange at the top

and like blue at the bottom, it's the exact same approach to the opening of the Top Gun.

Nothing wrong with that.

I wonder if people criticize that.

People criticize that, but that's probably why.

I mean, Kerry always when he comes in and he's got the Iceman haircut.

It's like straight Iceman villain.

It's so good.

I actually love it.

Alex, you haven't mentioned Hans Zimmer.

Yes.

Dude, I know.

Is he on your list of?

He is, and I didn't.

Like this is kind of early Zimmer and the score is fantastic.

And it does have Loggins-esque guitar solos and various.

You wouldn't have guessed that it was Zimmer just by listening to it,

but again, opening credit is so helpful.

I knew by the first note.

Really?

It's like, yeah, this is right.

The synthesizer note, right?

When they're, it's the same thing as the F-14 nose coming into the frame,

you know, very strategically.

So good.

Same exact note.

Top Gun is not cars, really, but I'm already ready to do a Top Gun pod.

It's motorcycle.

That's why.

It is.

And she's just watching anyway.

37% on Rotten Tomatoes, which I was deeply offended by.

It does have a reassessment section on Wikipedia,

which I love seeing that, right?

Like it was so poorly reviewed that there's kind of a ladder day reimagining.

And there's a whole subsection under reassessment with Tarantino quotes.

Tarantino likes this.

A lot of people love that.

And this is, I know it's not perfect, but it's not 37%.

Come on.

I don't know who's rating these things.

It's like one of the best movies ever made.

It's a 10 out of 10 in my book.

Yes.

Did any of you guys go deep on Cold Trickle, the guys he's based on?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Talk to me about that a little bit.

It's fascinating.

Did you know those names?

Yes.

Well, there's Baudin.

There's a lot going on, right?

There's the sponsors of the cars.

There's Chevy.

There's Hendrick.

There's Dick Trickle, you know, RIP.

But he, I mean, is just an icon of NASCAR history, smoking cigs in the car.

I mean, the whole cigarette lighter in the car.

Cigarettes in the car to light up his Winston branded cigs on the dash of his race car during

Yellow Laps.

I mean, I would watch some vids.

I watched some vids of that and I was like, come on, not to mention his name.

And then there's a whole bunch of racers and then different people in the movie.

Nobody explicitly takes the name of people, but I was actually surprised that Randy Quaid's

character, the team owner, City Chevrolet.

Did you see that's a real place?

It's a real place and it was owned by Hendrick, but they're trying to say he was like modeled

after Hendrick, but Randy Quaid is such a doofus.

No, it's not.

I mean, if I was Rick Hendrick, I'd be like, dude, can you pick a Harrison Ford or something?

You know what I mean?

It's like, yeah, he's kind of like always the same character.

He is in the vacation movie and you're just kind of like, come on, dude.

I don't see Russ doing that.

NASCAR doesn't see Russ doing that.

There's some crossover, right?

That there's an RV.

But anyway, I thought that was a little bit different.

But then when they talk about like, yeah, the different drivers, the villain driver

and Cruz, and then the other driver whose name you're going to create.

So great, Jeff Bodine is like one of the big guys and he had this big rivalry with Earnhardt.

And that's apparently where a lot of the stuff comes, including being forced to drive to dinner

together. That was a real thing that France made them do because they were trading paint so much.

That's such a great monologue that Fred Thompson gives.

That is a better, he's better as France than...

He was a good France.

I was okay with him as France.

But yeah, Randy Quaid's in the room and you're just kind of like, he's now befuddled.

I know.

But no, there were references in the pit lane, the other cars that drive in the other cars.

And there's a lot of different overlap to other drivers.

The other guy he's supposedly based on is Tim Richmond.

Name I knew, but I didn't know that much about him.

He's an Indy car driver and LA.

We're going to talk about that whole exchange because that's like a great exchange.

One of the best lines in the movie.

Well, let me frame it around whether you think Cruz is a credible racer.

Well, he's like Yankee.

He's like, he's from California.

If you're from California, you're not a Yankee.

You're not really.

And you're not really.

No, no, no.

Then the follow-up line and he's like, well, you said it, you know?

It was like a, you know, record scratch.

Totally.

The part I love.

A lot of us are from California.

So we shrugged that off.

He says Eagle Rock and he goes, that's up near Charlottesville or something.

I love that line.

So the Cruz connection to Newman is interesting because we sold a Tom Cruise race car on the

site and he was obviously racing around a little bit.

And so obviously it was Paul Newman.

A Z.

Yeah, a 280 Z or something.

Yeah, something like that.

300.

300 and blue and red and livery.

Right.

Is that where that all comes from?

He was driving or what's the connection there?

Not sure.

Just he got the connection from Paul Newman over to Rick Hendrick and then he made up the

story, the initial part of it, took it to Jerry Brockheimer.

And then that's why he still has the story credit in the opening of the movie, which was

kind of a shock to me as well.

Yeah.

I was surprised by that.

I mean, whether he's believable or not in that opening scene, we know that T-Cruise is

like not only do you race, but I mean, they put him in David Coulthart's F1 car one time

and he was quick.

He does all his own stunts.

Totally.

And he has the famous top gear lap where he almost rolls the car because he's so aggressive.

But he doesn't show up at freaking Daytona test day and like you're two seconds faster

than the gear you just want to race.

Some of it is like, okay, we were inverted.

I get it.

Right.

But it's like, come on.

We should talk about that because there's like a whole kind of complaint section about

the stupidest racing pieces.

Let me frame it this way.

Are you guys, I know Rick, you're probably the most out of all of us.

Are you guys big NASCAR fans?

Like, have you gone to a NASCAR race?

What's your background with NASCAR?

My family, I'm going to come from a NASCAR family.

My grandfather worked a couple pit races at the Milwaukee Mile in the 50s and 60s,

pits and drivers back in the Winston Sigs on the dash days.

So yeah, I was always loved that.

I got honestly a little bit out of it in modern times with the point scoring system.

I kind of liked having Daytona as just the Super Bowl and then every other race is rice for fun.

But you grew up watching it.

Yeah.

But not anymore.

I haven't watched it in so long.

I've gotten a little bit more into Formula One, unfortunately.

Oh gosh.

Well, there's movies about that too.

Did you?

Another spec series.

Totally.

Stock cars are all the same.

We need to talk about stock cars.

We need to talk about stock cars being confused about what IndyCar is and especially they're like,

seem to be confused about sprint car racing and I'm like, what?

Like everyone's intermixing in those worlds.

They were actually running wheel and open wheel series.

One of them wasn't even either.

One of those open wheel deals.

Have you gone to an NASCAR race in New York?

I haven't.

Never.

Nope, never.

Never been.

A couple Indy cars, but that's it.

I went to a Bush League.

I've been to NHRA, which I feel like is hopscotching over NASCAR to even crazier.

So I needed to make that middle stop on the train and get off at the brickyard or wherever.

How about any oval tracks?

You guys see any oval track racing, sprints or anything?

Never in person.

My uncle used to race not sprints, but late model modifies on dirt to half mile,

third mile, circle tracks.

But I did actually see what's the league right under whatever the cup league is.

I saw that one at Road America once.

So you mean stock cars?

Yeah.

Oh, stock cars.

And so they run road courses every so often.

And I happened to be in Wisconsin when they were running at Road America.

So we got to see that.

That was insane watching the cars turn right.

It's amazing.

I love watching them on road.

I'm surprised you guys have never gone to that in the morning.

I know it's been there forever.

And Beck and I both could have gone in the early 90s or whatever to NASCAR races

when it would have been this good stuff.

It would have been these cars.

I know.

And every year you wait is a mistake because you feel like it gets worse.

Not better, right?

So you're like, oh, I could have been there in the early days.

I mean, we need to maybe make a trip to go see one.

So I've seen lots of oval track racing in small venues,

alters, and I've seen some sprint cars.

I went to the Little 500.

I've gone to the Indy 500.

And I've seen NASCAR in IndyCar at Sonoma.

But I've never been to...

I've driven on super speedways like open track days and stuff,

but I've never seen an actual NASCAR super speedway event in person live.

So maybe we need to do that.

Maybe we need to go.

Yeah, I think so.

For me personally, it helps that I'm not a NASCAR expert.

Navigate some of the problems here because I'm just like, I'm able to...

If you know everything about NASCAR, this movie probably insuriates you, right?

But that's why I think so.

We all like it.

I think to your point about them making a big deal about two seconds,

I think if they used the real times,

most people would have no idea why that's good.

If you were to say he was two tenths of a second faster,

sure, people would be like, why is that a big deal?

It doesn't sound very good.

I don't know how much they said he was faster.

I was just throwing that out there.

I just think it's absurd that he cruises down pit lane on his Harley.

He like jumps in the car and is like, trust me.

He's never been in a NASCAR.

He's faster than Rowdy Burns.

So I think we're supposed to believe is the defending champion, right?

Like he's the Winston Cup champion.

I heard at least one of those things I read that like,

they tried to get like Earnhardt, Earnhardt senior to like be involved

and be that other person that stuff.

But anyway, I think that is supposed to be Earnhardt.

I mean, who won it last year and who's in the Chevy and the Exxon livery and all the stuff.

Yep.

Some of it aligns with Earnhardt.

Some of it doesn't.

But I think it's kind of interesting to feed him in.

I mean, he was in his sort of heyday at that time.

Yes, totally.

Not only is he under the time, they go, oh, you would have taken pole here.

So his first time ever in a stock car,

he would have taken pole at the track that he's on.

And he didn't even know how to describe the setup.

That's right.

Right.

They were jumping the gun a little bit when they eventually get to the point

where Tom Cruise admits that he can't talk the language of race cars.

And they sort of this quiet moment where he's about to try and divulge that information.

There was this hot moment of like, how dumb is he really supposed to be?

How can he do this?

They told me to get in and drive and I could drive.

So I have to say, I could totally sympathize with him on that.

Working here with all you guys, I know a lot about cars in the grand scheme of things.

But with working with you guys and a lot of our colleagues here,

I find myself saying, I don't know much about cars a lot.

I feel like Tom Cruise.

Treson mixed to Randy for 10 years.

That was a funny moment.

That was a funny moment of all the scenes in the movie when he has that like.

The wedge.

Foge, foe, vulnerable moment.

You know how I'm like a dummy and I'm insecure.

I was like, whoa, that was that was weird.

Right.

You mean is that one on all your TV watches?

Yeah, maybe.

I don't know if I had ever seen that.

I was like, oh, OK, that's interesting.

That's how he's going to play this.

But they had to build the bond.

And are we going to talk Robert Duvall or not?

Let's do it.

Still alive.

Robert Duvall is 95.

This is our third BAT at the movies and two of them have had Robert Duvall.

So he's already been in two of our three movies.

OK, so you guys already maybe hashed out.

No, no, you should talk about it.

So I rewatched this again last night with my wife as I was telling you guys.

And this time around, the big takeaway for me was Duvall.

Duvall is the best part of the movie, I think.

And he actually does seem, I don't know, he seems like a salty old.

Like I knew Car Guys like that cranky old, that pure later hat.

The pure later hat the whole time the American flag happened.

All of them are terrific.

I love the whole thing, the barn with the ramps going in and the dusty template.

And we have him talking to the chassis about how he's going to form it into the race car.

Had a really strong gun in 60 seconds kind of.

Somebody was working that team.

The people that did the movie cars like watched this 100 times.

Like, I mean, they were thinking about this for sure.

For those of you who aren't following all of the BAT at the movies,

the last movie we saw Robert Duvall in was Bullet.

Yes.

When he was the cab driver in the opening scene.

What is that?

22 years earlier than this, right?

68 seconds, right?

Yeah, and he was in it for what, maybe 10 seconds?

He's in it a little more than a couple of times.

He's a cab driver.

Yes, correct.

Four-door Galaxy.

Gold.

I forget what color.

Oh, Randy.

Randy, you're pulling that right out.

That's exactly right.

All of that is correct.

I was thinking about cars and planes and all of the mold of the cranky old mentor guy,

and this is maybe my favorite cranky mentor.

Drinking moonshine.

Drinking weird stuff and always drinking it.

He always has a clear glass of something floating.

Moonshine and Bud Heavy is what's being a name buyer in the idea.

There were some good Bud heavies, but yeah.

What an accent.

So many quotes, I think, about from him all the time from this,

the eating ice cream thing.

We're too busy reading ice cream.

That's allegedly a real Rick Hendrick legend.

Found that out too.

Crazy.

Amazing part.

Yes.

Put in that first race with Robert DeVall on the radio headset with Tom Cruise,

and it basically immediately turns into bumper cars.

Another great Robert DeVall line of rubbing sun is race.

Totally.

Rubbin's race.

Is a great one.

And it was aggressive hitting.

Yeah.

It is not.

That's another part that's a little tough sometimes.

A little much.

They're full accidents as they go.

Yeah.

Knocking someone's bumper loose on purpose.

I mean, you both get black flags for that.

Tires is what wins races is probably the quote I think about the most from this whole thing.

There you go.

The lesson.

Those racing scenes are, despite the inaccuracies and sort of the egregious take on like how they

would hit each other, they're shot.

Incredible.

Correct.

Just amazing.

The camera is so low to the ground and they are just streamed across.

They shot it during, I'm not sure if it was like before races or whatnot, but there's obviously

thousands of people in the stands for a lot of these things.

I know they had to do some reshoots, which is why I think in the big accident scene,

there's no fans in the background.

They shot it like in a corner of the track and couldn't see stands.

But for a majority of it, like you really feel like you're there and it's just shot

in a fantastic way.

And honestly, the weekend coverage of NASCAR used to be that good.

Yeah.

I mean, you'd watch it and it'd be that sound of the pack going past the camera on

ABC sports or whatever before it turned into Fox or CBS or whoever fought over it after that.

I mean, that's why you'd watch NASCAR Super Speedway.

That's why you'd watch Talladega.

And that's why you'd watch Daytona because the sound of them coming by and the low camera

on the wall and all that stuff.

And they captured that energy.

I was surprised at, it seems like they went out of their way to make it seem like gritty

and dirty.

Like the cars were all like covered with black in their face.

And faces.

I was like, it's not like black over the mouth.

Yeah.

And I was like, this is supposed to be present day, like 90s.

I was like, maybe that was kind of happened by the 90s, but it kind of seemed like it was

a different era or something where they were going.

They didn't want it to be too shiny or something, like why they were doing that.

So again, this is the top gun team.

And I don't know if there's just a lot of sweat, like there is a top gun.

Which actually-

Cigars.

Oh my God.

Right, cigars.

You can't see your Fred Thompson.

All of it.

The sweating drink.

For some reason it hurts.

Oh my God.

I actually like all of that.

And it does make me wonder, and this is where my knowledge fills me.

It does feel like NASCAR is a little smaller, a little, it's different than it is now.

Yes.

Correct.

It's very Southern Confederate flag right at the beginning.

They get a Stars and Stripe in first, but there's a Stars and Bar is very shortly thereafter.

When I was watching this with my wife, she was confused when they don't understand the open

wheel series that Tom Cruise is coming from.

And I tried to sort of explain like, well, I think that's what they're trying to lay into

is that this is a Southern sport at this time, at least it was some point before that.

Sprint cars in the South, right?

Like they're all running on dirt tracks in the South too, right?

So it's, I found that weird.

But the Yankee thing, like he's a Yankee, right?

Well, he's does, he's nothing.

Oh, right.

But there was concern that he musteray from above the Mason Den.

That's Rowdy's crew chief.

And I think he's ripping a cig while he's expressing concern, which is amazing.

We need to have a whole thing on liveries.

In fact, we could do that now if you want.

Although I kind of want to go through the scenes first.

Let's keep going chronologically.

Yeah, let's go chronologically.

But I will say everything is tobacco, booze, and oil.

That's like all it is.

It's tobacco, booze, and oil, which I love.

And that's what propped up the series for 160 years.

And now oil's still allowed.

Right.

But no cigs.

Don't have tobaccos back, but in different ways.

Well, like vaping or something.

Just sort of, and sort of recently.

Like the Zin babies.

There's no Skoll car anymore.

Right?

The Skoll bandit car.

Yeah, that car's Skoll.

But it's not the Winston Cup.

That car hasn't been gone for that long, though.

I know.

What was it?

05 or 06?

Yeah.

We've had a lot of Skoll on BAT.

We've had a fair amount of Skoll.

Right.

I've seen Skoll cars on Skoll, NASCAR, Livry.

Be more specific.

We've had a lot of Skoll on BAT.

I was like, have we?

Yeah, we have.

You know we have.

We're ours.

In the BTHQ.

Hacking.

Totally.

Just go to Adler.

After work.

All right.

My dip.

Whoops.

The tobacco board is calling.

Totally.

You ever gone to BAT.com?

A little more, a CEO.

A little more.

Totally.

Somebody's calling.

I'm going to have to take this.

But you know what BAT.com is?

British American Tobacco.

There it is.

Yeah, look out.

We were reported.

Really?

I didn't know that.

Oh, that's the Formula One team.

Oh, that's interesting.

We do sell a lot of John Player Norton's, too.

One of my favorite Norton liveries.

Sigs and booze.

They propped up cars and shit.

Those were all over the place.

But he was all city Chevrolet.

That's all he had at the beginning, right?

And then the Mellow Yellow sponsorship

comes much later today.

Very odd.

That gets all the pictures and all the press

and all the everything.

And that's like right at the end.

It's very end.

That's Rowdy's car at the end.

Yes.

And then he hands it over.

Correct.

Where'd you get the engine from?

That's right.

That's what my boys were pushing.

They were pushing the engine.

I gave them that engine.

So great.

But his second sponsor is Superflow.

Yes.

Which at the time, when I watched this with my wife

and she didn't know what that was,

she was like, is this some kind of like ladies product?

Or something.

Or for like prostates or something.

That was her take.

Well, that's what's really,

Jim, right?

Like medicine is everywhere now, right?

Yeah, Mr. Mark Martin.

This is the classic, right?

The Viagra's car that ran for years and years.

Superflow today would be for your prostate.

For your filter system.

For your filtering system.

Well, it's a different kind of filtering system.

The Exxon car.

The Exxon car is so sick.

I have a huge list of liveries.

Let's do liveries.

We can go to Beck's plot corner after that.

You can tell us about Buddy Brotherton.

The King, there was a cameo moment

where they showed Richard Petty.

Yes, correct.

Not racing, but in the pits or something, right?

And then did they show Kyle Petty or something

spinning out in a 43 car?

I forget if an STP car spun.

There's definitely some STP.

Is the King on track in 90?

Yeah, he's the King.

In Tyler's brain, he's always on track.

My favorite sneaky livery.

It's in that amazing opening scene.

Is there's a Snickers car?

And that is my favorite.

Did you catch that?

I did not.

It's in that opening scene and I freaking love it.

Petty's final race was 92.

So, he was in there as a driver.

I thought they showed him with the hangings.

He spun out.

Chris White shirt, no driving suit.

So, I thought he was like a team guy by then with Kyle driving.

But he was allegedly supposed to be on the track.

Did they announce it?

Yeah, they announced he just spun Richard Petty, blah, blah, blah.

They rowdy spun him out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's right at one of the first races, right?

That they show.

Yes, that's right.

In a 43 Pontiac.

You remember the one when they're all coming at you

in the pack and the pace car is like a 90.

Oh, there's a Pontiac Grand Prix.

But it's like the GTP, whatever version with the lights on it

and Pontiac across the windshield.

And I was just like, that moment was so good.

That's the one with the wild digital dash and stuff.

All the buttons on the hull, all the stuff.

But the fact that it was out front and then the race cars behind it

were the Pontiacs that are supposed to lick like it.

They show it duck into the dash.

Yes, hot.

All of that was great.

Oh, my God, it's so good.

A couple other liveries worth mentioning.

Tide, the Tide livery.

And this is excellent.

Yep.

Two, Waldtrip.

Who was it in 90?

Kodiak.

My wife noticed that one and really liked it.

The Kodiak livery.

The Skoll competitor, of course.

There's Citgo, really good.

Gotta have Citgo.

Yep.

My actually secretly other favorite.

I really like the City Chevrolet livery.

I think it looks really good.

It does.

There's a part where Duvall is wearing a gray.

It looks like the BAT jacket.

And it says City Chevrolet with the bow tie.

And that's my number one thing I would have from this is that gray.

They're up in the bleachers and he's like coaching Cole.

Did you look for merch after this?

No.

Because people are making it.

You can go to the Hendrick Motorsports website.

And get City Chevrolet.

They have City Chevrolet.

Man.

He's also got the best opportunity.

The black hat with the neon.

All the neon.

The neon City Chevrolet is really good.

We need a BAT.

Stuff like that.

BAT, City, Chevrolet.

Need a bow tie?

I don't know if we can put it in.

No, we can't do the bow tie.

But we could do black with neon green.

BAT.

Yes, we can.

Also noticing the flame suits.

There's a really good Exxon flame suit.

There's really good STP flame suit.

A lot of helmets are fantastic.

I'm ready for all the merch.

The trucks, they keep showing the shots of the trucks.

And then a few good ones in the pits, right?

Were there in pit garages and the cars?

Or in the cars leaking or whatever,

whenever that one was, right?

Like there's six or seven cars and they've got hoods up.

Yes.

Even though they've got haulers and stuff,

it still feels a little more home spot.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, it does.

I don't know if it's still like that.

A hauler, I love it is.

I mean, they were staff if you saw the scene

when they were all drinking shine after the first win.

I mean, there couldn't have been a whole lot more room

in that hauler.

That's our perfect way to get us back into the plot.

They were all driving down the road

in the back of a semi trailer.

Like is that real?

You're forgetting this is like the South in the 90s.

It's a perfect way back into the plot.

I love that scene when they're drinking moonshine

and Cruises got the hat over his head

and he's talking about his dad having lost him his ride

and all that stuff.

And that's when the inappropriate scene happens

with the Highway Patrol.

But I love them riding in the hauler.

Like the dragster that my buddy owned that I used to go,

they had like a 36 foot triple axle trailer

and the front was like a couch and a little whole area.

I never thought of that.

And we'd ride in the back.

We'd ride in the back when they were towing it.

Wall in motion.

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah.

Amazing.

All right.

Back where do we go from there?

Well, that's a great segue back into at this point.

Cole Trickle has had his first win, right?

And so they're celebrating.

They're in the RV.

He goes from not being able to win anything

to his first place.

All of a sudden he won.

Only because of the tires.

But no, but they talked about it like it was

deep into the season though, right?

They didn't say he like came out and won the first race

or whatever, right?

Didn't they say he's doing terribly.

He's struggling at first.

He's struggling through for several races

because the whole rubbing other cars he's struggling with

and he doesn't have the fortitude to get through that

apparently.

And that's when he gets the special set of matched tires

that Robert DeVall says these tires are set for that corner.

And then he pushes through and it's just nothing special

about that set of tires.

But it gives him the confidence to go

and he actually wins the race,

which then leads to the incident in the RV,

which is it was a cringe moment of a woman dressed

as a highway patrol officer who then has the Pat downtown

cruise in an inappropriate manner,

which then turns out to be a big joke and the big laugh.

But it leads to a sort of a bookended seat later on.

Yes, the callback.

Yes, yeah.

When he's in the hospital, which is actually,

when you get to that scene when he's with Nicole Kidman

and he thinks that Nicole Kidman,

who's supposed to be his doctor, is also possibly

been hired to grope him, you start to realize,

okay, I see why they, it wasn't totally just gratuitous.

That's my real doctor.

I wouldn't joke about that, Cole.

I love that.

Plus, I mean, all his guys are there.

I mean, you can just see in his mind on drugs,

I'm sure, from his surgery, of course,

just expecting it, like, all right,

these guys are all here.

They're just starting laughing at me.

Well, if you remember Nicole Kidman at 23 years old,

like, what are you thinking?

In the hospital scene, it's so good.

Brain surgeon, Nicole surgeon.

23-year-old brain surgeon.

Brain surgeon, right.

And he's so young.

She's so young.

So yes, so good moments to start talking about

because there's a big crash.

Obviously, Cole gets into a big crash.

He gets there.

Right in the sheriff's helicopter.

Hold on real quick.

For people who think this is spoilers,

I loved your remarks earlier.

I was like, are we spoiling it?

And you're like, if the movie was made 37 years ago or

whatever it was done, like, it's too late.

Statute of limitations on spoiler alert is.

If you've made it this far in the pod

and you haven't listened to the movie, stop.

Go back.

Go watch the movie.

Watch Days of Thunder.

I promise you will enjoy two hours of fun

and then come back and listen.

So the big crash was filmed, I believe, on an airport

because it was the only place they could roll the cars

and flip them before they needed to on a runway.

But then they, yes, they helicopter evac the two drivers.

That's where Nicole Kidman is first introduced,

which I forgot it was that laid into the movie.

It makes sense because of who their character is.

But I always thought of this movie as

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.

It's almost halfway through something like that.

Yeah, it's pretty far along.

And probably my favorite scene of the hospital is

the parking lot where he chases her to see all the cars.

That is the car scene.

And I've got the picture if you want to discuss.

She's in a white E30 coupe.

Yeah.

If you want to just quiz without looking at the photo

or do we want to like...

There's definitely an IS.

It's got a lip spoiler on the trunk.

That's right.

So that's a very strong one.

Which is, by the way, exactly what a doctor would drive.

I think of that time for sure.

In 1990, sure.

And it's got small bumpers.

So it's just after that.

It would have been a convertible.

That's the only...

Well, there is an E30 Cabrio.

It should have been a convertible.

There is an E30 Cabrio in the parking lot.

There's also a Honda Accord with W124.

And do you know what that 928 is?

There is a...

It's either a Strosik or a Gimbala.

It is a Strosik.

Is that Don Simpson's car?

It's an extra.

It's just like...

Oh, well, you mean...

Yeah, people on the screen.

I'm just guessing if it's the...

What I mean is...

Is that what they were rolling around in Miami in?

Oh.

We have had a 920S Strosik.

Oh, I'm very going to say that one.

And my head was going to explode.

But we've had a similar one ready.

A similar one on the site.

Not that long ago.

Back in September, it's sold for 41K.

But I saw that and I thought of all of you because I was like,

okay, this is the scene we have to talk about because there's...

All the cars are German.

There's a 560SL.

There's a 300E.

There's a BMW.

There's a Porsche.

There's her BMW.

It's like German.

But that's like what a doctor's parking lot would...

Like I actually think it's very...

It's real.

There could have been a Caddy.

There could have been a...

I don't know.

But it makes me wonder if that's outside of Memorial Hospital's real...

Like that's their real parking lot.

Because that's exactly what all the surgeons would drive in.

No, I know.

This is so...

It was also like the first real juxtaposition to all of the Americana we've seen so far.

Yes, that's right.

Which is why it really struck me in the parking lot where Nicole Kimmins walking to her E30.

Tom Cruise chases after her to try and apologize and try to ask her out.

But that shot of all of those cars, which are cars we've never seen before,

and we're never going to see again.

It's purely staged for that scene.

We've had...

A few of those are kind of like bread and butter BAT cars too.

Like we all have experiences with...

I've owned her W124.

I've owned an E30.

Like I grew up in those as well.

I know you did as well, Alex.

Yeah, numerous.

Nobody here can claim a...

Stroke.

Automatic Pearl White, though.

Can we?

No.

I could tell that car's an automatic just by looking at it from here.

100% of course.

I'm 99% confident it is somebody.

Some...

It's got to be done.

Also weird.

Just assuming.

Yeah, weird moment.

I like picking out inconsistencies.

I don't know if you notice.

She walks up to the E30 and she unlocks the door by the door cylinder.

Puts her key in it.

She walks up to it.

It's already unlocked and she goes and puts the key into it.

I was like, I wonder how many takes they took to get it out.

But she left it unlocked and then she went to unlock it.

And I was like, that's a weird moment, right?

Like you wouldn't have done that.

But she was on screen and somebody told her,

you have to go open up your car.

But then she drove off and I think it's a five-speed car

because of the way when she pulls away,

it kind of like pulls away like a stick shift.

I bet it is.

I think it's either a 325 or a 310 IS.

She went a little method.

She studied with doctors and stuff.

And my wife, who's the daughter of a doctor,

found her quite credible, surprisingly,

because I was kind of making jokes about her, she's 23.

But she does the exams of the guys and stuff.

And she is relatively believable.

In general, the movie is...

Both she and Tom Cruise are so good looking.

But it is like way less fake.

The people look more real in this, even the beautiful people.

They're sweating.

She's not wearing that much makeup.

I prefer it.

Movies have gotten weird

and people have gotten weird-looking in movies.

And I liked how real the people look,

even though they're movie stars and good-looking.

But the teeth aren't perfect and there's not a ton of makeup

and it's a little sweaty.

I loved it.

It's also that weird generational thing

where young people from longer ago look older than they were.

Like you see photos of people in their teens and 20s,

maybe a generation or two ago,

you think like, how is that person only 20 years old?

They look so much older.

And that's how I felt exactly for Nicole Kidman.

I was just sort of shocked.

Nowadays, I can't imagine a 23-year-old, Nicole Kidman,

would have looked anything like that.

How old was Cruise?

He's about 30, I think.

Is that right?

Right, because he was 26 for Top Gun.

Yeah.

So it was four years later.

Can I point out one other crazy card?

I don't know if any of you guys caught this.

I've seen this movie 20 times

and mostly in chunks like you, Randy.

But I've watched it through at least five or six times in my life.

Never saw this till last night.

There is a Monte Carlo AeroCoupe outside of Duval's barn

in the beginning.

Do you even know what those are?

They're NASCAR homologation special.

Oh, interesting.

They're a Monte Carlo,

but they have a Fastback glass on them

to homologate a Fastback.

Kind of like a Riviera-style kind of Fastback.

Yes, and that was only like a two-year-old car.

There's a blue one sitting outside his barn

where he builds the cars in the hay loft,

which is so interesting.

Did an Oldsmobile have one?

Or is that?

Or is that it?

I think they're Monte Carlo.

We've listed them before.

I didn't know about them till I worked at BAT.

Randy's got the...

I just found the photo of the Pontiac.

Is it a GSB?

It's a NASCAR sticker on the front bumper.

Pontiac across the glass.

That's unreal.

Wider is better.

That is real.

Exxon Bud Kodak.

We didn't talk about Kodak livery.

Crisco?

Oh, yes.

My wife who went to school at Nashville,

she's like, it's all the Southern hits, including Crisco.

Alex, you're talking about your wife coming from a doctor family

and how accurate it was,

something that my wife and I were just confused by.

And again, movie magic here,

but when it's time to give Tom Cruise his exam,

it's like we got to put the gown on.

We got to put the white doctor's ass sit on.

We got to turn the lights off.

We've got to have him sit on the counter.

Rowdy's about to die and she's doing it in a turtleneck.

It's like, why go through the whole process?

Also, she's kind of on a date with him when she's examining him,

which seems like a conflict.

Like that's a little bit of a conflict.

Like the Hippocratic oath is not necessarily being followed.

And she's like, you're good to race.

But in that testing, they get the recovery from the hospital,

she tests the exams and they think they both are about to get cleared.

They have to go to lunch or dinner, whatever it is.

And that's when you bring up the scene that we mentioned earlier,

where they're forced to take the same rental car together.

Yes.

And the car that they're in.

Oh, dude, I was going to Taurus.

Taurus, dude.

One of them is a first gen Ford Taurus.

The other one is, I think, a Chevy Lumina or a Rada.

Front-wheel drive, I think.

Yes.

The other one.

Well, I guess this was the Taurus.

And that turns into full bumper cars.

Dude.

And on the beach.

When they're revving and he gives them the finger, it's so good.

But you're missing the wheelchair race that came before that.

I was going to ask, favorite race.

And those were actually, that's my number one and two.

It's wheelchair race and rental car race.

Oh, the wheelchair.

I forgot how, for some reason, having seen the movie for years

and years and years, but years ago, I had it in my head

that the wheelchair race was just kind of a quick, funny thing.

No.

It's a serious racing scene.

I mean, they're really wheelchair racing.

They're racing to each other.

And bumping.

I mean, just a wonder.

One of my favorite.

I thought that scene was absurd.

I love it.

Do we love that?

No, I love it.

I had so much imagination.

What I didn't notice to last night is Cruz is like,

I don't want to be next to this guy.

And the guy pushing him leaves down.

He's like, you got to talk to the nurse if you want drugs.

Did you notice that?

I watched it with.

What does that mean?

I don't know.

It's so weird.

You can tell as much as I love this movie,

you can tell that the director, the producers,

and the writer were all fighting with each other.

And they kind of stitched a lot of it together.

You know what I mean?

They filmed a bunch of rad scenes.

And then when they're editing up, they're like,

can we make a movie out of this?

We can make a movie out of this.

The Thrasht, rental cars.

With the valets staring at them.

And by the way, that whole scene,

that's my favorite scene in the movie,

is the rental car race.

And then it's intercut with Fred Thompson,

cooling his heels angrily with Quaid checking his watch.

At lunch.

And then they also become friends at that point, right?

Too close to call effect.

I believe it was the radiator.

One at Cole.

And he bites the celery.

It's so good.

I love that whole scene.

The other scene that's also Fred Thompson,

Senator Fred Thompson later,

and also in red October,

one of my favorite movies,

playing a version of France Senior,

is when they're doing the brain scan on him first,

and he's like not facing the camera.

And they ask Nicole Kimman to leave.

And he like gives them the whole

spiel about the Japanese inspection.

I can take your race cars apart for 300 laps.

Don't ever swap paint again.

I love that monologue.

That's why you bring Fred Thompson.

And it's those two scenes.

I guess all he's in is those two scenes.

It's all you need.

He made such a huge part of the movie.

You were scared for these guys.

You were like, yeah, let's just become friends

and go on with our lives.

He does the same thing in red October.

Russians don't take a dump without a plan, son.

You remember that part?

It's so good.

But after the race in the rental cars,

they then end up making peace, right?

That's how basically it's the plot point

to reconnect these two drivers

and make them friends and make them work together,

which is important because eventually

the other drivers are going to start having

residual issues from the accident.

You need Tom Cruise.

We also have a villain introduction, too.

You villains.

As first villain becomes

what is that guy in?

Kerry Elway famously is the Princess Bride.

He's the Jess.

Gotcha.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Robin Hood, Men in Tights.

Yes, by the way.

He plays the same role again.

Oh my God, that's the movie.

And he is British, but plays Americans a lot.

I didn't know that.

Have you ever seen So American?

Have you ever seen Porko Rosso,

which is one of the Miyazaki films about airplanes?

I can't believe you've never seen that.

Sounds like a brand name.

I'm bringing in, God, I have an airplane.

Airplane reference here comes.

Watch out, audience.

It's a movie about 20s air pirates by Miyazaki,

who's like Miyazaki's one of the movie.

Oh, I think a lot of people would say

the greatest maker of animated films.

And the American dub version is Michael Keaton

is the main character and the villain is Kerry Elway

is playing a cranky American movie star.

Anyway, he's great.

I love him.

And he is Iceman in this movie.

Yes, yes, yes.

Russ Wheeler is Rod in.

The names in general are incredible.

Rowdy Burns, Cole Trickle, Russ Wheeler.

Then Nicole Kimman finds all the flowers in her room.

Oh, which is full creep mode.

Like that's when you run.

Big gas.

Yeah.

Big gas.

And then.

Did not age well.

Well, then that that leads to though,

then Cole Trickle, you know, gets lucky that night.

And that's the scene that until recently,

I guess Randy had never seen.

Both the drafting scene.

The drafting scene, which I specifically,

honestly, I don't remember if that's when I learned

about the concept of drafting her as a kid.

That is also how I learned about Brotherhood.

That is a 13 year old.

It's very formative for you, Beck.

With sweet low packets.

Sweet low packets on the thigh.

It's a really good explanation of drafting.

It is.

It's actually a really good explanation.

It's actually the most technical part

of racism in this movie.

It's the most successful part of the movie.

Yeah, it's the most pioneering part of the film.

I actually agree.

It is also how I learned about drafting.

And I've never do about it before.

And it is really good.

And it's reminiscent of a really interesting

Jackie Stewart documentary made by Roman Polanski,

speaking of canceled things.

With butter packets.

Yes, with butter packets, where he's in his underwear

and Monte Carlo explaining, have you ever seen that?

That's incredible.

He's explaining apexing in a very similar way.

I wonder if he was actually inspired by that,

because the way he makes a complicated idea simple is,

it's also, this is written by Robert Town.

It could just be excellent writing,

like so many of these other things.

But anyway, love that scene.

Then after that, whether they're leaving,

I think where they're going to,

but that's when they are in the 91 Caprice,

the two of them, which notably is a pre-production car.

Because at first, those Uranium was brand new.

Wait, the white one, the cab?

The one where he slams into the cab.

This is second big red flag, flowers,

and then he chases that guy,

and she's like, I'm going to get out.

I love how they found a lot of like,

garage and driveway transitions to slam OEM cars into,

and pull wheels off the ground.

It was like very A-team-esque.

But the driving is like, could slam bottom out the car

and have it go three-wheel motion,

just like flying with hubcaps and all the stuff.

And I was like, wow, they're really trying.

It's also such a good era for like soft suspension

and like little wheels or huge sidewall, right?

You could totally do that.

You can't even do that in like your Honda, right?

I mean, there's no way you're going to get like,

wheel lift unless you...

My Honda probably pulls more Gs than those NASCARs did,

you know, on a super speedway.

We're in such a different era.

But like racing a stock Taurus from 90?

Yes.

I had forgotten how much this movie is about like anxiety

and trauma.

By the end, Rowdy and Cole are just like husks of men

and they're ready to snap at a moment's notice.

And like they're really, they're living their traumas.

Yeah, it can get dark if you let it.

So don't let it.

Just enjoy the movie.

Well, that's like top gun, right?

I mean, they get into the head of the driver

and the driver's dying.

They're Rowdy having to give up his car totally.

It's a try and encourage Cole Trickle

to go back into racing, right?

Because Cole doesn't want to race either.

He's lost his car because he blows the motor, right?

In a race, he's so uncomfortable,

doesn't want to give in.

The telltale.

That's how I learned about telltales too.

I'd never known about that before either.

What's the line?

Like I'm more scared of being nothing than dying.

Well, Nicole Kidman in that Capricene,

that's actually like the most real part of the movie.

She's like, you're all children and you're so scared

and you're not an adult and you need to like get a life.

You make me sound like a doctor.

I pissed at you.

It's really good.

This is Charlie at the bar with the lecture, right?

You're not going to be happy

unless you're going Mach 2 with your hair on fire.

And also same kind of thing where in Top Gun,

like Maverick is not engaging the enemy

while his friends are like in combat.

He's like, no, dude, this is not the time,

like, you know, to worry about your brain.

Like you got to get in this thing.

And sure enough, does that think you're dead out there

on the super speed?

But I think you're dead.

That's all right.

But Rowdy gives him his car, but he says he needs a car to run.

But that's in his door too.

When he tells him he's like popping the pills

and the baby is crying.

That really triggered me as a father.

Like that's like you when they go into Rowdy's house

and Rowdy's like melting down.

He's like, would you win that trophy for?

He's like, doesn't it say?

He's like, yeah, Winston Cup.

Easy to forget that, buddy.

Yeah.

Like crazy.

It's like, here's a guy who's got three very young kids

and you know, he's out of work essentially.

Yeah.

And they're in the house.

He's got to build this $10 million house.

That's right.

I love that scene to the boat.

I mean, I had never watched it with closed captioning either

and I'd missed a lot of the lines.

And there's one point in that scene where he says something like,

I've got a lot of dreams that aren't paid for yet

when he's trying to get Cole to drive his car for him.

Sure.

So the boat in that scene was Rick Hendricks Scarab.

Yeah, Rick Hendricks Scarab.

And it was his boat.

And there was supposed to be Tom Cruise spent a lot of time

at Rick Hendricks Lake House on Normal Lake in North Carolina.

But the scene was actually filmed on Lake Wiley also in North Carolina.

So they were trying to make it like Rick Hendricks real life.

Yes, brand new compound.

I saw it out there.

It was like floating out at the dock.

And I was like, what is this?

So good.

What are they going to do with this?

And then they end up on it.

Speaking of Doppler effect, that maybe is one of the best

when it, you know, past the camera with the kind of,

it's like dusk in the back.

It's so good.

It's a smoky dusk, right?

That's what I like.

Which is a Toonie Scott deal.

Like if you watch his other movies, they're always like that.

Always cool.

Cole is like that too.

Yeah.

Yeah, those guys, right?

A rowdy needs him to move the car because he wants his livery out there.

He needs his sponsor to be seen inexplicably.

Then the sponsor then changes to Mellow Yellow for some reason,

which kind of negates the whole issue.

However, my favorite part of the Mellow Yellow is there's a shot

of when the car is revealed for Cole and he's walking up to it.

And I think it's the only time in the movie where you see

from his vantage point, he's walking up to the Mellow Yellow car

and shot almost like handheld.

And it's just such an amazingly exciting moment of revealing

the Mellow Yellow for the first time.

I thought it was just kind of out of the box for this movie,

which had usually been so much more high tension.

And now here was a handheld shot of like walking towards the car.

And he makes that joke about, oh, they barely paid us enough

to paint the name on my car.

Totally.

That was great.

Totally.

That was great.

Totally.

You got yourself a sponsor.

Yeah.

He needs to build this house, but it barely.

But he can barely paint the logo.

But before that race, the engine in the car goes bad.

It's like leaking oil.

There's a little Robert Duvall moment pre-race where he

complains that the car is doing something nasty

and it's leaking something.

So he gets a new engine.

We don't really know where he gets it just yet.

Obviously it turns out to be City Chevrolet, a team owner.

But then to get it back into the race,

they do all the pre-race interviews.

And that's where we start seeing race car drivers again

and a cameo from Don Simpson.

Oh, where is he?

Oh, is he the cameraman?

He's one of the drivers in the pre-Daytona interviews.

Oh, I didn't know that.

There's a couple of real drivers that are a little faze-y.

They do a pretty good job with that.

Yeah, the end was Russ Wheeler saying that he's like a menace

on the track.

But that's after building credibility

by having a couple of real drivers.

Yes, exactly.

He's sort of like folded into it a little bit.

I thought the script and lingo was great

as they're talking about their concerns

about how Cole is going to do when he comes back

and how you can never really come back the same.

It was really great.

A lot of scary race car driver stuff in it.

I love it.

And then it ends with, as you pointed out already,

the amazing freeze frame.

And that's like a callback joke.

I'm going to race your ass.

He's always wanting to race him.

Hold on, hold on.

Going back a little bit before that.

It's in the race going from last to first.

Oh, yes.

Stuck in fourth gear.

Stuck in fourth gear in 15 laps.

He's able to go from last to first.

But possibly the best one is when the transmission's broken

and he has to reverse into pit lane.

I thought it was hilarious.

I absolutely love the mechanic under the car.

Floor jacks.

And he was like, jam it into high.

Get it into high.

I've got him high.

And he gets right out in front of the pace car.

And then they have to push it because he's holy.

They just...

Both teams?

Both teams.

Yeah, with that much power, it's just not enough

to get him going into high gear.

But there are famous examples of that where

Shumi won a race stuck in fifth gear or something like that.

Yeah, there's some examples of people doing that

if you keep the momentum up.

And they do say you've got to get up to full speed

by the time the pace lap ends so that you're cooking

when everyone else is just starting to accelerate.

Yeah, it's great.

But that freeze frame ending, you're right,

is a phenomenal moment.

And Cruz gets his running end.

Cruz can never be in a movie without running,

and you get a Cruz running scene.

But Duvall is kind of cooking too.

Duvall is totally cooking, which makes me so happy.

I have a couple questions for you guys to close it all out.

So we talked about all the liveries.

What's your favorite?

Snickers is mine.

That's going to be my vote.

Which one stuck out to you?

There was a lot of press for the hardies one.

That doesn't do much for me.

My wife told me hardies,

which I think of as being Carl's junior now.

She said it used to be like a chicken place,

and then when Carl's junior bought it,

it turned into Carl's junior.

It's the Carl's junior, yeah.

Yes, that's what it is now.

I've always kind of liked the City Chevrolet.

The green and the yellow was, I think,

Part of the reason I love City Chevrolet is all the

shirts and hats and jackets that go along with it.

Plus, the idea of privateer teams in general,

which is kind of not aged that well,

nobody can run privateer teams anymore.

That Exxon car is good.

I think the Superflow is pretty great.

And Exxon was rad, wasn't it?

Of these, I'm Mellow Yellow.

Mellow Yellow.

No problem.

But I mean, of NASCAR, of the era,

that delivers STP Exxon Kodiak Quaker State Bud Kodak.

I mean, I think which one you want.

Bud is amazing.

I'm a big Quaker State.

Yeah, totally.

I really love that.

The Bud Flamesuit.

Is that what it's just red, white, and just as Bud?

Well, King of Beer is under, right?

Did you ever go to Quaker Steak, the restaurant chain?

It's so good.

Quaker State?

Quaker Steak, it's a restaurant.

Quaker Steak.

It's like a restaurant, microchain.

No, it's, well, yeah, it's different,

but it's modeled.

It's the same.

They use that logo.

Really?

It's all race cars and oil inside.

Wow, I wonder.

Quaker Steak and Lube.

Quaker Steak and Lube is what this restaurant's called.

Yeah, it's like a, I don't know.

Is this your Wisconsin day?

It was, yeah, it was.

Another shout out to our friend, Jack Peterson.

I mean, I used to go to Quaker Steak and Lube

whenever I was in town.

Amazing.

That's ridiculous.

And it was a total NASCAR themed restaurant.

I'll go there.

Favorite quotes.

I had forgotten how many quotes from this

dick with me.

Tires, like it's what wins a race.

Like that one has stuck with me a lot.

Hit the pace car, I think a lot.

I've forgotten about that.

That one's great.

I want you to be perfect.

You've hit everything else.

That's supposedly a real legend, is right?

Like he was actually said, like you've hit everything else.

Why don't you hit the pace car?

That was a great moment.

I enjoyed that.

I do too.

There's that great scene also kind of a kin to that

when he pulls in cold struggling.

And John C. Riley is like, oh, look, a side we don't have to fix.

And Debalm kicks it.

And he said, I don't want you spoiled.

It's so good.

Another good one.

I'm dropping the hammer.

100%.

That's a great one.

100%.

Like why was he in third gear going around the track?

It's like that's useless.

I remember there being more pointless downshifting than there was.

It's not as bad as Fast and Furious.

Not at all.

And one of the big downshifts is when he intentionally

blows the motor, who goes into third.

Telltale.

Any movie script that includes a telltale reference,

which Duval does.

He says, I went over there.

9,400 RPMs.

Telltale.

I was like, yes, you did.

Yeah, you blow the sun.

Give me autometer.

Give me all the autometer.

It shows him doing it.

All that stuff is like pretty good on this size.

No, I'm sort of naive in this space.

Is that a feature on those?

Yes, a little button.

It's a telltale tack.

Man.

Yeah.

Autometer.

What was it?

7-inch or 5-inch?

It's a huge one on that.

That's exactly what we had in my pro 7-inch car.

I always had the cheaper, the sport comp model.

But if you paid up for the pro comp, you got telltale.

And you'd have to be revved to care for that.

You could see what you, you could see where Max RPM went.

Max RPM.

Yep.

So good.

There's another line that's probably going to have to get cut by Chris here

on because there's some language involved.

But I think it's a great one.

I think that Duval says, we look like a monkey but not a football.

That, that was a,

Like, is that an X?

No, that was the owner.

Yeah.

That was the,

The third is, yes.

Oh, dude, it was quaint.

It is.

It is quaint.

No, that was what he asked.

He probably ad-libbed that line because he uses that,

like around the dinner table.

Like, we use that all the time.

All the time.

He uses it all the time.

You see Daryl Waltrip out there using up his tires?

Another one that I think is so great.

And then like the whole thing when he shows the two tires,

after the thing, it's great.

This one is a little bit southern,

but the line I actually think about the most is,

they're talking about whether skill or like experience matter,

and Duval points to his dog and he's like,

you see that dog there?

That's the best damn Coonhound I've ever seen.

And I didn't teach him a damn thing.

I think about that all the time,

because that's like a life lesson, right?

Like, like, is somebody born with a skill or can you-

Did you catch my reference to that earlier?

No.

I complimented your podcast.

Oh, that's right.

Up top.

Heck, about the Coonhound.

Well, that's right.

That's right.

Didn't teach him a damn thing.

I think one of my big takeaways was a $2,500 track rental.

Dude, I have that on my list.

For an oval track.

You're like, make that happen?

Yeah.

For was that Charlotte Motor Speedwessy?

And he's like mad.

He's like, I had to pay $2,500 to start to-

Each one of those tires has got to be $2,500 today.

All right.

Here's a question.

Here's a nit to pick.

Rowdy was already out there running.

So who paid for it?

Seems like Rowdy was already out there testing,

but Cityshaver really paid for the track.

That's a different day.

Isn't that the- That's not-

No, nobody's seen- Rowdy is starting already on the track

and he pulls into the pit and he says,

don't crash my car when Cole gets in.

You can imagine maybe that was for a lot of time.

Yeah, part of the day.

That was going to be Cityshaver.

It was going to be next in line on that.

Another one of my secret favorite quotes,

buy me lunch out at the highway roadhouse.

That's what he wants us as a reward.

Do ball.

There's actually great bars.

Places like that don't exist anymore.

Where Cole says-

Definitely told.

I think they're out here.

Not around here.

Well, they're not filled with cigarette smoke

or anything anymore, probably not even in the South, unfortunately.

Maybe if you go to deep Louisiana or Mississippi or something.

Best race?

What's the best race?

My favorite is the rental car race,

but what's your guys' favorite race?

Man, we got to think about this one.

Honestly, they run together for me.

I can't- I have trouble picking a part.

They run together.

They listen.

I really love how they show the track

and they list which real track it is, right?

It's not like phoning.

Can I pick the montage?

The montage of him just-

Oh, learning.

Like the montage of him learning how to-

Getting better is so good.

Yeah, of him-

And I love that song.

Yeah, it's a perfect song for that scene.

And he doesn't win any of the races during that song,

but it's just such a great-

Like, it grabs you into the spirit of what-

Like, you know you're in for a great film.

Uh-oh, this is going to hurt.

That's when he slams into the pit wall.

Oh, I forgot about that.

Yeah.

Uh-oh.

That team would be out.

That team would come back next Sunday.

Did you see that guy?

He was not slow.

He was going fast.

People are jumping out of the way.

He's not going 50 miles in that pit wall.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right?

I don't want to watch that again.

That's an amazing moment,

because you're like-

Your body as a launcher of the movie

like tenses up because you're like,

here it comes.

It's harder than you expect.

Like I've-

Parts in the movie so many times.

And wait, what happens?

Don't they fix the car and it goes out?

No, they-

He goes, did you see that guy?

And Duvall's like, yeah.

And then they cut to the next part.

It's part of the montage.

There's just sort of cuts away.

That montage.

That whole, yeah, you're right, Tyler.

That's exactly the right call.

Best races.

That whole sequence of races.

Yeah, this is such a beautiful thing to watch.

One of the other parts, too,

was I think there was a couple situations

where actually there's two spinouts.

One was a spun out,

was able to shift gears, get right back.

Oh, yeah.

I can rate drive a hole.

And continued on the super speedway.

And there was the other race

where he ended up wrecking Russ Wheeler.

After the race.

changed my tires.

Why?

So he could.

He spears them on the cooldown lap,

on the checkered flag lap.

Yes, so the tires were trashed then.

Russ, he's that four years ago.

He knocks him out of the race,

he comes in, he tells him to check,

change my tires.

He's like, the race is over,

close it, change my tires.

And then he like, oh good.

He wrecked both my cars.

And I heard or I read after a real thing

that happened between

Bernhard and another dude,

and they were coming around with a checker

and somebody just went out and just fagged.

Rick, I mean, you'd be done.

You'd be out of the sport.

I thought that happened even more recently too.

That would not be true.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I can tear your race car down.

That's like a Tony Stewart level.

Totally.

Throwing a helmet.

You know what I mean?

No, just like spearing another car after the race is over.

I can't remember who it was.

Somebody said that one of the scenes

was inspired by some other scene where,

maybe this is the story you're talking about.

I think it was Earnhard and somebody having friction.

And he walked over to the other guy's car

in the pits and drew an X over it.

Like, I'm going to take this car out.

Wow, wow.

Like, like, total, like...

They're directly out of your...

There's a montage out there somewhere

of all the dust-ups in NASCAR.

Because there's maybe more, I don't know,

about other series.

But it's got to be one of the series with the most gnarly.

That was Jeff Bodine again.

Bodine.

He's like pretty successful.

He's got a really impressive career.

All right.

Last couple questions for you guys.

I mean, I think this is definitely in the car movie canon.

Is this one of the best car racing movies of all time,

in your opinion?

Yes, for me.

I think it's...

Is this your favorite?

I mean, granted, it's a different era,

but we just talked about what?

Grand Prix or...

Those ones are more like thinking.

Yeah, like the...

There's a, like, sophisticated racers that you sit around

and you ponder whether this is a good choice in life

or not or whatever.

And in Jays of Thunder, it's just like smashing into the wall.

So racing's supposed to be fun.

I think you could show this to somebody who's not in NASCAR

and would make them...

People laugh and people prank in each other.

People drinkin' at the races.

Like, it's a good time.

Great shots of crowds in this,

when they first come in to see Cole after his accident

and John C. Riley walks in with blind glasses

and he's, like, tapping.

I'm like, oh, man, that's how car guys f with each other.

And they're all scared of the doctor,

kind of like it's all that rings kind of true.

It doesn't take itself seriously at all,

which is a great one,

because I'm trying to think of the other racing films

that I've really enjoyed in, like,

obviously, Ford versus Ferrari or Rush.

Those ones, they kind of hold themselves

as being so important and this absolute opposite.

And it makes it very enjoyable and very rewatchable.

You could easily just drop back in.

Like Randy, a whole lifetime of just jumping in.

Man, I've seen so many times,

but yeah, there was new stuff.

There was new stuff to watch it all the way through.

It's up there for me.

You guys listed a lot of the kind of big ones.

I mean, F1 just came out.

Ford versus Ferrari is great.

Rush is great.

Le Mans is maybe not a great movie, but I love it.

But this is so much more fun than all of them.

This might be the most fun racing movie, totally.

And again, like Top Gun,

it's got the spirit of car guys and like airplane guys,

messing with each other.

And it's just, yeah.

And like Top Gun, they eventually came out,

you know, what,

having many decades later with the sequel.

And from what I'd read,

sounds like Tom Cruise wants to do a sequel.

A Days of Thunder.

Yes, do you hear that?

There's Days of Thunder sequel.

Get out of here.

There's talk of it.

As a .24.

And you know he'll want to be in the car.

Oh, more so.

And then, much like with Top Gun,

he'll probably be more real.

Well, the parallel, you know,

so they make Top Gun,

and that also has super realistic,

amazing shots of flying,

where they made the guys get in F-14s,

and then the same crew comes and makes this,

and it's super realistic looking.

And then similarly, in the modern era,

Top Gun 2, which is amazing,

that same team made Formula One, right?

So like you have a success,

and you use a lot of the same techniques

of putting people in the vehicles,

having it be super real.

And so I hope, is it Kaczynski,

whoever made those movies, I'm ready.

Wow.

I'm ready for Days of Thunder 2.

I forgot about Rush though, Beck.

That was a good movie.

That was a good race movie.

I wrote down all the similarities with Top Gun,

one other quick one,

other than Kari always is Iceman

with the blonde crew cut,

and Guitar Solo when winning the 500,

just like when they're shooting down

the last of the Migs, you know?

They've got all that stuff.

But the style my wife pointed out,

and this is also kind of times like jeans,

white T-shirts, leather jackets.

You could wear a lot of the same like clothes today,

and it's, Top Gun has the same thick.

You could wear the same outfit,

bomber jacket and jeans.

Works in 1985, works in 2025.

Plus throw yourself on a Harley.

Oh, yes.

We need the motorcycle very quickly.

When Rowdy Burns sits down menacingly,

like Cold Trickle's getting in the race car,

he sits on his Harley.

Plus everything, like every single thing

like that in this movie was done.

Every detail about how people relate to one another.

Michael Rooker as Rowdy Burns is fantastic.

Him and Duvall were the big takeaways, yeah.

So the bike, it looks to me,

there's not a great heck yes.

Yeah, see the best I can say on that

is it's a heritage soft tail,

obviously $89.90.

But it almost looks like they made it look

like a 50s Harley Panhead.

It's got a different badge.

Got white walls on it.

Yeah, white walls.

It's got a badge on the gas tank.

It's got a couple other little,

the seat actually in the original,

it has, or the first time we see the bike

without Nicole Kidman riding on the back.

It's got a solo saddle on it.

And then when Nicole Kidman's riding,

it's got like a passenger pillion for her.

But yeah, it's a nicely customized Harley.

I was kind of excited.

I never actually paused it until this time.

I was like, I know I'm going to get asked about it.

We need the bike expert.

I'm glad we got the boat in though too.

That's really good.

That would be a twin engine boat, right?

The Hendrick.

At least.

Maybe three.

At least.

Maybe three engines.

It's hard to.

NASCAR engines, high revving.

It's hard to say.

Making them anyways.

Just one big single.

I had lunch with Rick Hendrick once.

What?

You're going to reveal this an hour and 10 minutes in.

That's part of why I'm so upset about Randy Quaid playing.

Oh, because you're like just wrong.

Because he was just like a gentleman and smile and friendly and normal.

And he like looked up to him, right?

And so Randy Quaid's a cuck.

But Hendrick owns the Zillion Dealers and he came west.

And I was a new guy at BMW.

And he just bought a BMW dealer in Pleasanton, California.

And he showed up.

He shows up in a suit tie until he put together.

I had to put a suit on to join the meeting.

Anyway, got to sit next to him and chat.

But anyway, he's built an empire and done a bunch of things right.

And huge name in NASCAR and super cool dude.

Did he tell anecdotes?

Did you grill him?

What was that like?

No, I was like either instructed or just too nervous

or to like shut my mouth a little bit, right?

And like not to get too deep into NASCAR.

But no, I asked him a couple of questions

and got a few minutes to chat about different sorts of stuff.

He wanted to talk about BMW and the dealer

and what I'm doing and whatever else.

But anyway, nice.

I have a photo.

I have a photo of it.

Amazing.

Wow.

Good drop right at the end, Randy.

Amazing.

Well, did you guys enjoy it?

Was it a good one?

We've been promising this one for a while.

I love this movie.

I actually love it more now than I did before, I think.

I would recommend it to like non-racing fans.

Non-car people, I think even.

As like honestly probably the first racing movie you should watch.

Yes.

Yeah.

This entire day of nice racing movie you should watch.

Wait a minute, hold on.

I got to let that sink in.

I suppose to like jump it into something more technical

or where they keep themselves so serious about it.

Like as far as if you're not into racing,

I feel like this is a good one.

I think Russian Ford versus Ferrari are also good for that.

You cannot recommend Grand Prix or Le Mans, no way.

You got to recommend it, but it's like a weird.

I can't get car people to sit in Le Mans.

What was the sliced alone F1 movie?

No, it's cart.

Very indie car.

It's cart.

It's driven.

Driven, yes.

He picks up the quarters with his rear tires.

Yeah.

And sends manhole covers when he takes the car.

When we get to about episode 50 of the BAT at the movies,

like we're going to do.

We're going to do driven.

I actually, I did scout it.

I rewatched it.

It's pretty fun.

Fun.

I saw driven with my godfather, the same guy who was opus

of the documentary of this movie.

And we walked out of driven movie theater

and he said, well, that was a piece of crap.

I promise if you watch it, you'd have fun.

It's not a very good movie, but it's fun.

It's fun.

Awesome, guys.

This was a real treat.

We've been looking forward to doing this for a while.

Do you have votes on what we should do next?

American Graffiti is very high on this.

That's got a lot of votes.

I think that's probably next.

Yes.

That's good.

You know, good too.

Some Cali culture.

Petaluma posing as Stockton or where was he?

That's supposed to be a Central Valley.

Central Valley.

Amazing.

Well, thank you guys for doing this.

This was really a pleasure.

Thank you, Alex.

Let's go to an Ascar race.

I mean, let's go right now.

Yeah, I will see you infantile egomaniacs on the next one.

In an acu, Nicole.

Thank you, Dr. Nicole.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, Brachheimer and Simpson.

Thanks as always for listening, everybody.

Please do not hesitate to send feedback to podcastatbranchailer.com,

including suggestions for movies that you would like to see us talk about in future episodes.

We will catch you next time.

About this episode

A lively discussion unfolds around the 1990 film 'Days of Thunder,' featuring Tom Cruise and Robert Duvall. The Bring a Trailer team, including Alex Porter, Randy Nahnberg, Beck Diefenbach, and Tyler Greenblatt, share their personal histories with the film, revealing how it shaped their views on NASCAR and car culture. They delve into the production challenges, notable performances, and the film's legacy, while drawing parallels to other iconic movies by producers Simpson and Bruckheimer. The episode is filled with nostalgia, humor, and insights into the film's impact on automotive storytelling.

blows the motor Chevy Daytona F1 car Formula One Hendrick Indy 500 IndyCar leaking oil NASCAR

BMW 3 Series Chevrolet Monte Carlo Datsun 280Z Ford Galaxy Ford Taurus Holden Caprice Honda Accord Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 (W109) Mercedes-Benz SL-Class (R231) Nissan 300 ZX Pontiac Grand Prix Porsche 928

Original notes

Join us, diehard cinephiles, for the third in our new series about Car Movies, wherein we wax poetic about the uncut gem Days of Thunder, starring Tom Cruise and Robert Duvall. Alex, Randy, Beck, and Tyler discuss The Randy and Alex Film Festival; the movie's (completely stacked) intro credits; behind-the-scenes drama; Cary Elwes as Iceman; Alex's deep disappointment at the film's 37% Rotten Tomatoes score; some of the film's many profoundly unlikely scenarios; drinkin' weird stuff and Bud heavies in a moving car hauler; and a surprising number of personal health jokes, but not to do with the scenes you're thinking of (which have perhaps not aged as well as some other parts of the movie);

Also covered: the gritty and impressive race cinematography; the real BAT.com; the best '90s movie parking lot; the formative way in which several of our crew learned about drafting; and, of course, the Cruise Run. Tyler reveals himself as easy to please, while Beck's godfather does not. Finally, we get a late (and exceedingly rare) name drop from our Mr. Nonnenberg.

Mentioned in this episode:

12:36 Ex–Tom Cruise 1984 Nissan 300ZX Race Car

33:48 RoW 1985 Porsche 928S 5-Speed Strosek

37:19 Search results for Monte Carlo SS Aero Coupe

Got suggestions for our next guest from the BaT community, One Year Garage episode, or (B)aT the Movies subject? Let us know in the comments below!

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