In an interview with Front Office Sports on Tuesday, NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell covered several topics, including the highly anticipated Days of Thunder sequel, starring Tom Cruise as fictional NASCAR driver Cole Trickle. Anne Hathaway will star alongside Cruise with the film set to release in the summer of 2028.
O'Donnell said in Tuesday's interview that Cruise actually expressed a desire to race an ARCA car in preparation for the movie. He is well-known for doing many of his own stunts, including incredibly daring action scenes in the Mission Impossible franchise. Below the top three NASCAR divisions, ARCA is considered to be the fourth level of stock car racing.
Cruise is 64 years old, but surprisingly, that would be nowhere near a record for ARCA. There are multiple drivers older than that who have run ARCA races in recent years. The late James Hylton was competing in ARCA at 78 years old in 2013, which is the record.
“I was shocked,” said O’Donnell about Cruise's proposal. "We have an ARCA Series, which is our national touring series, and Tom wanted to go race in one of those. I’m not sure that’s going to happen. But he want its to be authentic as it can be. We’ll still see how the story lines play out...”
Back in 1987, Cruise did drive a NASCAR Busch Series car (now the NASCAR O'Reilly Series) in a test session at Daytona, reaching 178mph for Hendrick Motorsports.
The original 1990 movie highlighted a different era of NASCAR, and while the sport today is a bit more refined and more technologically advanced, it's still quite a bit rougher than most top-level motorsports from around the world. The movie hopes to capture the unique culture within NASCAR.
O'Donnell also said the series plans to build at least 80 cars for the production of the film.
"I think the first one (the original) showcased what NASCAR was at the time, a long time ago, and in talking to Tom Cruise while he was at Daytona, it’s all about where we are today and going forward, so it’s embracing instead of a car being put together back in a garage, embracing the technology, embracing everything that goes into the sport," added O'Donnell
“And Tom’s message to us was ‘I’m going to be putting you in front of an entirely new audience, and you need to be ready.' There's some things that we'll work together on. Do people understand the points system, how does the Chase work, how long are your races. All these things to make sure if a new fan comes out to the race track understands. For us, this is a whole new open door to bring in new fans."
O'Donnell has been doing several interviews recently, highlighting the state of the sport and where NASCAR wants to be in a few years. You can watch the full interview with Front Office Sports HERE.
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