When done right, racing movies can capture the tension, determination, technical expertise, and excitement of motorsports competition in a way few other media representations can match. Get that mix wrong, however, and you end up with a confusing mish-mash of standard silver-screen tropes played out by screenwriters and directors with only a passing familiarity with the sport.
Then there’s the truly bizarre stuff. Racing movies both good and bad have more than their share of strange scenes that either hit too hard, go too far, or simply come across as too absurd for the cinematic universe that’s been constructed around them.
These are the seven weirdest movie racing scenes in Hollywood history.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby (2006)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfGRg0FLxtEThe Scene: Ricky Bobby and the Invisible Fire
The Players: Will Ferrell as Ricky Bobby, John C. Reilly as Cal Naughton, Jr.
Why It’s So Weird: Ferrell is near the peak of his comedic powers in Talladega Nights, which follows the career of the titular Ricky Bobby from champion to rock bottom and back to champion again. Still, there are moments in the movie where you’re either laughing uproariously or uncomfortably watching a grown man roll on the asphalt, stripping off everything but his helmet, as he calls out to the heavens for Tom Cruise to magically douse the ‘invisible fire’ that is consuming his body.
What makes it such a squirmer for racing fans? ‘Invisible fire’ is all too real in the world of motorsports, particularly in Indy Car where methanol fuel burns quickly, and completely outside the visible spectrum, which means you can’t see the conflagration until it’s too late.
Driven (2001)
The Scene: Joe Tanto hums while picking up three quarters with his racing slicks
The Players: Sylvester Stallone as Joe Tanto
Why It’s So Weird: In an audition to get back in a CART open-wheel racer, Stallone’s Tanto shows off his party trick: sliding the rear slicks of his Indy car over three quarters he’s flipped onto the track, picking them up with the hot rubber and bringing them back to the pits. It’s an absurd concept, but one that fits perfectly well into the hyper-stylized world of CART as seen through the eyes of director Renny Harlin.
Underplayed in the scene, however, is the off-hand way in which Tanto’s propensity for humming while he’s ‘pushing close to the edge’ of his driving abilities is acknowledged by the team’s crew chief. ‘Anyone else ever do that?’ asks one of the people watching his performance. ‘Not among the living,’ comes the reply.
At first it feels like a joke. Played back through the lens of dozens of dead race drivers, and it’s more like the recognition that on the other side of those coins lies death, and Stallone’s character is only one unlucky toss away from ending his career permanently.
Days Of Thunder (1990)
The Scene: Two of NASCAR’s elite drivers have a pissing contest down a hospital hallway while strapped into wheelchairs
The Players: Tom Cruise as Cole Trickle and Michael Rooker as Rowdy Burns
Why It’s So Weird: Much of Days Of Thunder approaches caricaturization, but nowhere is this more apparent than when illustrating the personal rivalry between Burns and Trickle. The upstart Cruise versus the established champ Rooker is the fuel that drives the movie, and it manifests both on the track and off, including in an over-the-top rental car race between a Ford Taurus and Chevrolet Lumina.
That being said, the silliest confrontation between the two drivers occurs in a hospital corridor as they are both being pushed in wheelchairs alongside each other after a serious accident. Within seconds the two men are furiously pumping their wheels and trying to surge one ahead of the other, fighting for an advantage in the smallest, and most meaningless of contests. The entire setup is seconds away from Cruise and Rooker dropping their pants and breaking out the measuring tape.
Stroker Ace (1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QBRLjnOSXUThe Scene: NASCAR driver Stroker Ace wears a full chicken suit behind the wheel
The Players: Burt Reynolds as Stroker Ace
Why It’s So Weird: Director Hal Needham lived for many years in Reynolds’ pool house, and he had done much to set up the ‘stached one’s career, including making him a household name through the Smokey and the Bandit franchise. To thank him Reynolds would end up making movies like Stroker Ace, which decades later he would identify as one of the decisions that torpedoed him as a leading man in Hollywood.
It’s hard to pick only one weird scene from this super-speedway back-straight wreck of a movie. That being said, one sequence doesn’t make any sense even in the context of the movie: when main character Stroker is forced to wear a feathered chicken suit (complete with chicken feet) while driving in actual NASCAR competition.
The idea that a sponsor would make this kind of demand is bizarre, but in the world of Stroker Ace the man signing the checks absolutely delights in humiliating his top driver. It’s the equivalent of forcing Tiger Woods to play a full round of golf while wearing nothing but the Buick logo painted on his butt.
Six Pack (1982)
The Scene: Kenny Rogers flees from the police after a group of orphans disassemble their cop car
The Players: Kenny Rogers as Brewster Baker
Why It’s So Weird: Everything about Six Pack is weird. Every. Single. Thing. But if you can get your head around the idea that Kenny Rogers is believable as a former star race car driver now forced to drive his Winnebago from dirt track to dirt track, then maybe you’re also cool with the idea that along the way he acquires a gaggle of parent-less children (lead by a teenage Diane Lane in her first ever role) who then act as his pit crew.
Once you’ve accepted all of the above, then it’s only a small leap to the conceit that these kids are criminal geniuses who can steal absolutely anything Rogers might need to kick-start his crumbling career.
This includes a bonkers scene where, while trying to escape the cops, it’s revealed the kids have removed all of the nuts and bolts from the police cruiser, which then flies apart on cue so that the bearded country star can drive off into the night, and, presumably, drink himself into an early grave.
Death Race 2000 (1975)
The Scene: Matilda The Hun meets her doom in a fake tunnel
The Players: Roberta Collins as Matilda The Hun
Why It’s So Weird:Death Race 2000 might have presaged reality TV by a couple of decades, and it certainly served as an effective satire of media bloodlust, but it was also beset by some seriously strange creative choices that are very much born of its time.
In particular there’s the less-than-believable fates that befall several of the Death Race participants. Of these, the most egregious occurs when Matilda The Hun, the swastika-bedecked driver, is somehow tricked into driving through a fake tunnel set up by a group of anti-Race rebels. It’s a scene straight out of the ACME catalogue, something that might have worked in a Looney Tunes cartoon but which completely fails the sniff test of any audience that’s more than half-awake by that stage of the film. The only thing missing is a giant anvil falling from the sky to finish the job.
Thunderbolt (1995)
The Scene: A Mazda RX-7 FD spins out for no discernible reason, which then causes a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution to flip onto the roof of an E30 M3, which hauls it down the track like it’s wearing a Thule Race Car Edition cargo carrier
The Players: The Jackie Chan Stunt Team
Why It’s So Weird: Chan had a long relationship with Mitsubishi, so it’s no surprise he made several movies with a racing or automotive theme. This scene stands out for one very specific reason: after the E30 M3 serves as a platform for the upside-down Evo for a few seconds of on-track action, you can clearly see a set of explosive bolts go off that launch the Mitsubishi back onto its wheels so that it can barrel-roll into oblivion.
It’s exactly the kind of ‘would never happen outside the Jackie Chan universe’ stunt that the Hong Kong hero was known for, and it narrowly beats out the runner-up scene from Thunderbolt where the kung-fu hero beats up an entire gang of bad guys inside an exotic car garage before piling their bodies inside a paint booth and dousing them with acrylic.
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December 13, 2020 at 07:06PM
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The 7 weirdest movie racing scenes in Hollywood history - Driving
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