In conversation with You play before the office On Tuesday, NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell covered several topics, including the highly anticipated sequel Days of Thunder, starring Tom Cruise as fictional NASCAR driver Cole Trickle. Anne Hathaway will star alongside Cruise with the film set for a summer 2028 release.
O’Donnell said in an interview Tuesday that Cruise expressed a desire to prepare the ARK car for filming. He is known for performing many of his own skills, including incredibly daring action scenes Mission Impossible freedom Below the top three NASCAR divisions, the ARCA is considered the fourth level of stock car racing.
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Cruise is 64 years old, but surprisingly, he is nowhere near the memory of ARK. There are many older drivers than those who run ARCA races in recent years. Recently, James Hylton competed in the ARK in 2013 at the age of 78, which is a record.
“I was shocked,” O’Donnell said of Cruise’s proposal. “We have the Ark Series, which is our national series, and Tom wanted to go race in one of them. I’m not sure what’s going to happen. But he wants to be as authentic as he can be. We’ll still see how the story line from the game plays out…”
Back in 1987, Cruise drove a NASCAR Busch Series (now NASCAR O’Reilly Series) car in a Daytona test session, reaching 178mph for Hendrick Motorsports.
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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 somewhat rougher than all the top-level motorsports around the world. The film hopes to capture the unique culture within NASCAR.
O’Donnell also plans to make a series of at least 80 production cars for the film.
“I think that (the original) first showed what NASCAR was at that time, a long time ago, and in talking to Tom Cruise while he was driving at Daytona, it’s all about where we are today and moving forward, so embracing the car in the garage, embracing the technology, everything that goes into the sport,” O’Donnell added.
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“And the message to us Tom was “I send you in front of the sight of all new audiences, and you must be ready”. There are some things that we will work together. They understand the points system, how the work of the Chase, how long your races are. They have all this for sure, if a new fan goes out to the track of the stadium, he understands. For us, this is a whole new door that has been introduced to the fans”.
O’Donnell has done several interviews recently regarding the state of the sport and where NASCAR wants to be in a few years. You can watch the full interview with the Sports Front Office HERE.
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