The 1990 NASCAR-themed cult classic 'Days of Thunder' essentially was 'Top Gun' with cars instead of planes.
- We can’t be the only ones wishing that Tom Cruise would return to his role as Cole Trickle in a NASCAR-based Days of Thunder 2.
- The original Days of Thunder was released on June 27, 1990. It got a lot of media attention and drew significant technical support from NASCAR and its teams.
- The movie collected $160 million, more than three times its filming budget.
As expected, Top Gun: Maverick has been one of the top movies of the summer.
Tom Cruise returned to his role as an elite fighter jet pilot from Top Gun, the original movie from 1986. Both movies have been praised for sensational action sequences.
This begs the question: Might Cruise return to his role as Cole Trickle in the NASCAR-based Top Gun knockoff movie Days of Thunder? Could there be Days of Thunder 2 or maybe Months of Thunder?
Auto racing fans and many movie-goers across the land will almost immediately shout, “No!” to such an audacious suggestion. Though impressive visually (the race cars looked cool, and so did Cruise and love interest Nicole Kidman), Days of Thunder was widely panned for wild inaccuracies and on-track racing sequences that were laughably overdone.
Tom Cruise, aka Cole Trickle, was a NASCAR winner for the ages in 1990.
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The movie was released on June 27, 1990. It got a lot of media attention and drew significant technical support from NASCAR and its teams. NASCAR allowed in-race filming at several tracks, and the movie, benefitting from the not-insignificant pull of a superstar like Cruise, showcased the sport to people who otherwise might have had little interest.
Days of Thunder essentially was Top Gun with cars instead of planes. The plot was not a carbon copy but there were many similarities.
Cruise plays Trickle, a hotshot rookie driver who arrives to stir the pot in NASCAR with the help of a veteran crew chief, Harry Hogge, played with his usual skill by the great Robert Duvall.
Kidman plays a physician who becomes involved with Cruise. It’s their first movie together, and their movie romance turned into real-life marriage (they later divorced).
The cast also included John C. Reilly, Randy Quaid and Michael Rooker, who played Cruise’s on-track rival, Rowdy Burns. (This predates NASCAR’s modern-era Rowdy, Kyle Busch).
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When Cruise and crews (the technicians wore Top Car caps, a nod to the Top Gun movie) arrived in Darlington, South Carolina, to film parts of the movie at Darlington Raceway, one of NASCAR’s storied tracks, that part of the world was aflame with Hollywood excitement for days. It was starstruck times 10.
Around Darlington and the neighboring town of Florence, residents were on the outlook for sightings of Cruise. He—or someone who looked very much like him—was seen many times, if you believe the reports of locals.
A 9-year-old boy excitedly told a newspaper reporter that his mother had seen Cruise. “And he had his shirt off!” he said. He didn’t know if his mom had fainted in the moment.
Cruise (or at least someone who might have been Cruise) was seen: Fueling his car, eating at a local soul-food restaurant, cuddling with Kidman in a local park, driving around the square in Darlington.
He also was seen by law enforcement radar. He got a ticket for driving 85 mph in a 55 mph zone.
You know Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise would love to bring back the Mello Yello team.
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Top car, indeed.
Despite its description by one critic as a “big, dumb testosterone factory,” the movie has lived on in NASCAR lore. Some of the race car paint schemes used in the film—Mello Yello, Hardee’s and Exxon, for examples—have been copied in real “throwback” races over the years.
The movie collected $160 million, more than three times its filming budget.
And it left fans with this classic line from Duvall (as Trickle’s crew chief): “And rubbing, son, is racing.”
Bring back Cole Trickle!
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Keyword: Hey Tom Cruise, It's Time for 'Days of Thunder 2' and the Return of Cole Trickle