NASCAR could be heading back into the spotlight of Hollywood — and Hendrick Motorsports’ Jeff Gordon has its full endorsement.
After William Byron’s second consecutive Daytona 500 victory, Gordon spoke about a potential sequel to “Days of Thunder,” a 1990 film that starred Gordon’s close friend, Tom Cruise. The Golden Globe Award-winning actor plays Cole Trickle, who is recruited to join the Winston Cup Series after a career in open-wheel racing. Trickle builds a rivalry with veteran racer Rowdy Burns, but after both are injured in a crash, they bury their feud and become close friends.
With many new digital and streaming platforms, Gordon wants to see the film happen with Cruise returning as a star.
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“There’s this kind of resurgence, which is awesome, and there’s also a whole new landscape of opportunities with streaming services and docuseries and also the big screen, which I think it would be amazing to do,” Gordon said Sunday night. “I am seeing just a lot more momentum in projects like this coming through NASCAR and coming to Hendrick Motorsports and just more interest. So that’s good, right? It talks a lot about where the sport is at, where it’s heading, the amazing crowd that was [at Daytona], not just today, new TV partners.
“I’ve absolutely talked to Tom about it because I want him to do the project, and we want to be a part of it if it were to happen.”
Thirty-five years later, the technology is much different. Paramount Pictures placed large cameras inside cars during races for the film, but with NASCAR’s Driver Cam feature on Max, it could present a real possibility for the creation of a sequel.
“Hendrick Motorsports being a part of that project, hard to imagine how you pull that off today because they actually had race cars with cameras in the race, and the cameras were big,” Gordon said. “Cameras have gotten a lot smaller so maybe you could pull it off, but how do you do it and make it realistic and really authentic.
“We’ll see what happens. If that doesn’t happen, I feel pretty confident there’s a project out there that will get NASCAR back on the big screen, if not just a really cool docuseries or something beyond even what we’re already seeing right now.”