A Eulogy for Robert Duvall… and the Only Movie That Really Counted

Fun, Fun facts – in fact… they are Super Fun Facts!

• Tom Cruise co‑wrote Days of Thunder – Most people know him as Cole Trickle, but he actually has a writing credit on the film. Not many actors write themselves into the starring role of a NASCAR fever dream… but Tom Cruise is not “many actors.”
• Robert Towne – the guy behind Chinatown, Mission: Impossible, The Firm, and Orca: The Killer Whale (yes, really) — co‑wrote the script. The man’s résumé is a rollercoaster and we love him for it.
• Tom Cruise actually raced in real life – He competed in SCCA and Trans Am events (even at tracks like Summit Point) and even raced with Paul Newman. He “wasn’t very good,” but hey – he tried.
• Tom Cruise’s height is a recurring mystery – The group debates whether he’s 5’7″, 5’5″, or “whatever height he is when standing on a soapbox.” His ex-wife Nicole Kidman being 5’11” only fuels the conspiracy.
• Brad points out that John C. Reilly’s helmet in Days of Thunder looks suspiciously like his Old Spice helmet in Talladega Nights. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
• Harry Hogge’s “engine whisperer” persona mirrors several legendary crew chiefs from the ’70s and ’80s. And yes – some of them really did talk to cars.
• Richard Petty has a cameo – He appears briefly during the driver interviews but “The King” always finds a way to be The King.

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Grand Touring Motorsport started as a social group of car enthusiasts, but we’ve expanded into all sorts of motor sports disciplines and we want to share our stories with you. Years of racing wrenching and motorsports experience brings together a topnotch collection of knowledge and information through our podcast. Break/Fix

Executive Producer Tania: dearly beloved, we gather here tonight, not in sorrow, but in awe. While the world will remember Robert Duval. For movies like The Godfather Apocalypse Now, tender Mercies, and a resume that reads like the Library of Congress had a baby with the Oscars, we know the truth. His real masterpiece, his sine chapel, his Hamlet, his Mount Rushmore, his car from Pure American Horsepower.

Yes. I am referring to Days of Thunder, a film where Duvall didn’t just act. He laid hands on broken race cars like a southern fried automotive [00:01:00] shaman, where he delivered lines with the gravitas of a man who had seen the face of God. And God was drafting at 200 miles per hour where he taught a young Tom Cruise the sacred art of rubbing his racing and somehow made it sound like scripture.

So tonight, as we celebrate the life of Robert Duval, we honor the role that defined a generation of Gearheads romantics and people who think NASCAR pit strategy is a spiritual practice. We salute the man who could whisper to an engine like it was a wounded soldier who could diagnose a blown piston ring with the same emotional weight.

Most actors reserved for death scenes and who proved once and for all that. The greatest special effect in cinema is saying, let’s build a race car. This is not a goodbye. This is a victory lap. A checkered flagged wave. The man who gave us the greatest racing mentored movie history. Ladies and gentlemen, start your emotions because tonight we remember Robert Duval.

The only way that makes sense through the roar of engines, the smell of burning rubber and the eternal glory of [00:02:00] days of thunder.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I gotta say, you need the music from the old Budweisers, like real American heroes. Real American heroes. Here’s to you, Mr. Days of Thunder Pit Crew manager, real man of genius.

He obviously stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Crew Chief Eric: What an intro. We’ve never had an intro like this.

Steve & Izzy: Very nice. Well, yeah. Gosh, how do I top that? Uh,

Crew Chief Brad: good night. Goodnight everybody. We’re done. That was, that was great review. Excellent job. Tony. You just

Steve & Izzy: fun. Great

Crew Chief Brad: whole podcast

Crew Chief Eric: roll credits.

Steve & Izzy: I’m Steve.

Crew Chief Eric: And

Steve & Izzy: I’m Missy. And we’re with everything I learned from Movie Spend tonight. Oh, to tonight. We’re, uh, obviously we’re not alone for this one here, from everything I learned from movies, whatcha are talking about Steve. Oh, can you hear the voices too? Spreading. We have with us damn near the whole crew here of, uh, the Grand Tour Motor [00:03:00] Sports Podcast.

We have Eric, Brad, mountain man, Mike, no Mountain man, Dan, and of course Tanya. Hi

Crew Chief Brad: everyone. Hello. Hello.

Crew Chief Eric: This is another one we’ve been putting off for quite a long time. I’m looking forward to this.

Steve & Izzy: I’m assuming this is everybody’s first time watching this movie. Oh, yeah. Oh, you never watched it in back in the early nineties, or this wasn’t on a date, the Sun Sunday afternoon like TV movie.

I still haven’t seen it.

I’ve, I’ve watched Driven though. Is that close enough? I,

Crew Chief Brad: I, I watched, uh, biker Boys Instead, so I’m prepared to discuss Biker Boys only.

Executive Producer Tania: Was this your guys’ first time seeing it? No,

Steve & Izzy: no, no. First time in 35 years. But no, I had seen it. Like, and, and the thing was I was watching it, I’m like, oh my God, I know every single scene of this movie and I haven’t seen it since 1992 or something.

Yeah. But you have like a photographic memory. I, I did. At least it sticks with you. You did Until you got hit in the face with [00:04:00] a, uh, was it a Suburban, uh, the Ford Bronco two? Yes. The Bronco two. The Bronco two. That’s right. Because the Bronco two joke will never get old. But you know what, uh, what helps with my memory?

What’s that, Steve? Ah, my top, it’s tall. We have from Wasatch Brewing, the Devastator Doppelbock Lager. Uh, 8% alcohol by volume. One of my favorite beers had to do it for this movie ’cause it’s intense. Oh babe, you don’t even need a cup. You got, you got your own Gone. Hey guys, guys. The dogs at daycare. Yeah.

I’m gonna be able to sit for the whole movie until I have to pee. That’s right. Only, only I will be making whiny noises to go outside and pee. Steve, stop ringing the potty bell. You guys, uh, drinking anything on your end in, in honor of Robert Duvall.

Crew Chief Brad: Meow Yellow.

Crew Chief Eric: I had meow yellow yesterday. Actually. I forgot to save it for tonight.

Dang it. But I lost my cup too.

Crew Chief Brad: You, you still got my rich energy. The good news is you can just recycle it. [00:05:00] I don’t have anything to drink, but I’m celebrating with some Girl Scout cookies. Yeah. I’m glad you finished that with cookies.

Crew Chief Eric: No, I could run and run and get some oz cream real quick.

Executive Producer Tania: I had chocolate ice cream while watching.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, look at that.

Steve & Izzy: Well, we’ll get to that. Look, we all know that Mount Mandan is not rich enough to have real Girl Scouts. That’s only reserved for the billionaires

Crew Chief Brad: and only on the islands.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, topical.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m drinking. I’m drinking a Riesling out of a pint glass.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, classy.

Crew Chief Brad: We fancy over here.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. See? So do you guys remember your first time watching this movie or was it just one of those that was on tv?

Like I, I don’t know if any of us saw in theaters or,

Crew Chief Brad: I was, I was in a parking lot. It was midnight. You and me and the girl. Oh yeah, you your first time watching the movie. Sorry, I thought

you

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, just your first time. Let’s go, let’s go around the room. Starting with the, starting with Brad and then my mom walked in.

No,

1990s Days of Thunder. You [00:06:00] guys might have heard of it from director Tony Scott. Who’s he? Steve. Yeah. Who’s he? Yeah. Uh, guys, you know him. The Hunger Top Gun. What You don’t say, uh, Beverly Hills Cop two. This last Boy Scout, true Romance Crimson Tie the fan enemy of the state. Spy Game. Man of Fire. Domino.

Ugh. Deja vu, taking of Pel. 1, 2, 3. Unstoppable. Oops. Almost all bangers.

Crew Chief Eric: Wait, I, I thought this was a Bruckheimer film.

Steve & Izzy: Well, he didn’t direct it.

Crew Chief Eric: That doesn’t, nobody else Matters. It’s a Bruckheimer film.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, oh, oh. Don Simpson would like to talk to you, sir.

Crew Chief Eric: I wrote down Jerry Bruckheimer

Steve & Izzy: Boom.

Crew Chief Brad: The only name that matters.

Steve & Izzy: Yep. Simpson and Bruckheimer. So, you know, there’s transforming robots all throughout this movie, but guys, the writers of this movie, pure Hollywood Legends. Like Robert Town. Who’s he? Steve. Well, babe, we talked about him recently because, uh, you might remember him from the last Woman on Earth. Oh, he was the, uh, the [00:07:00] third guy in that.

Th he was the third guy. Yep. Oh, shit. And then he started writing, uh, you know, classics like Chinatown work, uh, Chinatown’s movie I saw when I was way too young. Yes. This, I watched that when I was like six said, anyone who’s ever seen Chinatown, I was way too young for this. I think I’m still too young to watch it.

We also wrote Orca Grey Stove. Lord of the eight Orca, the Killer Whale Orca, the Killer Whale Ohca the Killer. Have you guys seen Orca The Killer Whale?

Crew Chief Eric: Of course not.

Steve & Izzy: Probably not, because there’s no cars in it.

Executive Producer Tania: Thanks.

Crew Chief Brad: We’re not one dimensional.

Executive Producer Tania: He also wrote Mission Impossible. Right?

Steve & Izzy: Mission Impossible.

And Mission Impossible too. But hey, we can’t win ’em all. Am I right? And the firm.

Executive Producer Tania: Okay.

Steve & Izzy: But there’s another writer on this movie, guys. Thomas Cruz.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, who’s he? Steve?

Steve & Izzy: Well, he’s basically wrote this.

Executive Producer Tania: I didn’t know that.

Steve & Izzy: And an upcoming SpaceX project to be released the next five years or whatever. Uh, but you’ve probably seen him act in a [00:08:00] handful of things like Tropic Thunder.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh,

Steve & Izzy: okay. Obscure things like Tropic Thunder. Yeah. Tropic Thunder. I’m trying to think of like an obscure Tom Cruise movie, but there really isn’t any Oops. All that Night and day

Crew Chief Brad: former SCCA former Trans Am racer. Tom Cruise.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. He dra he raced with Paul Newman.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: he wasn’t very good apparently.

Steve & Izzy: What? That’s why he just was like, you know what, screw it. I’m just gonna buy myself a, uh, le Was it a, a Russian, uh, bomber jet? What is, what is the plane he owns? One of the planes ends,

Crew Chief Eric: well, according to Tropic Thunder, it’s a G five.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, there you go.

Crew Chief Eric: G five.

Steve & Izzy: Well, you know, I, I do, I do go to Tropic Thunder for all of my super accurate information.

Crew Chief Eric: Les Goldman is one of my favorite characters. I’m just gonna say

Steve & Izzy: she does drink lots of booy sweat. It’s true. Tom Cruise also stars in this movie. Guys. What? He’s the one playing Cold Trickle. The writer of the movie has a cameo in this movie that never happens. Cameo. Like not every single scene of the movie.[00:09:00]

Like he’s not just scouring in the shadows of other, when other characters are talking. You’re that little guy in the corner. Eh? I don’t mind him. We don’t talk to him much. Wait, so how tall is Tom Cruise? I don’t know. You’re the guy who knows Celebrity Heights. He’s five foot two. I’ll, I’ll throw it out there.

I dunno. Do you over under, does he come up to your belt or your nipples? Oh, I didn’t stand next to him. I didn’t put him up on my shoulder and help him reach the top shelf. You could though, right? I mean, I don’t know. He’s probably a little bigger than that.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s five foot seven

Steve & Izzy: guys. Is that on the internet?

So do you guys think they had a cold Kidman taller than me?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know how tall you are. I’ve never met you.

Steve & Izzy: Five seven. Oh, okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. I do think Nicole kid’s taller than you.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, she’s, she’s gotta be like six foot, right.

Executive Producer Tania: I thought she was, but she’s actually five 11.

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, she is Australian.

Steve & Izzy: I was about to say, I think she’s five 11 or be sure that’s not like metric conversion or something, like it

Crew Chief Eric: gets lost from Australia to hear.

Executive Producer Tania: No. Well, the problem is, yeah, I don’t, she’s probably always in three inch heels, so she is [00:10:00] seemingly six foot, she’s an Australian

Steve & Izzy: five 11. She’s always in heels. Tom is always standing on a soapbox like they’re the perfect power couple.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. Because they are the same height throughout the movie.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. I, no, no.

There’s a couple of scenes where you can tell she’s taller than him because they try to shoot it at weird angles. Specifically when like he’s trying to do like his neurological tests. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There’s like the shots of them both supposed to be, uh, flatfooted. There’s a reason why those are weird angles.

Y’all, Uhhuh, he’s trying to balance on top of a chair.

Mountain Man Dan: Well, one of the thing is when you look it up online, you know what his height is? There’s a thing right below it says, is Tom Cruise Actually five seven. And I clicked on that and it brings up Tom Cruise stands approximately five feet, seven. Oh

Crew Chief Brad: my goodness.

Steve & Izzy: It depends on

Crew Chief Brad: if he’s wearing his heels.

Crew Chief Eric: Five foot five.

Steve & Izzy: There’s approximately 7 billion people on this planet.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: Give, give or take a bill.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: exactly.

Steve & Izzy: But, uh, guys, Robert Duvall, as you mentioned, is in this movie. Tanya mentioned a whole bunch of ’em. Uh, a couple ones I just wanna [00:11:00] throw in there. Gone in 60 seconds.

Ah, yeah. Always good. Open range. Secondhand lions. Deep impact. Lonesome Dove.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Lonesome Dove. There we go. Gods and

Crew Chief Eric: Generals.

Mountain Man Dan: Good.

Steve & Izzy: Oh yeah, yeah, that’s a good one.

Crew Chief Eric: Has there ever been a movie that Duval was in that wasn’t good?

Steve & Izzy: Oh, we do watch a lot of bad westerns with my mother. Yeah. I say, hold on, hold on.

I, I was trying to remember if he was like in Ghost Writer or something, like, no, no, that’s Henry Fonda. Dude. Duvall would’ve added an extra star to that movie, so it would’ve had two, two stars because Nick Cage, Lamber and Duval equals two stars. Oh, Lamber was in the second one. That’s right. He was in the second one.

And Raselva, but no. Oh, that’s right. So that one gets two stars as well, at least. Yeah. Speaking of two stars, Nicole Kidman as Dr. Claire Lewicki. You guys might know her from Moulin Rouge, Batman forever, far and away. BMX Bandits the hours. Aquaman the Northman Practical magic birth. Mm. Birth, [00:12:00] uh, trespass, be witch, cold Mountain to die for anybody else,

Crew Chief Eric: we might also know her as the woman formerly married to the writer of this particular movie who does a cameo.

Steve & Izzy: She was married to Robert Town.

Crew Chief Brad: Gary Heimer.

Steve & Izzy: Yes. Yes, yes. Uh, also married to Tom Cruise at some point. Gosh, who else? We got Randy Quaid in this movie. Yeah. Kerry s Michael Rucker.

Crew Chief Eric: ELLs. It’s Kerry Elway

Steve & Izzy: El Always. Whatever it’s

Crew Chief Eric: from Princess Bride.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Carries. I know what also, and saw, what was it? The Christmas Castle. Oh yeah. Random Hallmark movies from time to time in Shields.

That’s one of the better Hallmark movies. Okay. Margot Martindale? Yes. Uh, John c Re, Senator Fred Thompson.

Crew Chief Eric: Everybody’s in this movie.

Steve & Izzy: I, I think I wrote down a couple more in my notes, like, oh, shit. That’s,

Crew Chief Eric: I think the only person that’s not really notable is the guy that [00:13:00] plays rowdy in this. You’re like, who is that guy?

Steve & Izzy: Michael Rucker. What? Michael Rucker. Michael Rucker. Yado or whatever. Yondu Henry portrait of a killer or whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Steve & Izzy: Mm mm Yeah. I don’t know. A whole bunch of seasons of the Walking Dead.

Executive Producer Tania: Wait,

Steve & Izzy: he was only in the first episode. Did

Executive Producer Tania: you not know who he was?

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I’ve seen his face. I just never see him in anything that I watch.

Executive Producer Tania: Okay. He was in Guardians of the Galaxy also,

Steve & Izzy: Eric’s not a Marvel guy though.

Crew Chief Eric: As what?

Executive Producer Tania: As the dude with the the Mobile

Steve & Izzy: star Lord’s blue daddy or whatever. Yeah. What y’all do with the whistle arrow thing.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: Mary Poppins. Y’all sure?

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Come on now.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. All of that’s true.

Steve & Izzy: Apparently he’s not in many racing movies is what I’m hearing.

Crew Chief Eric: He’s in this one and it’s the only one that counts.

Steve & Izzy: Or Hallmark Christmas movies, whatever Eric watches. I dunno. Michael Rucker in Brooke Shields in the Christmas Castle too. Guys, watch the Christmas castle. It’s so stupid, but. Also charming.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of, I took your recommendation from the last time we got together and I watched [00:14:00] the knockoff movie with Van Dam.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Oh, that’s what we we’re here to talk about then. What did you think of knockoff

Crew Chief Eric: two thumbs up over here? It was awesome.

Steve & Izzy: It’s so bad you can’t stop watching it. Right?

Crew Chief Eric: A thousand percent. It was, I digress. All

Steve & Izzy: right, well, how’d you guys, uh, watch Days of Thunder? You have like your Blu-rays at home or,

Executive Producer Tania: so I do have the DVD, however, it didn’t feel like firing up.

The only thing I could play it on, which would be the Xbox, it streams on Paramount Plus, so I watched it there.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. It is a Tom Cruise movie. So

Crew Chief Eric: Tanya’s right there, I mean, what Self-Respecting Car Enthusiast doesn’t have a copy of Days of Thunder on DVD. Granted, I have a copy of Tanya’s copy of her DVD, but I watched it on Fandango.

Steve & Izzy: Oh man. The copy of the copy of the DVD is like, that’s a dying heritage thing of ours. Like, that’s why they don’t make DVDs. They like, like, you know how like UNESCO had like trace to protect the like [00:15:00] intangible, uh, heritage things like the copy of the copy of the cd, they’re, they’re going away. We have to preserve our heritage.

It’s like, it’s like cursive right there next to mix tapes. What are we talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Babe, what was the last time somebody gave you a mix tape?

Crew Chief Eric: I also failed to mention I did not watch the movie alone. Oh.

Steve & Izzy: Oh. He made his kids watch it.

Crew Chief Eric: I watched it with Brad and I brought the sweet and low packets.

Oh

Crew Chief Brad: my.

Steve & Izzy: Wow.

Crew Chief Brad: Don’t lie. You watched it. I was looking through your window binoculars. I was channeling my inner Tanya watching it that way.

Crew Chief Eric: We did have ice cream. We did have ice cream.

Steve & Izzy: Nobody invited me over.

Crew Chief Brad: We had ice cream. We shared a meal at Bdubs and then went home and watched it.

Crew Chief Eric: We did. It was, it was nice.

It was a good time.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, it was nice. Very sensual. Yeah. Tender moment. Very, very well backlit and

Crew Chief Brad: we had to pause a couple times.

Steve & Izzy: Did you place

Crew Chief Eric: again? Sweet and low packets, [00:16:00] I’m telling you. We’ll,

Crew Chief Brad: yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: we’ll get there.

Crew Chief Brad: It works every time. He showed me how to draft,

Mountain Man Dan: get prepared for this racing season.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh yeah. Robin was racing that night.

Steve & Izzy: So, speaking of racing, all right, we hit play.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh my heart’s racing now.

Crew Chief Eric: Music Montage City.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. We get a nice shot of the track at Sunrise and, uh, I, I don’t know, have you guys ever been to a race track before?

Crew Chief Eric: No. Never. Never, never.

Steve & Izzy: Okay. Okay. I just, I was just curious like, like to me, this, I might as well have been looking at like, I don’t know, middle earth. ’cause I’m like, oh yeah, okay. There’s a road, there’s bleachers on the side. Okay. Must be a parade or something coming along. I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: I will say the opening shot with the music montage and the shots of Daytona and,

Steve & Izzy: oh dude, the confederate flags, the cigarettes, the beer, the Richard Petty.

I’m like, fucking eighties. Let me in.

Executive Producer Tania: I was like, well, [00:17:00] those flags didn’t age well.

Steve & Izzy: This is childhood right here. My goodness. Ugh. I was telling Steve, like I didn’t watch a ton of like NASCAR and that, but when I did, it was like during the time period of which this is all shot and one of our friends would throw a uh, indie 500 party, like the way like people do, like the uh, uh, Kentucky Derby parties.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: We’d all go over to their house and like basically the TV would be on mute for until like the last 10 laps. But we’d all get together and there’d be beers and snacks and all of that,

Crew Chief Eric: you know. And the sad part, Izzy, I’m on the other side. I feel like I never left this era of nascar. ’cause I can’t name three current NASCAR drivers.

But I can tell you everything that happened back then,

Steve & Izzy: we tried doing that too. I’m like, I think Kyle Busch is still driving or does he retire? Is he coach now?

Like

Steve & Izzy: ge, Jeff Gordon. Is he dead? Like, like we were seriously, like I’m sure Earnhardt. Junior, maybe the third. Now, I don’t know. I, I haven’t really paid attention.

Like, [00:18:00] I don’t even know what app or channel or somebody would go to to watch it. Oh, well it’s gotta be on Fox.

Mountain Man Dan: If you, if you got one of the names from back then, the last names, there’s a chance they have a racing team or affiliated with the current racing team or something like that. But as for drivers, it’s like good luck naming any of the new ones.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Yeah. Joe Gibbs is still around, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Oh man. Wow. There’s a poll. Joe Gibbs.

Steve & Izzy: It’s a football coach. That’s why I know it. But yeah, guys, we got a race. It’s race day. We meet, uh, rowdy, uh, what’s his last name? Rowdy. Rowdy. Rowdy Piper. Yeah. Rowdy Piper. Yeah. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Rowdy Burns.

Steve & Izzy: Rowdy Burns. That’s his name. But yeah, rowdy Piper, Michael Rucker.

He is, uh, he takes out Richard Petty during the race or whatever, and I’m like, he

Executive Producer Tania: did the King Dirty.

Crew Chief Eric: I

Steve & Izzy: did. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: I surprised Richard signed off on that.

Crew Chief Eric: But did we actually see Richard Petty or they just said it was Richard Petty?

Executive Producer Tania: [00:19:00] No, he was there when they were like interviewing the guys. He had a cameo.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Oh, okay. I have to go back. And I didn’t notice it because I was like, I thought Petty was done by that point. Racing. Maybe not, maybe just thereafter, but still. Anyway,

Executive Producer Tania: 1990,

Steve & Izzy: I think he was wrapping up. He was starting his acting career. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Apparently

Steve & Izzy: him and uh, Sam Elliot, were gonna have like a little spinoff.

Oh my God. And a love child. Days of mustache.

Mountain Man Dan: Of the the car for him that he pushes him off track on. I couldn’t help but to get the feel of, it was like a kind of throwback. To Earnhardt being known as the intimidator, being aggressive, pushing people off track and stuff.

Executive Producer Tania: Hard to be a throwback when Dale was still relevant at the time.

Mountain Man Dan: It, it was like they threw it out there as a subtle, you know, comparison.

Executive Producer Tania: But yes, I think it was intentional.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, if you think about the rest of the drivers that were in the movie and the names that were used, Earnhardt didn’t show up. So you could say that Rowdy was Earnhardt in some respects. But the question is, who was Tom Cruise then?

Was he like [00:20:00] Dale Jarret or something like I

Steve & Izzy: Dick Trickle?

Crew Chief Eric: Dick Trickle?

Steve & Izzy: No, I think, I think it was supposed to be Jeff Gordon.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, okay.

Steve & Izzy: I don’t think Gordon came around for another year or two. Like he was very Jeff Gordon from,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah,

Steve & Izzy: what I could, that makes sense. What limited knowledge I have. But you know, California boy coming on down,

Crew Chief Eric: there was a great quote there.

As they’re talking about him, did you catch that it’s Duval and Qua are talking at some point?

Steve & Izzy: Oh, when we leave the race to cut to a random farm in Charlotte for some reason. Yeah, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, yeah, they, yeah, it’s there. Yeah, exactly. And he’s like, is he a Yankee? No, he’s from California. And if you’re California, you’re not really anything.

And I was like, what? What? What are we talking about here?

Steve & Izzy: There’s some good old boys. From what I understand, qua owns a few, uh, used car lots or something. Yes. But he wants to start a racing team and so he goes to the, the old vet, Robert Duvall, who’s retired from the sport.

Crew Chief Eric: Another good quote from Duvall when they’re on the farm, he says, worse things than spreading a little fertilizer.

And I’m like, there’s some good one liners in this movie. I’m telling you. Classic writing

Steve & Izzy: and re [00:21:00] retired. Definitely not because of investigation. You know, the, the Nick Saban route we like to call it in other sports. What other people can pay now. Well, shit, I’m retiring. Implications. Exactly. I need you to come back for, you know, one more, one more job.

One more good race or one more. Got this kid. I just need you to build a car for him. Alright. This kid from California, they don’t have the, the car built yet. Still wants to see like what kind of driver he is. So they borrow Rowdy’s car. And then Tom Cruise comes rolling in straight off the set of Top Gun

on a motorcycle and everything.

Mountain Man Dan: Well, he did switch the, uh, Crocket to a cruiser, though

Crew Chief Eric: I didn’t even pay that much of attention to the bike. I just knew he was on a bike.

Steve & Izzy: He looks funny on a cruiser.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, he does. ’cause he is so small. We, we covered.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, like, like it might be a little too big for him.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like a kid on a big wheel.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, five foot seven of Tom Cruise. Wink, wink. The towering man. That is Tom Cruise. He’s got a little pedal risers on there so he can pop the clutch if need [00:22:00] be. He’s used to being a, a backpack. Where’s my basket?

Crew Chief Eric: So then they start arguing about borrowing Rowdy’s car, which I thought was all arranged and that whole kind of thing.

Right. I thought it was really funny. At some point they asked him about his experience.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Basically he’s got none.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Like I saw it on ESPN. What

Crew Chief Eric: you can learn a lot on ES, espn. I’m like, excuse me.

Steve & Izzy: Even I’m skeptical at that point, like, forget being good old boy in this California Yankee or whatever.

I’m like, I’m sorry you’ve never driven a professional stock car. Like, eh, can’t be too different from, uh, these other things. Like, oh, I assure you it is 10 years later it would’ve been video games. Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah,

Steve & Izzy: yeah. It had been F1, the movie or whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. I played it on Forza

Steve & Izzy: Grand Charisma. That’s it.

That’s it.

Crew Chief Eric: Did anybody pick up that Randy Quaid was that he was bitching about how much it cost to rent the track? Did you hear what he said?

Steve & Izzy: It was like 2,500 or something like that. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: To rent the tr hour. For the day.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, for the day.

Crew Chief Eric: I was like, my [00:23:00] God, it’s so cheap. It’s so cheap. Even

Steve & Izzy: with the, yeah.

You have to remember, gas is 79 cents a gallon and

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: If you made $19,000 a year, you like could buy three houses. Yeah. Desert Storm hadn’t started yet.

Crew Chief Eric: Not to take too much of an off ramp here, but Brad pointed something out to me about this point in the movie that I never realized before. Right. So we mentioned during, we were talking about the people that were in the movie, John C.

Reilly, I’m sure we’ll get to this at some point. John c re was in Talladega Knights

Steve & Izzy: Sure was. He plays the exact same character, literally the exact same character,

Crew Chief Eric: more or less, but he’s a driver. But Brad goes. Look at the helmet, and I’m like, wait, what? Brad, do you wanna explain the rest of this? Look at the helmet thing you told me.

Crew Chief Brad: To me it looked like it was the same kind of red, white, and blue as the Old Spice helmets that he was wearing in. Yeah. Talladega Knights.

Steve & Izzy: Talladega Knights basically

Crew Chief Brad: shake and

Steve & Izzy: bake this movie off.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. It’s a parody of this movie. Right.

Steve & Izzy: And this movie, ripped Off Top Gun,

made the circle [00:24:00] and Broken.

Crew Chief Eric: Show me the sweet and low packets in Top Gun.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, that’s the volleyball scene.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, oh

Steve & Izzy: yeah. Who low we got?

Yeah. So, uh, what happens to, yeah, so they’re like, Hey, come on, take, take a chance on me. Let me, let me show you what I can do. And they’re like, all right. He goes out there, he does like a 31 second lap or whatever, which apparently pretty dang good. He starts asking like, I, I heard you got fired by your last sponsor or whatever.

And you know, he is like, yeah, yeah, we don’t need to talk about that. I just need a car, man. I can drive. You know I can drive. Come on. And then we cut to Harry, just sweet talking the frame of a car saying, oh baby, I’m gonna be so good to you. I’m gonna make you so fast. Oh, you ain’t even gonna love it. Talk about like Burgess Meredith in a jet.

Crew Chief Eric: Thank you. That’s what I wrote down. I wrote down the last Chase exclamation points.

Steve & Izzy: Oh babe, you let me inside of you. We’re gonna go [00:25:00] places. He

Executive Producer Tania: wasn’t creepy though,

Steve & Izzy: wasn’t it though?

Crew Chief Eric: Burgess Meredith was creepy. He was creepy.

Steve & Izzy: No, no. It was.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

Steve & Izzy: I mean, we all talk to inanimate objects like that, right? Just all the time.

I’m more of a like you stupid piece of shit. Yeah, that You die on me now. No, no, no. Please, please. Just start baby. I swear. I swear. I’ll get you a tune up. Just start this one time for me. Please, please, please.

Crew Chief Brad: Just, just turn on.

Steve & Izzy: Just, just, just turn over. You ain’t even gotta be smooth. You just gotta get me off this freeway.

Please, please, please. Us in the van the other day. Yeah. Oh God. Damnit.

Mountain Man Dan: It’s like Nicholas Cage and Eleanor gone in 60 seconds. Pat the dash like there you go.

Steve & Izzy: But you know, we get a nice little building montage where they get the car all ready for the track. Sponsored by Chitty Chevy.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. Lemon Lime,

Steve & Izzy: no CI City Chevy.

I guess that’s uh, Quaids Place.

Crew Chief Eric: And now we’re at Phoenix International Race Wave.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. And we uh, get to the race and of course Rowdy’s trade paint. Ah, yeah. That’s where we [00:26:00] find out Rubbing is racing baby. Rubbing is racing

Crew Chief Eric: gospel according to Robert Duvall rubbing his racing.

Steve & Izzy: I don’t watch a lot of racing because I’ve got everything to do.

Do they like sandwich the other cars and like knock ’em all over the track and stuff like it’s portrayed in this movie? ’cause that seems. Dangerous.

Crew Chief Eric: They’ll go three abreast, but it’s usually not ping pong ho it’s not ping pong like you saw in the movie. That was very much exaggerated. You know, obviously for the drama and for the excitement.

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, they, I believe they call that a dramatization.

Steve & Izzy: Yes. Yeah. Dramatization, like skipping 300 laps.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: they do go three wide and stuff, so yeah, that’s, that’s true.

Steve & Izzy: I believe the term was three abreast, like total recall.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, yes, yes.

Crew Chief Brad: But it was also a different time back then in the eighties.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, that, that’s kinda why I was asking too.

’cause like I know nowadays it’s like, oh, they incidentally touched, that’s like a two race suspension or, you know, it, not quite that extreme, but it’s like, it’s very much like safety in mind [00:27:00] since, uh, I think of it like, basketball Babe only touched that guy, spent it for two games. I mean, 83 goddamn points for BA anyway.

But, but yeah, I, I just know it’s like a lot more like, all right, bring out the warning flag. Well we’re gonna have half this race with the warning flags and stuff like that. Like, ever since Dale Earnhardt may or may not be the, the rowdy burns of this movie, since he passed in a questionable means, it’s like, well, okay, triple down on the safety.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely.

Steve & Izzy: But, but yeah, I don’t know if like seventies and eighties it was more like, oh yeah, they had six shooters and were allowed to pop ’em every once in a while. Just, it’s a wild West just to assert dominance. Yeah.

Mountain Man Dan: Yeah, exactly.

Steve & Izzy: You know what, babe? I think I have a way to bring us all back to racing.

Death race, 2000. Absolutely.

Mountain Man Dan: Yep. I do recall races back then where after the races were done and there was contact out on the track, there were fights in the paddocks afterwards. Oh,

Steve & Izzy: a hundred percent.

Mountain Man Dan: Yeah. Four. NASCAR started getting strict and not allowing that sort of actions from the drivers. It happened somewhat regularly

Steve & Izzy: because [00:28:00] NASCAR’s pussies is what I’m hearing.

Mountain Man Dan: Yeah, sure.

Steve & Izzy: Sponsors, you know, sponsors or pussies. That’s what I’m hearing. That’s why whoever we, well yeah, now they’re not smokes and beer and whiskey and welcome to the Crown Royal 400 or whatever. Yeah. Welcome to the Marlboro 400, where it’s gonna end. Winston Cup series. You say its with bear buckle knocks boxing.

We’re down the last five drivers, but now they’re putting on the gloves, dipping it in broken glass, and going at each other.

Crew Chief Eric: So this is where another one of my favorite lines comes from in the movie. So you, as you mentioned, he’s kind of bouncing off of everything or hitting everything. They kind of montage all his wrecks through this whole first part here.

One of the races he comes in, he comes into the pit and Duval walks up to him and he’s like, I want you to hit the pace car. And he’s like, what? He goes, go out there and hit the pace car. He’s like, why do you want me to hit the pace? Because you hit everything else out there and I want you to be perfect.

I’m like,

Steve & Izzy: I [00:29:00] love it. I love it so much. During this montage of all of his wrecks and stuff, I’m like, I’m dumping his ass. If I’m Randy Quaid, like, like, this guy doesn’t know, knows terrible what he’s doing, or maybe they’re just targeted him or whatever, you know, California boy, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But I’m still like, I, I don’t know, man.

This is, doesn’t seem to be having the return.

Crew Chief Brad: Was it now or later in the movie when someone in the pit crew was talking about, oh, well this panel’s still nice, and then Duval walks up and puts his boot in it.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah. No, that’s, that’s at the end of the montage at night and, and it’s um, buck, it’s John c re points out.

He’s like, look at that panel. We don’t have to fix it. And Duval puts his boot right in there and he and John c Reilly’s like, why’d you do that? And he goes. I don’t want you to be spoiled Buck. I was like, oh my God.

Mountain Man Dan: I love at that point. But when at the montage, Robert Duvall’s character has basically just given up and he is like, yeah, it’s a freight train.

I’m just gonna sit back and join. So he is sitting there eating the damn Popsicle alongside of the track while he is there sitting in the Talking to, you’re

Crew Chief Brad: taking Eric’s [00:30:00] thunder.

Crew Chief Eric: Dude. It’s my favorite scene of the whole movie.

Crew Chief Brad: I need to pit. I need to pit. No, you can’t. Can’t pit. We’re busy. You busy.

Whatcha doing? We’re eating ice cream. You are welcome to come on in and get yourself some,

Crew Chief Eric: come down here and get some ice cream. It’s like, shit.

Steve & Izzy: And then quad’s like, come on you guys. You look like a monkey. Fucking a football

Crew Chief Eric: dude. Now I know where I got that phrase from. I got from this movie. I never realized that.

Steve & Izzy: Same here.

Crew Chief Eric: And the best part is all of this stuff happens in like the first 15 minutes in my mind, having not seen this movie in like 30 years, I thought it happened like throughout the movie, like it’s like, oh yeah, this scene’s coming and that scene and the ice cream scene. No, it’s in the first 15 minutes.

It’s like, holy shit.

Steve & Izzy: My overall feeling of this movie, the first 15 minutes and the last seven minutes, [00:31:00] all I remember about this movie. I remember some things from the hour and 20 minutes in between, but it’s like, oh. Yeah, hit injury. Cool. Alright. Drama. I don’t need that shit. I need the bruckheimer. You know what I mean?

I need, I need to be fighting some Russian migs.

Crew Chief Eric: See, but the way you described it is just like watching a NASCAR race back then. The first 15 minutes were exciting. You kind of fell asleep in the middle and you watched the last seven minutes for the checkered flag. Boom.

Steve & Izzy: There you go.

Crew Chief Eric: You just explained racing right there.

In a nutshell, it’s

Steve & Izzy: a metaphor.

Mountain Man Dan: I guess about seven or eight years ago I went to my first NASCAR race live. Well, only one I’ve been to live. ’cause I was invited as a guest and no lie, the first five minutes epic. Then I was like, okay, I’m sitting there twirling my thumbs for like an hour and then it’s down to like the last 10 laps and they start racing hard again.

And I’m like, okay. And then it got interesting.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Mountain Man Dan: Rest of ’em, like now I understand why NASCAR fans drink as much as they do to kill time.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Crew Chief Brad: And that’s just racing in general. It’s the same way at Rolex 24 at F1 [00:32:00] race, you know it gets a 90 minute race. You, you watch the first few laps and then you walk around the paddock and the vendors and then, oh, there’s 10 laps left all let’s go watch.

Mountain Man Dan: At least with the multiple turns, I think there’s more excitement than going in a circle.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, I hear what you guys are saying. They should all be demo derbies with like that figure eight track and everything.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Yes.

Steve & Izzy: We’re

Mountain Man Dan: simply cut it down to 20 lap, total start to finish. They’re hauling ass like dirt track and NASCAR originally was.

Steve & Izzy: They should all be sprint races.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, a hundred percent.

Steve & Izzy: Who or those? Uh, the was the three car trains or whatever where you got the driver up front? The empty one in the middle and the brake guy in the back.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that sounds safe.

Steve & Izzy: No, it’s not safe at all. That’s why it’s awesome. No, that’s why it’s like at the county fair or some shit, you know.

Mountain Man Dan: Have you seen one where the one car is on top, the other one and the person on top is steering and the person on the bottom’s controlling the top

Crew Chief Eric: gear?

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good stuff. Yeah,

Mountain Man Dan: safety is questionable.

Crew Chief Eric: Much like the bar scene that comes after this.

Steve & Izzy: But guys, we got a problem. Tom Cruise, he can’t finish the races ’cause he keeps crashing, his [00:33:00] car’s getting fucked up.

He just can’t communicate with Harry. It’s like they’re talking completely different languages. I don’t know what it is, but hey, if we don’t get a good sponsor, we’re done. Guys. We gotta learn to trust one another. That’s what it’s about. Trust. And so we cut to a bar where trust is ironed out because that’s just how men do it.

Harry and, uh, Cole, Tom Cruise and Robert Deval, they’re chatting and, uh, we find out Tom’s dirty little secret. He doesn’t know shit about cars. Yeah. Like the terminology, like, oh, you talk about like taking a wedge and blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, I feel you, Tom. I don’t know shit about cars, but you know what, I’m not a NASCAR driver.

Mountain Man Dan: Well, neither was he for this either. So

Steve & Izzy: yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: he drove outlaws. They don’t talk about cars on ESPN apparently

Mountain Man Dan: through about the fact that he, you know, he saw it on ESPN and that’s, that’s the best way to keep track of nascar. Just the five minute high highlights on ESPN.

Steve & Izzy: I assume that’s why this is a sequel to Top Gun because he’s been a fighter pilot for so goddamn long.

He doesn’t know anything about cars, but he is like, I just gotta go [00:34:00] fast and motorcycles just aren’t doing it for me.

Crew Chief Eric: But you know what I appreciate about this movie though? It’s for every scene, like the bar scene. That is, let’s say a little bit more serious or a little bit more dramatic or a little bit more intimate.

There is some sort of comedy that comes right behind it. So what they did here is they give you a little bit of exposition. They told you Tom Cruise done the shit about cars. And Robert Duvall’s like, okay, yeah, all right, I got you sucker. And they go into that very next race and he’s out there and he’s running like crap.

Robert Dupaul gets on the radio and he is like. I just need to tell you, you are match perfect and staggered special. And he’s like, what? He’s like the tires, they’re match perfect and staggered special and he’s just making shit up complete bull crap. But then Tom Cruise goes out and turns, you know, the miracle mile and it’s, you know, it’s the end of the story.

So for me, I, I love that little bit of comedy that comes after the series and you start to see that pattern develop throughout the movie from this point forward. And I thought it, I think that’s actually fantastic. [00:35:00]

Mountain Man Dan: It’s a great mentor learning experience for him as Robert and him, especially later in the movie where he is like, you got special tires, you can make this turn.

He is like, you don’t, don’t do that. Turn. You got it. Take it on the high side. You got special tires. And it’s ’cause he told him that he believed it, so he is like, okay, I’m gonna do it.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly.

Mountain Man Dan: Robert DeVos was thinking, okay, I just killed this kid, but.

Steve & Izzy: And with that guy’s, guess what? He got his first win.

Oh shit, we got a sponsor. Life’s good roll credits, guys. What do we think of? Oh wait, this is just the first day of Thunder

Crew Chief Eric: Uhhuh.

Steve & Izzy: We have multiple days to go. Yeah, they got there to do sponsor, what was it? Super flow Motor oil or whatever.

Crew Chief Brad: Yep.

Steve & Izzy: Oh my God. And we got the story about, uh, Cole’s last sponsor, like racing team or whatever.

Why he got dropped because real asshole and blah, blah, blah. Oh, by the way, it’s my dad. And, and this is all in the back of the trailers. They’re going on to the next race or whatever. Yep. But whoop, whoop, that’s the sound of the police. They’re getting pulled over. All right. Bang. Yeah, there, get outta [00:36:00] there.

And I’m like, and when they were saying the whole like, all right, line up, line up. Oh, what’s this? What’s this booze like? Yeah, we’re not driving that. That’s all I think like I’m allowed to, it’s still technically an open container in a vehicle. They’re in the trailer in California. That would be considered an open, an open container in a vehicle, babe.

I think they’re in like one of the Carolinas or something in Utah. That would be considered an open container in a, in a vehicle. Well, okay, you got me there.

Mountain Man Dan: I always question whether or not it was legal alcohol to have, ’cause he had the mason jar, so I was curious if it was shine. I noticed that too.

Steve & Izzy: Anytime they’re drinking outta the mason jar, I’m like, okay, that’s shine. Mm-hmm. Period.

PROMO: Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: No, it’s water. No, it’s shine.

PROMO: It shine.

Steve & Izzy: They’re, they’re, they’re using it to take paint off later, you know, like,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, exactly.

Steve & Izzy: Like, oh, this meow yellow is a little rough. Let’s, uh, let’s get this off here. But yeah, they get lined up and, uh, one of the officers gets a little, a little handsy with coal uhhuh, uh, starts, uh, grabbing that cucumber.

He’s obviously shoved in his pants,

Crew Chief Brad: rolling nickels [00:37:00]

Steve & Izzy: and like, what’s this, what’s this here? A concealed weapon. What’s this?

Crew Chief Eric: Is she jack Skeleton? What’s this? What’s this? Do, do, do, do, do, do.

Steve & Izzy: It’s throbbing in my pants. No, but, but, uh, but yeah, then, uh, lady Cob starts going, we, we, we, we weep and stripping or whatever.

No, Lil Wayne fans. That’s cool. I’m the only one. Are you even a fan of Lil Wayne or do you just like making fun of him? Maybe.

Crew Chief Eric: See serious scene, funny scene. See now we’re flip flopping again. It’s good stuff.

Mountain Man Dan: That was the throwback to 1980s porn.

Crew Chief Eric: I was a throwback to Cannonball Run.

Mountain Man Dan: Yes, true. Oh yeah.

Steve & Izzy: That wasn’t Cannonball.

Right

Crew Chief Eric: Now it’s Stroker race. The same thing, right? Because that’s the movie that this, if we do that succession thing where if we work backwards, Talladega Nights is Days of Thunder. Days of Thunder Goes back to Stroker Ace, another movie we should review, but we’ll just leave it there.

Steve & Izzy: She was trying to give him a stroke race, but, uh, so yeah, so we’re at the next race and you know, Tom Cruise, he’s rubbing [00:38:00] with Rowdy, you know, and man, there’s a big old crash up in front, big, uh, like eight car pile up or whatever.

Lot of smoke. They go on through there. Woo. Fucking Tom Cruise hits the gas with his special tires.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the days of thunder move. It’s sort of like in Star Trek, you got the Riker maneuver. This is the days of thunder move. Like you see a big smoke cloud, you can’t see shit through it. Visibility is negative.

Yeah. What do you do? You downshift and you floor it and you hold on.

Steve & Izzy: You straddle that chair and sit in it. Yeah. What are we talking about? The Ryker maneuver.

Crew Chief Eric: You say, Jesus, Jesus, take the wheel. Just go for it. Right? That’s the days of thunder.

Executive Producer Tania: Stay high, you stay high and you hit the throttle.

Steve & Izzy: So again, that’s where I’m like, all right, warning flag comes out.

All the cars stop. We, we sit around drinking beers for 20 minutes while they clear out the track. No, we just got through that shit, smash cut to them. Uh, being in a, being in a wreck and being a life flighted outta there. You know, we’re at the hospital and we see Dr. Kidman for the first time. And again, I’m thinking about [00:39:00] eighties porn, Nicole.

The whole time’s like, oh, I can’t see. I can’t see guys. I can’t see. Like, all right, let’s, let’s get you to a CAT scan, mate. Look. Okay. In her first couple of scenes, it’s like, okay, she’s covering up her Australian accent a little bit. Yeah. But then about the end of the second act, it’s like all coming out and it’s, it’s BMX bandit’s all over again.

Crew Chief Eric: And what’s her last name supposed to be something like Polish or whatever. It makes no

Steve & Izzy: sense. Yeah. Lewicki, yeah. Dr. Lewicki, whatever. But yeah, it’s basically she’s like, oh, you got a concussion mate. She’s like asking Robert Duvall about the helmet, like, was it correct, did it have scratches in the front at the back, and blah, blah blah.

And he’s like, discuss on the front the back. I think like, I don’t know, man. I’m not checking out that Burning Death trap. We pulled him out of, you know, the next morning Tom Cruise can see again. It’s okay everybody. It’s not gonna be about him learning to live without sight. Days of Thunder, Don Simpson.

Jerry Bruckheimer production turns into my left foot for an hour. [00:40:00]

Crew Chief Eric: That’s great.

Steve & Izzy: Ballsy. But you know, we saw Daniel Day Lewis in my left foot and is like, I can get an Oscar, but the next morning he can finally see again. So now he sees Lady Doctor for the first time, and of course he is like, okay, all right. There’s no way this Australian supermodels my god damn neurosurgeon. And, uh, I got a little something to show you and takes her hand and puts it on his shaft.

And she’s like, eh, I’m not impressed. Mediocre. Yeah. She gives the I Morton, Joe mediocre.

Crew Chief Brad: All, all the Steve’s Australian accents are from episodes of Bluey, every single one. It sounds like the

Steve & Izzy: characters from Bluey, you guys, it’s worse than that. Steve’s never seen an episode than those. He’s, uh, basically doing other podcasts.

I listen to a lot of podcasts guys.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, I thought he sounded like Rice Davies from Flight of the Concord Murray.

Steve & Izzy: [00:41:00] Oh yeah. Yeah. Little little kiwi in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you’re doing the for finger discount guys? Yeah, pretty much. And, uh oh. Who were the two Kiwi girls who you used to podcast with? Oh yeah, Jocelyn and, uh, Lyn and Emily BPO’s, the name of their podcast.

They haven’t done it in a while, like. Four years. Yeah.

Mountain Man Dan: Geez. When you were doing the, uh, Australian accent there about her grabbing a shaft. The way you said it made me think of Crocodo ee where he uh, the guy pulls a knife. He’s like, you call that a knife?

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Right

Mountain Man Dan: there about you call that a cock.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, CRO.

He’s just come be. Yeah. Oh my God. Be so cute to put you on your shoulder. See, we know Nicole Kidman’s Australian, not Kiwi because she was in that movie Australia. That’s true. But so was Hugh Jackman. Is he Australian? You know, I’ve heard rumor. I also heard rumor he enjoys song and dance. Alright guys, now we play the game.

Australian or Kiwi?

Crew Chief Eric: Eric [00:42:00] Bana is Australian. I’m just leaving and he’s a car guy. Just leaving it out there.

Steve & Izzy: Carl Urban Kiwi. I dunno. Keith Urban.

Anyway, so we’re done with that game. So where are we? Yeah, so, uh, so that was embarrassing. Oh, I thought she was a stripper.

Yeah. So yeah, Roddy was involved in that crash too. So they’re both in wheelchairs and they’re, uh, going to see their neurosurgeon and of course. As anyone would do in a hospital pushing wheelchairs side by side down the hallway. So absolutely no way nobody can pass. But God damnit, we can race one another.

Oh wait, races

Crew Chief Eric: aside from you two, Steve, Izzy, the rest of us here, when we’re like 75 years old in the same hospital together, that scene is what we’re going to be doing. So this is just real life foreshadowed right here. I’m just,

Steve & Izzy: oh, you don’t think Steve and I are gonna be racing? I was gonna say,

Mountain Man Dan: I’ve already done this and I’m not 75 [00:43:00] years old.

Steve & Izzy: See, it’s more like if I’m an orderly standing in the hallway and I see you guys coming at me, you better protect your grills ’cause I’m diving at you. Yeah. I would say Steve’s more judging the nurses who were pushing them side by side. Yeah, yeah. Like, no, no. Yeah. Like the, the orlie or whatever could have very easily diffused the situation by like, oh no, Mr.

Cruz, you’re back here. We’re going single file so that you know, a hospital can operate around you too.

Crew Chief Eric: Could you imagine though if they had hit that little break on the back? He would’ve done like an endo and like just

Steve & Izzy: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Flipped off the wheelchair.

Steve & Izzy: He, he gets another concussion going into the walk.

His head pokes through into the ladies’ bathroom. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: becomes porkies.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. This, this turns into, uh, a goddamn teenage sex comedy for the last half of the movie while talking about brain trauma. So, yeah, they, uh, they race and, uh, you know, the doctors sitting there waiting as they’re like, you know, like slapping each other, like trying to push each other away and like, all right, well we got the sponsors here, doc, what do you think?

Can we clear ’em? Like, well, no, [00:44:00] I can’t clear them just yet, but, you know, we can reevaluate in a couple of weeks away. So then, uh, Senator Fred Thompson turns his chair around. I’d like to talk to you about re reverse mortgages

instead. No, he talks about the, the Japanese inspection method or whatever, about lettuce being imported, but if you just wait long enough, it just rots away and you don’t have to worry about it. And I’m like, cool. Anyw, who?

Crew Chief Eric: But just so you guys know, he, they gave him the name Big John, which was a not so subtle hint at Big Bill France, you know, the head of NASCAR or whatever.

That’s who he was supposed to be in that particular instance there, if anybody was paying attention,

Steve & Izzy: and Eric, obviously I know who that is, but for the people who may not know their listening is Bill France, like the king of nascar.

PROMO: Is he the commissioner?

Crew Chief Eric: He’s the guy that invented nascar basically, that started, it

Steve & Izzy: invented driving in a circle.

Crew Chief Eric: The, the sanctioning body. Nascar, the

Steve & Izzy: govern. Yeah. The governing body.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: He puts the ass in [00:45:00] NASCAR is

Crew Chief Eric: what? Yeah. There you go. That’s the simple answer,

Steve & Izzy: but all right. Big John. He’s like. Well, you both gonna have dinner with me tonight together. You’re gonna drive there together and, okay. This whole next scene where it’s like,

Crew Chief Eric: yes, yes.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, oh, they’re, they’re arguing over who’s going to drive the car or whatever. I’m like, get a fucking taxi. Or Senator Thompson, do yourself a favor. Hire somebody to drive them. Hell, they can be drinking shine in the back of a trailer. Probably not best for their concussions or whatever, but, you know,

Crew Chief Eric: no,

Steve & Izzy: get ’em there on time, on your own terms.

Crew Chief Eric: This is like dodgeball. If you’re a professional driver, you don’t hire someone else to drive or you, that’s like Ben Stiller, no one makes me bleed my own blood. Right. They are gonna drive themselves wherever they’re going.

Steve & Izzy: Is, is that what that was about?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Steve & Izzy: He, he, he’s a professional bleeder, so nobody helps me bleed my own blood.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: Steve, did you not get that? I must have missed the subtext. And [00:46:00] also because we’re honoring Robert Duvall and Harry, we do get the scene where he talks to the Lady Doctrine is like, ma’am, I would like to apologize for, uh, my friend, uh, putting your hand on his shaft. That was purely, purely my fault because you see, a couple days ago I reenacted a porn on the side of a highway for him, and he thought you were just a continuation of that.

He just thought you were a hooker. But she’s like, oh, good mate. Hey, have a veggie mike sandwich.

I come from the good Lord. But anyway, uh, so, so cool. I entertain the fuck outta myself. Oh, then we cut to her like going to her car in a parking lot,

Crew Chief Eric: BMW three series.

Steve & Izzy: You know, like any woman feels safe, right? Mm-hmm. Right. Tanya, is he? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, as a not very attractive woman, I don’t have this problem.

Oh, you don’t have Tom Cruise randomly running up to you while you’re trying to get in your car and being [00:47:00] like, Hey, I’d like to apologize for having you grab my shaft earlier. It was a misunderstanding. Oh, no, you, your dad told me about it or whatever. No big whoop No, no. I’m sorry, Mr. Cruise. I’m not interested in Scientology.

Have a time. Yeah, yeah. As he was like, just, just tell him you’re gay. Like, but no, he, he stalks her for a little bit and she just like, no, let me, let me take it in there. Let me, uh, let me let take it to a race. Please, please, please. Pretty please. I don’t know. Cruz and Rowdy, they’re on their way and they’re like, all right, we’ve reached an agreement.

You’re not driving the car and I’m not driving the car. Blah, blah, blah. I know how we can settle this.

Mountain Man Dan: Ah-huh.

Steve & Izzy: We’re gonna rent some cars and apparently race them to dinner.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Mm-hmm.

Steve & Izzy: Trading pain along the way because,

Mountain Man Dan: because we’re manly men.

Steve & Izzy: I,

Crew Chief Eric: because it’s awesome. It’s one of the classic scenes of this movie.

It’s amazing.

Mountain Man Dan: And they opted the insurance on the rental cars, so it’s okay.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, it’s

Steve & Izzy: fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re fine. Yeah. Yeah. They, they, they signed it Big John, so he’s, he’s got a surprise [00:48:00] for him later that week. You know,

Crew Chief Eric: just think, we talk about other movies where scenes could be deleted from the movie and it would make absolutely no difference to the movie.

If you remove this part of the movie, it all falls apart. It’s a house of cards. Like you have to have this scene, kind of like the ice cream scene earlier. This is Days of Thunder right here.

Steve & Izzy: But this race between these two guys randomly on public roads, better or worse than Jeff Bridges and James Woods in against all odds.

Crew Chief Eric: Ooh, yeah. And against all odds, they didn’t damage the cars, but there was that pucker moment.

Steve & Izzy: Exactly. That’s why it’s better. No,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah. This is better.

Executive Producer Tania: No, no, no, no. And we had this conversation a while ago. We were both right, because I think I said it was a race between two Luminas and you said, no, it was two Tauruses, but it was Illumina and the Taurus.

And the

Crew Chief Eric: Taurus. Oh, Ford versus Chevy. Oh.

Executive Producer Tania: Guess what? We don’t care if these two cars hit each other much. We care if the portion, the

Crew Chief Eric: And the Ferrari. Ferrari, the

Executive Producer Tania: Ferrari RA hit each other.

Mountain Man Dan: But [00:49:00] the epic thing about that scene is when they’re coming across the bridge and the semi’s coming at them, the car on the left goes up onto the curb.

Yes, yes. Pull the tire out.

Steve & Izzy: Oh yeah.

Mountain Man Dan: How did it not blow the tire out?

Crew Chief Eric: Hollywood, baby Hollywood.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Reinforced it took four takes.

Crew Chief Eric: And six Tori.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, exactly. A whole lot of Illuminati or whatever the plural of Illumina is.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, we didn’t see the ramp that was there.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s that too. Yes. From

Executive Producer Tania: the backward shot.

Crew Chief Eric: And then the turbo kicked in

Steve & Izzy: B six. They finally show up to dinner late. And I’m like, weren’t you fuckers racing? Should you be there early? They took that much time arguing. They, they just kept going in circles Also, Steve, what was the last time you got out of a car rental place In under an hour. That’s true.

What else?

Mountain Man Dan: And they did the scenic route up the beach. Yes.

Steve & Izzy: Oh yeah. Yeah. They went to race the, the Mulholland Drive or whatever, like in, uh. King of the mountain. That’s what it was.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Steve & Izzy: He ran into Dennis Hopper, but that’s all a deleted scene. So

Mountain Man Dan: thinking the, the beach scene may have possibly been kind of like an [00:50:00] homage.

’cause Daytona originally did go out onto the beach.

Crew Chief Eric: That is correct.

Mountain Man Dan: The original Daytona wasn’t on the beach, so I didn’t Not that is correct. Homage to that as a thing. Yes.

Steve & Izzy: But it doesn’t now because safety, NASCAR is pussies. Okay. Safety.

Crew Chief Eric: NASCAR is pussy.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. There’s gotta be more, uh. More, uh, water hazards and uh, sand traps and stuff in NASCAR racing.

I agree.

Crew Chief Eric: You have this confused with golf.

Steve & Izzy: I’m just saying I haven’t seen anybody jump through a ring of fire in years. Yeah. Vegas, there’s gotta be people, the crosswalk, you know, like, oh wait, I’m sorry. That’s F1, right? I dunno.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. So, uh, yeah, they’re a little late and they say because of car trouble and as I written down, you’re both fired.

Roll credits guys. What do we think? Babo? This is the guy guys, you, you gotta put your shit aside. But you know, blame it on the concussion. I will blame it on the concussion though.

Crew Chief Eric: No, it’s boys. We’ll be boys. That’s the message here.

Steve & Izzy: Well, no, I saw that in Star Trek once and I believe Card used [00:51:00] it to get a kid off of a murder wrap.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, there’s that too. Yes.

Steve & Izzy: I believe that’s another record maneuver. But guys, we have one more boy to end. This Boys will be Boys Story. We’re introduced to Russ Wheeler, played by Kerry Elz. There we’re Elles, however you might say his name.

Crew Chief Eric: Elway Carry Elway.

Steve & Izzy: Dr. Saw, I believe.

Crew Chief Eric: There you

Steve & Izzy: go. That’s who he is.

Steve, the guy from Psych, the guy from like 10 episodes of psych. Yes. And nothing else.

Crew Chief Eric: He’s driving the Hardee’s car out west. That’s Carls Jr. Right? For those that don’t know what Hardee’s is.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, it’s Carls Jr. Yeah, he’s just the new driver. It’s gonna be taking over for you for a couple races. Cole, you know, while you’re on the men from your possibly career ending injuries,

Executive Producer Tania: wait, no.

While you’re stalking the doctor for her home address.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah. Starts calling like, oh yeah, she said I want, she wanted me to go to her office. Where was that again though? I got a concussion, I don’t remember, but sends a lot of flowers and a [00:52:00] side order of harassment. I do like during the scene though, that it ends with him asking her.

How tall are you? Right. Are you always this tall? Do I need to walk around in eight inch platforms or something like,

Crew Chief Eric: so awkward.

Steve & Izzy: But Mr. Cruz we’re ready to begin recording. Yeah, exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: Now allegedly, as legend has it, this is the point at which Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman did start getting together.

Like in real life,

Steve & Izzy: this is when they fell in love.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s what I had heard.

Steve & Izzy: That’s what I recall as well. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, because I know far and away was probably right. Yeah. Right after this. And I know that was when I think they got married or something, but yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, exactly.

Steve & Izzy: So she turned 18 is what I heard now. Uh, well, because BMX mandates was like three, four years before, you know, that’s why I say it. So yeah, we get a nice little date montage and of course, because Tom Cruise is cool as shit. He drives a Jeep, but guys, he’s gotta get a physical exam. Gotta check him out, make sure he is [00:53:00] able to drive, or at least start practicing and stuff.

Again, getting behind the wheel. You might say, Dr. Kevin, of course, is the one that has to do the exam. He starts, uh, leaning in, going for the kiss, actually gets one in. And, uh, she no sells that shit. Like the undertaker, like, she’s just like, yep. Anyway, you can pull your pants up, we’re done here. And of course, you know, as he’s like zipping up or whatever, he like goes walking out and he is like, I, I’m sorry, I, I don’t know what that was all about.

Uh, I’m sorry, blah, blah, blah. And of course then she’s immediately all over him and they head to pound town guys. Boom, boom. And then this is where we cut to the scene of, uh,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah,

Steve & Izzy: you know, them lying in bed on silk sheets. And, uh, Tom Cruise is explaining the concept of drafting using, uh, the sweet and low packets.

And all I can think of is, man, I wish they were raw dogging on ancient ruins,

Mountain Man Dan: but did anybody else wonder who the hell has sweet and low packets in bed?

Steve & Izzy: You’re in a hotel,

Mountain Man Dan: it didn’t look like a hotel

Crew Chief Eric: room. That even that doesn’t make sense.

Mountain Man Dan: Yeah. I mean,

Steve & Izzy: yeah, they got the [00:54:00] coffee maker on the, the, the side table.

Like, I don’t know, man.

Crew Chief Eric: Did they have coffee makers in the hotels in the nineties? It seems like a more modern thing to have that

Steve & Izzy: Steve, you are working in hotels then, according to your original hire date that I was hired several months later when I was 10 years old. But for anyone who doesn’t know Steve’s, a company has been convinced for the last 35 years.

35 years that, uh, Steve was hired when he was 10.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s awesome.

Steve & Izzy: I hate to break their hearts, so I, I just haven’t told him. We’ll see how my pension goes, but he, he ha he has been enjoying his 30th anniversary, uh, Bose sound system.

Crew Chief Eric: But talk about product placement. You are putting a sweet and low packet on Nicole Kidman’s leg and making vroom, vroom sounds, and you’re getting mansplained by a guy that 30 minutes ago said he doesn’t know shit about cars and he doesn’t know anything about racing, but this whole scene tracks, right.

Mountain Man Dan: He’s learned a lot. Yeah. Robert Deval is a good teacher, is the moral of the story.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that what it [00:55:00] is? Okay. Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. And it tracks so well, they used it again seven years later in Armageddon with animal crackers.

Mountain Man Dan: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: God.

Steve & Izzy: Wait, that wasn’t a Tony Scott movie, was it? Shit, who directed Ridley. Oh, that was Michael Bay.

Michael Bay did. That’s right. That’s right. Hey Michael, would it be easier if we just taught astronauts how to. Shut the fuck up Ben. Greatest commentary ever made. So yeah, then uh, be because they’re in post-Coital Bliss or whatever and uh, Nicole Kimmons trying to change conversation ’cause she doesn’t give a fuck about racing.

She says, so what do you wanna be when you grow up, mate?

Crew Chief Eric: No answer.

Steve & Izzy: It’s up there with later when she asked, what are you thinking about? And I’m like, oh god, damnit,

Crew Chief Eric: cut to a motorcycle music love montage.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Nice little pound town scene. Like straight out of top gun again.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Steve & Izzy: I’m surprised we didn’t hear Berlin come in.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

That’s Kayla. [00:56:00] We also find out during this that like, you know, Tom Cruise, he likes to be in control. And of course Dr. Kidman’s like, show me, show me little daddy. And you know,

so then we cut to, uh, them going to visit Rowdy at his farm ’cause uh,

Crew Chief Eric: yep.

Steve & Izzy: He hasn’t checked in with Lady Doctor. ’cause my family don’t go to hospitals less than they did or whatever, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Steve & Izzy: Or no. I, I, I, I guess at first that’s right. We get the scene where Rowdy’s like out on the lake or whatever, and he is talking with his wife about like, oh yeah, we’re just gonna build the new mansion over there on that island.

And, you know, we used the other one for scrap. He bought all this Airbnb or whatever, you know, he, he’s been successful for many years. He’s very rich. But then, uh, he gets seasick for the first time ever. And then so the, you know, I guess the wife called the doctor says, come checks him out and, you know, he’s dizzy or whatever, and he like, closes his eyes, loses the equilibrium and falls.

And so it’s like. Well, um, I’m gonna recommend you talk to my boss. [00:57:00] Uh, he is the head of neuroscience at the hospital. Since you obviously don’t trust lady doctors.

Mountain Man Dan: Mm-hmm. Did anybody else find it curious as to like, from watching it years ago up till now, how prior to this point, Cole and Rowdy, like hated each other’s guts, but then he shows up at his place and they’re cordial with each other, and

Executive Producer Tania: because they became friends with the Lumina Taurus race, then they smiled at each other at the table and then they were friends.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. When they lied about car trouble, uh, it’s kind of a heated rivalry, you might say. Oh, hmm, these guys don’t do game hockey players. Oh man, NASCAR fans watching heated rivalry. That’s something I gotta watch.

Crew Chief Eric: Hmm.

Steve & Izzy: That’s the commentary trek you really want. That’s the one I want. Like, oh, what do they do?

Oh my God. Oh, oh my goodness. They’re friends. High sticking. Anyway, guys we’re watching ESPN highlights and, uh, Russ, he’s winning some races and, uh, yeah, Dennis Quad’s, like, man, with all these races you’re winning. I’m [00:58:00] able to get a second team go in here, but there might be a potential conflict down the road when, uh, when Cole, you know, Tom Cruise starts coming back in.

Oh, well, no one cares. So we cut to Atlanta. Tom Cruise is back and he is driving, but he seems upset and distracted and we’re seeing through his eyes and his vision’s like a little blurry when he is checking his rear view mirrors and stuff. Oh man, he, he blew, blew an engine like intentionally just like, I don’t know, dropping it and running it like 10,000 RPMs or whatever.

And

Crew Chief Eric: he grated the engine as they say.

Steve & Izzy: Yep. And Harry, you know Robert Duval, he’s back in the movie again. He, uh, he knows what Tom Cruise’s done ’cause he is got the little telltale uh, thing he pushes on that says, uh, what the RPMs were when the engine blew. And it’s like, oh, yep, there we go. That’ll do it.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Steve & Izzy: We come back to Rowdy ’cause he’s being checked out by, uh, the head of neuroscience or whatever and uh, he’s got a hemorrhage in his head. And, uh, you gotta get that shit checked out.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s it for him.

Steve & Izzy: We cut to the next race, so a week later or whatever. Right. That’s like once a week in Wilkesboro. I know we get the line of like, drivers don’t wanna [00:59:00] be reminded of their mortality or whatever.

Like I think Harry’s talking to the lady doctor or whatever. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like that’s why nobody will come see you during the race. Russ, he blocks Tom Cruise in the pit or whatever by doing a shit parking job. Mm-hmm. Which I think today would get him a, a lap fine or something like that, like a penalty or whatever.

Mountain Man Dan: Definitely something

Steve & Izzy: Tom Cruise ends up like running into the wall or whatever, trying to pass him or be, be, be aggressive or whatever. And Russ wins. Yay. And NASCAR does nothing.

Crew Chief Eric: Different times Steve. It was different times back then. You get away with more.

Steve & Izzy: They want the carnage,

Crew Chief Eric: so do the fans, but we don’t get that anymore

Mountain Man Dan: other than just the parking that he did there in pit row.

He bumped him and there’s supposed to be no contact at all and gotta be below speed.

Steve & Izzy: Mm-hmm.

Mountain Man Dan: Things that would not fly today.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, of course.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. And Tom Cruise was going what, like 80 miles an hour or some shit there in pit row or whatever when like the guy pulls out and like, oh shit, that whole thing.

And I’m like, you’re driving like an asshole, dude. Like [01:00:00] you know the rules. It’s pit, it’s pit stop. You know, Russ, he’s doing his victory lap. And uh, Tom Cruise is like, I need a change of tires. And I’m like, but race is over dude.

Crew Chief Eric: Just like thunderbolt.

Steve & Izzy: No. Change the tires.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like Thunderbolt.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Pops in gear, fucking runs right into Russ’s car.

And I’m like, well, and you’re never being RAs car again. You gotta at least wait until they’re, you know, pouring the beer or the, the champagne or whatever on ’em. They just run up and knee him in the nuts and give them an upper cut. Like there you go. You know, winter cuts like the good old a yab, you can’t attack him with a weapon

Mountain Man Dan: since he did it the more safe route by attacking the car.

’cause he had all his safety gear on. So it’s safer that way, right?

Crew Chief Eric: A thousand percent.

Steve & Izzy: Oh yeah. You know what? You won me over six months suspension. That’s all. But of course Randy Quaid, he’s like, oh, let’s son of a bitch. Wreck both my cars. Fuck this guy. You are fired. No. We then cut to the Hilton Cole.

He’s, I don’t know, taking lady doctor to the airport, do.dot for some reason. [01:01:00] And she’s like, you seen road yet? And of course he’s like, no, no, I, I I haven’t been out to see him. And then the world’s worst taxi driver pulls up behind him and bumps the car for some reason.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: And I’m like, what the fuck?

And then, oh yeah, we just have to race. I have a race confrontation with this random ass taxi car. For some reason,

Crew Chief Eric: this is Brad’s favorite scene. He always likes to quote, let me outta the car, Cole.

Steve & Izzy: Let me outta the car. You know? Yeah. She gets out, she’s super angry and you know, of course she’s like, look, I get it.

You’re fucking scared. I’m not scared. Well, you’re in denial. That’s just as bad. Control is an illusion. You idiot. They just like stare for a bit. And, and it was this scene in particular where like the Aussie was really coming out. Oh, you bastard. Yeah. So then Tom Cruise decides, you know what, I’m gonna go see Rowdy.

And of course he’s at home playing pool. Apparently they have like eight kids running around the [01:02:00] house and the wife’s just at her wits end or whatever. But uh, and she was a new baby. Yeah, new baby. Probably another one on the way. You know how it is talking to Rowdy Rowdy’s, like, you know, it’s that lady Doctor’s fault and he is like Uhhuh Really?

Hey, um, what’s this trophy here for? Say on there? Yeah, that’s the Winston Cub. That, that’s an easy one to forget though. That’s not like a huge thing.

Crew Chief Eric: Nah, not at all.

Steve & Izzy: And then this is where Tom Cruise like, pulls out the pool queue and he is like, well you can fix it there at the hospital. We can fix it here to knock you out.

What’s it going be? Yeah. They’re like, I am not intimidated by Tom Cruise at all.

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Steve & Izzy: Like, even, even the slightest, I’m sorry. So we cut to the hospital, basically. They’re like, yeah. So Rowdy’s got a pretty bad little, uh, hemorrhage thing going, and uh, he may be able to come outta the hospital, but he’s never gonna drive again.

I’m like, oh no. Wow. Gimme that, uh, that special brain surgery from the head of neuroscience. That is right. And this rowdy’s like, matter of fact, talk with Cole for a minute alone and this is where he is gonna [01:03:00] like, you know, confess his love and say, I can’t quit you. And you know, right.

Crew Chief Eric: He pulls out, what are the other sugar pack?

He pulls out a domino.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. He’s like, I wanna

Crew Chief Eric: get sweet.

Steve & Izzy: I wanna, I wanna teach you a lesson in leverage. What do you know about the concept of a power bottom? Because you see, you take this packet. So, no, Ben said he is like, Cole, I want you to drive my car at Daytona. Uh, no. I got a bunch of unpaid land and I gotta take care of my family and my sponsors.

They bet on me, not on my car. So I need you to be me for a while. It’s gonna be best for my family and, and, you know, yeah. Pay the bills and everything. Kohl’s just like. Before he answers, he just like kinda leaves. He never really gave him an answer. He is like, I sound like great. He is like, I, I I, uh, and then like walks past lady, doctor or whatever he is.

Like, I, I gotta go talk to Harry. Meanwhile, I’m like thinking like Michael Rucker back in his, back in [01:04:00] his, uh, hospital bed. Like, was that a fucking yes? Did I, did I pass out? What happened?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and it’s also sort of like, did Randy Quaid fire him? We never really saw that. Like he was yelling at him about hitting the other car, but it’s not like he canceled him as a driver.

He had two cars. It could have been, there’s like a whole bunch of politics here that it would just, we sort of skipped over and that’s fine because we’re leading to this point where he’s filling in for Rowdy.

Steve & Izzy: I I think it’s ’cause both, uh, Randy Quad’s cars got wrecked. Tom Cruise doesn’t even have a car to drive.

Crew Chief Eric: But that’s not true because Carrie Elways drove for

Steve & Izzy: Randy. Yeah. Carries was Dr.

Crew Chief Eric: No, he was fired.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Yeah, he was fired. Fired. Right. Because he was the cause of it. So he, yeah. Okay. He and Robert

Executive Producer Tania: Duvall were both fired.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Okay. That’s why Duval’s back on the farm ’cause he, I go talk to Harry. And yeah, of course Harry’s like, what?

Why won’t you fix the car? He is like, because I knew you blew the engine. You’re scared, but I can’t do it without you, Harry. Okay, cool.

Mountain Man Dan: And doesn’t also, at that point when they’re talking, he starts referring back to when it was his brother that died.

Steve & Izzy: [01:05:00] Yeah.

Mountain Man Dan: He’s like, the wall didn’t kill him. He was rambling at a million miles a minute, all the way up 20.

He made contact with the wall and he’s like, you’re in the same state of mind. And he’s like, I’m gonna have you kill yourself,

Crew Chief Eric: man. You sound just like him.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Like he said earlier in the movie, like died of a heart attack, you know, John c Re’s dad or whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Steve & Izzy: But then he is like, you know, there was a rumor there was a CO2 leak from, you know, trying to take out certain things to make it lighter or whatever, and like, no, no.

It was nothing like that. This is bullshit. No investigation needed. No, no further questions, your Honor. Yeah, I dunno. They just have a little screaming match, you know, acting, but then he breaks it down. It’s like, trust me Harry. I won’t make a fool outta you. And then the soft music starts playing.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my God.

Steve & Izzy: And they head straight to Pound Town.

No, but yeah, definitely the music that was coming on, it’s like, what? What’s about to happen? We

Mountain Man Dan: went to the bum. They were rolling the head.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Domino Sugar Pack gets, man, I’m telling you.

Steve & Izzy: So guys, we then immediately cut to the morning of Daytona. Man, that was quick.

Crew Chief Eric: I wrote down Mellow Yellow Time [01:06:00] baby.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: I like the old Mellow Yellow logo. I missed that. The new one’s not that nice.

Steve & Izzy: All the logos were better in the eighties and nineties, man. But Harry, you know, he’s, uh, he’s talking, talking about the car again. Oh baby.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my God.

Steve & Izzy: I’m gonna get you so fast. Uh oh. Oh, what’s that? Oh, you’re leaking a little bit.

Oh, that’s to be expected.

Crew Chief Brad: Overexcited.

Steve & Izzy: But then we, yeah, we got to the interviews with like the other drivers and they’re all like, oh yeah, call Truckle. Yeah. Uh, I hope, I hope he’s able to come back from his concussion, blah, blah, blah. You know, it’s everybody’s like, you know, trying to be like super nice about blah, blah, blah.

Then they cut to Ross and he is like, I don’t think he should be on the goddamn track. He’s a god damn danger to everyone around him. And I hope he dies in a fiery wreck

Mountain Man Dan: near me. I’m putting him in a wall.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, that’s right. I’m gonna, I’m gonna put him into a wall just like Dale Earnhardt. Oh, too soon.

Nevermind. Scratch that. So then, uh, the doctor, you know, lady doctor, she goes to visit Cole and she says, yeah, yeah. Ra Rowdy’s totally [01:07:00] doing better. Yeah, totally. Like, I don’t know, just the way, like, he was asking like, how’s rowdy? And she’s like, he’s doing better. Doing better. He’s in God’s hands now. I don’t know.

He’s in a better place.

Crew Chief Eric: She ran, they ran outta lines for her

Steve & Izzy: and Oh, that’s right. And then this is when she asked, what are you thinking about? And I’m like, oh God, damnit, this is

Crew Chief Eric: terrible, terrible writing at this point.

Steve & Izzy: And then he is like, I’m more afraid of being nothing than of getting hurt. And then we cut to Russ, and this is the first time I’m like realizing the movie Russ is Iceman.

Like he’s got the, the Val Kilmer blonde haircut going. He’s got the, the aviator glasses on. I’m surprised he didn’t make little chomping motions at Tom.

Crew Chief Eric: He’s also saucer Baron Cohen in Talladega Knight.

Steve & Izzy: Ricky Bibe. I will defeat you

Crew Chief Eric: pretty much.

Steve & Izzy: And then I would sit by esp. You know Tom Cruise? He’s got a new engine in the car.

What? How, how’d you get that? We can’t afford that. Like I, uh, I stole it [01:08:00] says Harry, and then we glance over and Randy Quaid gives a little knowing nod or whatever, like, Aw, see they can still be friends, but ladies and gentlemen, start your engines ’cause we is about to race. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Daytona 500 times. It’s time for the 500.

Steve & Izzy: That’s right. Tom Cruise. He’s gotta start last. Why? Because he is the shortest. No, I don’t know. I, I guess because he’s like a last minute substitution or whatever. He

Crew Chief Eric: lined up by height.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Yeah, that Dale Earnhardt Jr’s a tall drink of water, so we’ll give him at least a top three pole position. Big wreck.

Again, a lot of oil on the track, but you gotta watch it. Oh shit. And they’re showing like the exact same smoky footage from the first wreck or whatever. And uh, Tom Cruise just gets all quiet and he is not talking to Harry and he drives on through it, and then we get triumphant music. Yay. That must have meant something.

He, he’s battling his fears and just gunning it through po potentially dangerous situations. All right. He is ready to go. So [01:09:00] then we start rubbing and there’s 23 laps left. And I’m like, fuck, that was a quick race.

Mountain Man Dan: I can’t be like that in real life,

Steve & Izzy: right? Yeah, right. Welcome to the Daytona 50.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Where did the other 200 and like 27 laps go, right?

It’s like night.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, but uh, Rus, he’s rubbing on coal and Oh, my accelerator stuck. I can’t slow down. I’m gonna go fast. Mama bends out but then nope. Gets control. Pulls it back out and they’re racing. Racing. Oh my accelerator’s loose though. Thank God I almost died, but my transmission’s fucked. Okay, well that sucks.

Quick. We gotta get a pit stop. Alright, I gotta get out here in 45 seconds. I gotta get in front of that pace card. Come on, let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Yeah, they, they end up pushing ’em out. Like they got the whole crew team of, uh, what, five people or whatever. And then Randy Quats crew team starts pushing ’em out too.

Oh my gosh. They’re, they’re working together again to get out in front of that pace car. Oh. So he is in like ninth place with eight laps left. And I’m like, well, okay, I think he’s done then. Right. Good job guys. Maybe [01:10:00] settle for a top five. Finish, get that purse. And uh, you know, we, he helped, uh, rowdy pay off his bills, roll credits.

No, he’s gonna draft Russ, you know, fall behind, like sweet low packet.

Crew Chief Eric: Mm-hmm.

Steve & Izzy: Sweet. And tighten behind. And, uh, Russ says None of my watch bitch and puts him in the wall a couple times. And then it’s the last lap. And I’m like, and that’s the last lap. And I’m like, well, that was quick. And they’re drafting in, he fakes high.

And of course Russ is like, well, he’s going high obviously, but no. Then he cuts in low. Oh my God. He got the inside track and he gets the win.

Crew Chief Eric: I literally wrote down, listen to that top gun music as he wins the 500.

Steve & Izzy: That’s

Crew Chief Eric: right.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. He’s the best around everybody. Down. The body’s all around. Yeah. There’s nice big pit celebration and uh, and, and Russ comes over and says, you could be my wing man anytime, Maverick. And. [01:11:00] The lady doctor stayed to watch from the stands and he sees Harry and they have a chat with tears in their eyes who says, there’s nothing you can’t do in a race car.

Well, let’s get our ass to victory Lane a ratio ass ha. And they run off freeze frame roll credits. Guys, we’ve completed almost an entire week of Thunder.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, yes we have.

Steve & Izzy: So I guess, uh, would you guys recommend this movie?

Crew Chief Eric: Hell yeah. Oh yeah, of course. The

Steve & Izzy: classic. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Would you guys recommend this movie,

Steve & Izzy: babe?

Would you recommend this movie? You know what? Yeah. This is one of those movies you have to watch so that other things become funnier when they make fun of it. This walk. So Talladega Nights could run Exactly This walk. So Driven could run. I dunno, I’m gonna be contradictory here. This is probably the worst movie we’ve seen.

What? What? Worse than Senior Moment? Worse than, uh oh. I, I’m sorry. I was just trying to compare this to the Stunt Man or whatever. [01:12:00] Obviously the worst movie we’ve ever seen. Can’t believe you guys keep bringing that up. The movie was great.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re the one that brought it up. This time I wasn’t even gonna go there because this is probably the best movie we’ve ever watched By far.

Steve & Izzy: What Better than the Fall Guy? Come on.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, dude. I was about to say that this might be the first time we all have consensus that this movie is awesome and then you had to go throw a wrench in the gears talking about the worst movie. This is a classic

Steve & Izzy: look. It’s no driven, but it’s okay

Executive Producer Tania: as far as racing movies go.

’cause the Fall Guy isn’t really Racing R Movie. It’s still a very good movie.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: But as far as like really racing movies, like yes this is

Steve & Izzy: the

Executive Producer Tania: Bar, but

Steve & Izzy: this is No Against All Odds.

Crew Chief Eric: The only racing movie that might be better than this. But you have to be able to stomach it because it’s 10 times longer.

Is Steve McQueen’s Lama?

Steve & Izzy: That is a long movie.

Crew Chief Eric: It is ridiculously long and there has very little dialogue in it, which is awesome into itself. So as [01:13:00] racing movies go to Tonya’s point, this one is like the pinnacle. It’s right up there.

Steve & Izzy: And the most realistic too.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s just it. You can’t bitch about the racing scenes in this that much.

There’s some stupid stuff like we talked about when they’re three wide and whatever, but for the most part you’re like, they’re going around in a circle, they’re doing NASCAR things.

Executive Producer Tania: Not to jump to what have I learned. One of the things I learned is that actually they really raced those cars in real NASCAR races for the footage.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I was gonna say, we have one movie.

Executive Producer Tania: So a lot of the footage was actually real. Some good portion of it was not, but a lot of it was they would race as like unscored entries, like in in races. Just to get the footage.

Steve & Izzy: Well, on that note, do we wanna start getting into some fun facts about this movie?

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, I’ve got another fun fact.

Oh, do you need

Crew Chief Eric: a commercial break first?

Steve & Izzy: Oh, well, since you mentioned it, we’re gonna take quick commercial break. Oh. But when we come back, we have more beer. Fun facts.

PROMO: What

Steve & Izzy: and what we [01:14:00] learned from Days of Thunder.

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Steve & Izzy: And we’re back. Oh my God, Steve. Pretty sensitive. Reddit in the history vetting.

Oh, she said it. They get better every week. Sorry, what were you saying, Eric?

Crew Chief Eric: I said, you gotta say it like Hulk Hogan, days of Thunder.

Steve & Izzy: He of thunder. Brother.

Crew Chief Eric: Brother Steph, Goslin Jim. Just go full off like macho man after that.

Steve & Izzy: That’s macho man. Yeah.[01:16:00]

Surprised have wasn’t in this movie. Would anyone be interested in any fun facts about this movie?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Steve & Izzy: Are they fun facts? Super

Executive Producer Tania: fun Facts ’cause fun. Fun facts.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, she said it well, Tony, you wanna start us off?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. I have one that Eric might appreciate.

Crew Chief Eric: Ooh, ooh, ooh. I didn’t do any fun facts this time, so I’m ready to be impressed.

Executive Producer Tania: Your favorite scene in the whole movie?

Crew Chief Eric: The ice cream scene. The.

Executive Producer Tania: Actually based on it really happening.

Crew Chief Eric: No. Are you for real?

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently that incident actually occurred with Hendrick Motorsports in 1987.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. Because I was thinking when you just said that, that Bobby Raha was sponsored by Otter Pops and they had ice cream in the pit, but that was IndyCar and not nascar.

So that’s really interesting.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, apparently a lot of the like. A lot of, all the people’s interactions are mirrored off relationships that actually occurred in NASCAR [01:17:00] rivalries and whatnot.

Crew Chief Eric: See, Steve, we’ve just elevated this movie to, based on a true story,

Steve & Izzy: based on several true stories. Yes. Days of thunder loosely.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay, so, so if that’s the case, then Disney’s Pixar’s Cars is the exact same thing because a lot of those scenes are taken, so is Cars is based on true events as well.

Crew Chief Eric: You gotta follow the family tree here. Stroker Ace Days of Thunder, Talladega Night. Disney’s cars. That’s the order of operations. Brad is in agreement.

Executive Producer Tania: So funnily enough, the character that Cole Trickle is sort of, or the real life person. Cole Trickle character is loosely based off of apparently Cameo very briefly in stroke race. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: Jeff Gordon?

Executive Producer Tania: No, he’s not based off Jeff Gordon. He is based off a guy named Tim Richmond.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: okay. Who was kinda like a hothead came from nowhere.

Guy, I guess.

Steve & Izzy: Dick Trickle.

Executive Producer Tania: [01:18:00] So the name was based off Dick Trickle? Yes.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: yeah. But it’s like an amalgamation of a couple different people.

Crew Chief Eric: Interesting.

Steve & Izzy: Thanks.

Crew Chief Eric: Based on True Story. Look at that.

Steve & Izzy: Alright guys, well Rotten Tomatoes. What do we think the critics thought of? Days of Thunder.

Executive Producer Tania: The critics.

Steve & Izzy: Critics.

Executive Producer Tania: This was critics back in 1990, right?

Steve & Izzy: Sure.

Executive Producer Tania: Or they retic

Steve & Izzy: or it, it’s rotten tomato. So some from nineties and some since then, but yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: it’s probably somewhere near 50%, but under 50%.

Steve & Izzy: 47 go 50. ’cause Brad said 47. What else have we got?

Crew Chief Eric: I’m gonna go with Izzy’s 69 because of the sweet milk.

Mountain Man Dan: I’m thinking like it’s gotta be around like 65, 60 6%.

Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: I think so.

Mountain Man Dan: If I recall commercials on TV for back then they were saying it was critically acclaimed.

Crew Chief Eric: They made amusement park rides out of days of thunder. Are you kidding me? Come on

Steve & Izzy: Izzy. What do you think?

Executive Producer Tania: I’m gonna go with 82.

Steve & Izzy: Ooh. [01:19:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Ooh.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s probably the person vote.

Steve & Izzy: Brad is closest. 38% with the critic should have gone with

Crew Chief Eric: my 17,

Steve & Izzy: but nobody gives a fuck about the critics.

What about that audience score? 108% Bob?

Crew Chief Eric: 78. 78.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s above 70, probably close to 80.

Crew Chief Eric: So she’s 78 as well.

Executive Producer Tania: I’ll go with 80.

Steve & Izzy: I’m going 79. I’m gonna go 87. Is he? I’m gonna go with a little six pound eight ounce baby. Jesus. Is that a 68? Six six? Well, audience score is 60%. Oh. Barely fresh. Barely budget was $60 million.

Any guesses on the worldwide gross days of Thunder Two never happened.

Mountain Man Dan: It’s called Tal Dega Knights,

Executive Producer Tania: which allegedly might be in the works for the last two years, but I don’t know if that’s true.

Mountain Man Dan: What it took forever for the second, uh, top gun to be made. So, yeah, that’s true.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Mountain Man Dan: Baseball two’s coming out [01:20:00] so.

Steve & Izzy: Cocktail too.

Crew Chief Eric: The problem is they can’t get Dr. Lewicki back for Days of Thunder too.

Steve & Izzy: Oh no. Where are we gonna find a gorgeous Australian model to be a doctor? Just get Margot Robbie, Margot Robbie’s calling. Hello?

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, considering all the swag, the posters, the amusement park rides, all the stuff around Days of Thunder.

I mean, 60 million is what it costs. Mm-hmm. Worldwide gross. After all this, it’s gotta be a quadrillion like, I mean, there’s, it’s all

Steve & Izzy: the

Mountain Man Dan: merch fall in for the million.

Crew Chief Brad: No, but I, I think he’s just asking box Office gross.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Then it’s a half a quadrillion, like it’s a lot.

Steve & Izzy: We’ll just say a billion since, uh,

Crew Chief Brad: no, I’m gonna say.

200.

Crew Chief Eric: Wait, wait, wait, wait. It’s in that period where Days of Thunder and Batman and Terminator were all sort of like jockeying for position. So it’s gotta be like 120 million or a hundred. It’s in the a hundred million [01:21:00] range.

Steve & Izzy: Sir, you already said a quadrillion. So, uh, your, your phone’s been put in with your careful calculations there.

Thank you for helping the others with their vote. Yes. Anybody else?

Mountain Man Dan: $27 and a six pack.

Executive Producer Tania: I refrain from voting as I know the answer.

Mountain Man Dan: I would say they did well and it’d be like two 50 mil range.

Steve & Izzy: Brad is closest. 1 57 0.9 worldwide, according to what I saw. Nice. More than double. Yeah, more than double, but, you know.

Mm.

Mountain Man Dan: Some reason I guess. ’cause at that time it was, it was one of those things that was out there everywhere, if I recall. ’cause especially the Hardee’s deal, because Yes.

Steve & Izzy: Oh yeah,

Mountain Man Dan: yeah. I got a couple minutes ago to look for it ’cause I can’t find it. I know I have it still. Back in the day, you could get in the Happy Meals with Hardee’s.

They had the little like matchbox cars of the various ones. The Meow Yellow one. Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: the

Mountain Man Dan: super one, the Hardee’s one. And I still have the Hardee’s one somewhere. I thought I had it in the box in here, in the closet, but it’s the wrong box.

Crew Chief Brad: It was marketed very well.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. You got Russ Wheeler’s Matchbox. [01:22:00] You got the Loser car.

Mountain Man Dan: I had all three of ’em. I

Steve & Izzy: won a couple races.

Mountain Man Dan: It didn’t get played with much, so that’s probably why it’s still exists. I can’t find it. He did get, it’s

Crew Chief Eric: like, whatever.

Steve & Izzy: Nice. I seem to remember this. I think it was Pizza Hut, like when you would buy a pizza, you could get a VHS tape. I wanna say it was like Days of Thunder Land before Time Bill and Ted’s bogus journey.

Oh. Like, like it was that timeframe. But like I, right. I think Days of Thunder was one of those movies where it’s like you buy a pizza or two when you get a free movie

Mountain Man Dan: the same time of like do the reading and you got a free pan pizza.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh,

Steve & Izzy: yeah, too. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, dances with Wolves is one of ’em. Yeah.

Tonka. Tonka. We never did like Pizza Hut or any of that. Mm-hmm. And yeah, that’s how we got, we got Lamb before time and Perfect. Yeah. That’s. Dances with wolves normally. Normally my dad would go to Costco ’cause back in the day guys, Costco was only for people with a business license and my, so my dad would use his business license and they would get [01:23:00] the VHS’s two weeks before release.

Oh wow. And they would be like 7 99. Wow. Nice. Which, you know, was like three weeks worth of wages in our house.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, right. So out west, because you guys originally in California, like at Magic Mountain and stuff, did they have the days of Thunder ride like we did at Kings Dominion and even Kings Island in Ohio.

It’s the same thing. They had the days of Thunder ride. So did they have it out west as well?

Steve & Izzy: I’ve never been to Magic Mountain ’cause I was down south. Steve grew up in Utah, so I don’t know. Oh, lagoon have it? No, no. Well yeah, but I mean, lagoon doesn’t have branded stuff like that.

Crew Chief Eric: So Do you guys know what it was?

Steve & Izzy: I think like maybe, uh, shit, what’s the one in San Jose? I’m blanking on it. Oh, great America. Great America. I think Great America had it for a while.

Crew Chief Eric: So what was interesting about that is, you know, all the hype around the Star Wars ones where you’d get into little shuttle craft and they would fly you around, you know, the Death Star.

Well, the Days of Thunder Ride was before that, and you got in like a eight person thing and you replayed [01:24:00] part of the race and you got all the effects and the stuff, and you go through the smoke just like Cold Trickle did. And it’s the Days of Thunder Ride. And then there was a roller coaster later. It was like an indoor roller coaster or whatever, but the very first thing was like this whole movie experience type of deal.

So I thought that was kind of cool. Again, a lot of hype around this movie for a very long time. Like it had a lasting effect.

Steve & Izzy: Nice. Yeah. Being like a race car simulator even kind of thing. Like I, yeah, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, there were tons of our

Steve & Izzy: game

Crew Chief Eric: games. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Mr. Toad’s Wild.

Bright is famous for a reason. Exactly. An ET on those bicycles, man. Yeah, the guys, the movie was conceived. By Tom Cruise when he and Paul Newman were allowed to test one of Rick Hendrick’s race cars. Tom’s first lap was in excess of 180 miles per hour. Oh shits. He gets the riding credit. I guess

Crew Chief Eric: that was fast for him ’cause that Dotson he was driving for Paul Newman was a dud.

Steve & Izzy: Oh man. And especially being four foot eight or whatever he is that like, just, just, [01:25:00] that’d be like going 300 miles an hour to him. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll have to send you guys the videos. He raced at one of the tracks closest to us. You can go to their, like dining hall. They still have pictures of Tom Cruise on the wall when he raced there, like in the eighties with Paul Newman.

It’s crazy.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Nice. I’m not gonna lie. I love that. I love when they have like the pictures on the walls of celebrities who haven’t been in in 40 years. Yep. Yeah. Like, I’m like, that means you’re legit. And, uh, production began without a finished script. What? Come on. Tom. Scenes were often written the day of filming.

During one driving sequence. Tom Cruise actually had to read his off of cue cards attached to the windshield. And of course that resulted in a minor car accident. For subsequent driving sequences, Cruz was fitted with a special earpiece so those lines could be fed to him.

Executive Producer Tania: What? Those lines weren’t that difficult.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Well, wait, do you want me to turn? Harry left? I need to pit.

Mountain Man Dan: That explains how the sugar pack gets wound up in the bed because they were over at the break table in between scenes [01:26:00] in the bed. Real quick. Is he okay? And you know, just happen to have, you know, two sweet low packets with him.

Steve & Izzy: Look, do you not believe that Nicole Kidman carries sweet and low packets in coups at all times?

Mountain Man Dan: Oh

Steve & Izzy: my God. Are you next to the Vegemite? Oh, would you like it? Full

Crew Chief Eric: Australian for beer? God.

Steve & Izzy: So, according to Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Tom Cruise had a meeting with Dale Earnhardt Sr. Prior to the production of the film, it was rumored that Earnhardt was offered the role of rowdy Burns, but he turned it down because he didn’t wanna play the bad guy.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s so funny.

Steve & Izzy: The guys even better. Tom Cruise wanted Kurt Russell for the role of rowdy Burns.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Steve & Izzy: And it was through cruise that Russell became aware of Backdraft and did that instead

Crew Chief Eric: back draft.

Steve & Izzy: Kurt Russell with a head injury, sign me up. Hell yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, isn’t that the Olympics commercials? He was in basically [01:27:00] the same.

Steve & Izzy: No, no, no. That was him doing, uh, stuntman Mike. That’s right. Yeah. Stuntman Mike. He’s gonna get those guys killed. Unfortunately, you really gotta be on this side of the race car. That would’ve been awesome,

Crew Chief Eric: Russell. Wow.

Steve & Izzy: Oh, and then Goldie Han has her cameos the wife with like eight kids running around. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, I could see. That would’ve been good. That would’ve been

Steve & Izzy: good. He was an extra star that would easily put it over the fall guy for the best movie we’ve done. God, it’s a little nod to Overboard or something. Anyway.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. It also would’ve cost him a lot more to make it too.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, this movie gets two stars for Robert Duvall by himself.

He gets two

Steve & Izzy: and one more, because this was the feature film debut of Margot Martindale

Crew Chief Eric: who?

Steve & Izzy: BoJack Horseman. Margot Martindale. Look it up guys.

Crew Chief Eric: She’s an

Executive Producer Tania: amazing

Steve & Izzy: character. Cocaine Bears, Margot Martindale.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I don’t

Steve & Izzy: want, I think she was on The Wire. I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, wait, who was she in this movie?

Steve & Izzy: She, [01:28:00] so she plays Donna,

Executive Producer Tania: is she the

Steve & Izzy: white? She was in one scene at the beginning. I

think

Steve & Izzy: she wast the first person we actually see on screen.

Yeah. I think when they were doing the, uh, the, when he was doing the practice lap in, uh, Rowdy’s car, when we meet Tom Cruise for the first time, I think she’s the one with the stopwatch that confirms that it was like a 31 second lap. Oh, wow. Like, like it was a very small role. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Blink. And you missed her.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, but we’re like, oh, Margaret Martindale.

Executive Producer Tania: Okay. Yeah. I knew who that is. Not from Oh,

Steve & Izzy: her, from the things you mentioned. She’s, yeah. She’s in much more famous things than the ones we know her for. But

Mountain Man Dan: Which character is she? Jack Horseman. She’s in BoJack Horseman is one of the voices, right?

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. She’s the voice of Margot Martindale.

Yeah. She plays Margot Martindale.

Mountain Man Dan: No. Who

Steve & Izzy: plays herself?

Mountain Man Dan: I haven’t watched it sometimes. Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s eight episodes in six years. I mean, it’s pretty spread out guys. It’s a stretch.

Steve & Izzy: But guys, we’ve reached the most important part.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Steve & Izzy: Besides this being Margot Martindale’s feature debut, what else did we [01:29:00] learn from Days of Thunder?

I wanna say, do you guys wanna hear me go first? Yes. As the co-host. Okay. I learned from this movie that Nicole Kidman does in fact keep sweet and low in her coups at all times. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re never gonna let that go.

I’m coming to the next one with sweet and low packets. I’m telling you, I’m gonna put ’em in the back. Sweeten up your

Steve & Izzy: half and half love.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh,

Steve & Izzy: see those horrible down man. Dan,

Mountain Man Dan: I’d learned to always carry sweet and low packets too bad. But if they’re already there, then I don’t, I guess I don’t have to.

Steve & Izzy: I don’t trust you.

Sweet and low packets.

Mountain Man Dan: No thanks Turkish. I’m sweet enough.

Steve & Izzy: Tanya.

Executive Producer Tania: I sh shared two things I learned already, but I would say a third thing is I think the movie still holds up.

Steve & Izzy: I would agree. Obviously it’s very condensed version of like NASCAR racing where it’s like it boils down to like four laps instead of, you know, 250 or 200 or whatever.

But I’ll say what I learned, I don’t know [01:30:00] shit about cars, but at least watching this movie I can feel like, okay, yeah, I know a couple things, you know, drafting and, uh,

Executive Producer Tania: you know how to draft.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, how to drafting. Definitely. Uh, it’s all about the tires and make sure the wear right. And if the weather’s really hot, then you know, you gotta come in.

I don’t know. Shit.

Mountain Man Dan: I’ll add one more thing for the fact that I haven’t watched it in quite a few years. I learned there’s a lot of little one-liners and saying things that I say that have come from this movie.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. A hundred percent.

Mountain Man Dan: Mm-hmm. A

Crew Chief Eric: hundred

Mountain Man Dan: percent.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. I

Mountain Man Dan: agree. A monkey fucking a football.

Executive Producer Tania: It was

Steve & Izzy: a lot of good cursing.

I didn’t realize that so much of, uh, your guys’ nomenclature just came from this movie. Yes. Rubbing is racing.

Executive Producer Tania: I said, there’s a lot of good cursing in this movie.

Steve & Izzy: Fuck yeah, dude.

Executive Producer Tania: Tee it like. Son of a bitch, like I, I think you could have made a drinking game with how many times son of a bitch was said in this movie.

Crew Chief Brad: Thousand percent

Mountain Man Dan: the anniversary that we’ll do that.

Crew Chief Brad: I, [01:31:00] I learned two things. One, I learned that you can learn a lot about racing by watching ESPN. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: The ocho,

Crew Chief Brad: you’d be surprised at what you can learn on ESPN just by watching it.

Steve & Izzy: Well, now it’s

Crew Chief Brad: YouTube. And two, I learned something about your podcast here, and I, if you say that this movie is just okay, I’ve learned not to trust Steve and Izzy’s Oh, opinion when it comes to good movies.

Oh. ’cause I’ve heard some of the stuff you all have said were excellent movies and I’ve seen them and I’m like, eh. So dude, I’m probably not gonna get invited back. So to all those that are listening, bye. I love you all. I’ll talk to you all later. Thanks. Well, it’s been nice knowing you, Brad. Enjoy watching Congo again.

Crew Chief Eric: Savage. Brad

Steve & Izzy: Savage. Brutal. This sounds like somebody who did not in fact watch knockoff.

Crew Chief Brad: No, did not watch Knockoff come in the street. But I watched the I I watched the Fall Guy and Fall Guy is definitely an excellent movie.

Crew Chief Eric: So [01:32:00] I learned. Steve’s a really good liar because I think he secretly thinks this movie is awesome.

And what he said before is complete and total horseshit.

Steve & Izzy: It’s true, it’s true. I do, I I, I enjoyed this movie.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. All right. I wanted to hear you confess, because there’s no way

Steve & Izzy: the beginning and end are obviously the best parts, but even the stuff in between, it’s just a, a stupid fucking brain injury drama with Tom Cruise and Australian Amazon Nicole Kidman.

I’m okay with that.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, good. I’m glad you, you have confessed your sins. All right.

Steve & Izzy: But now you know how I feel when like, oh, the Stuntman’s the worst movie ever. Ah,

Crew Chief Eric: it hurts. So what did I learn? I had a whole different, what did I learn when I came into this movie? And it, it just got reset at the beginning.

It’s something that Tanya said. I learned that Tom Cruise is quote, at least five foot seven,

Steve & Izzy: approximately approximately five seven.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s [01:33:00] approximately my height.

Steve & Izzy: Give or take 15 inches, he’ll take it, right? Well also I just wanna throw out there Mountain Mandan can confirm that I’m not exaggerating.

Steve is legitimately six foot eight, about 200 centimeters for international viewers. So approximately somewhere between a third and a half. Like about twice to, uh, I don’t know how to say it. About twice. I have no idea. Twice as tall as Tom Cruiser, I say, yes, three foot four Tom Cruise fits right in your pocket.

Some say

Crew Chief Eric: that metric system gets you every time, doesn’t it?

Steve & Izzy: I say you’re about twice as tall as the, uh, guys from a CDC. Right. You met them, right? I mean, they they’re pretty short.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. How, how big

Steve & Izzy: is the Yeah, that’s, that’s a last we though. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Well, before we close out, Steve, let’s talk about the next movie we wanna review with you guys.

What, what have we got on the list still to cover?

Steve & Izzy: Ooh, ooh, Ooh. Ooh. Hmm man, I’m trying to think [01:34:00] like a good car movie, racing movie. It’s not a full length movie, but have you guys ever seen Susie, the little blue coop?

Crew Chief Eric: The cars thing?

Steve & Izzy: It’s like the precursor to cars. Like it’s like from like the forties or fifties.

It’s a very, very old Disney S short. Oh yeah. And it’s legitimately where they took the styling for cars. Like for cars. But it’s only like 20 minutes long. Yeah, it’s about Susie’s little blue coop out. Like she leaves the the showroom and she is like the coolest car in the yard. And then like as she gets older, nobody wants her and she becomes a beater.

She shenanigans and sue.

Crew Chief Eric: How sad

Steve & Izzy: Guys, I’m looking up car movies and Bambi the reckoning popped up, so I assume that’s gonna be our next one.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, Tanya still hasn’t watched the Formula One movie, so that’s on the table.

Steve & Izzy: Neither have we. Have you guys seen Driven

Crew Chief Eric: a long time ago.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. No, Steve, I got it.

Our recommendation drive angry. Ooh, drive angry. There we go. Nicholas Cage. [01:35:00]

Crew Chief Eric: What about baby driver?

Steve & Izzy: What about need for speed?

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, I’ve seen that. I

Crew Chief Brad: actually never saw that.

Crew Chief Eric: It was half terrible.

Steve & Izzy: Have you guys seen drive angry though? 2011?

Crew Chief Eric: No, I’ve seen

Steve & Izzy: it. Nick Cage never,

Crew Chief Brad: never heard of this. I saw it a long time ago.

Steve & Izzy: Nick Cage and Amber heard,

Crew Chief Eric: oh, that’s a

Crew Chief Brad: recipe for

Crew Chief Eric: crazy.

Steve & Izzy: And William Ner thrown into hell for his crimes. Brutal felon. John Milton escapes from the fiery pit after Cultus murder his daughter and take her baby. Instead of rescuing the child, John joins forces with a waitress who gives him her ex lovers fire.

Red muscle car. Hi, jinx. And Sue.

Crew Chief Eric: What about stroke race? That’s on the list now

Steve & Izzy: you know what? Honestly, stroke race. I’m down with something like that.

Crew Chief Eric: Little Dom Delo. Little bur. Have you guys done used cars? Is that good?

Executive Producer Tania: We talked about

Steve & Izzy: I love that movie. Yeah. Not the one with

Executive Producer Tania: Kurt Russell.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Right in these Kurt

Steve & Izzy: Russell inherits a, uh, used car, uh, dealership in shenanigans, ensue.

Crew Chief Eric: I like it.

Executive Producer Tania: You [01:36:00] talked about that one last time.

Steve & Izzy: There’s also boobies. They, they literally drive the plot forward.

Crew Chief Eric: Nice.

Steve & Izzy: Guys, we mentioned Lamont’s earlier and thinking it was like the longest movie ever made. It’s only an hour 45. It feels like the longest. It feels like it’s only, yeah, it feels like two and a half hours.

Easy, but yeah. Yeah. Anyway,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s a Robert EK film. Oh yeah.

Steve & Izzy: Yeah. This is also a movie that I watched way too young, but I loved, I Got Trouble for like showing it to my friends.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, it looks like we got plenty of things to cover as the year progresses with that, I guess if people wanna hear about other crazy movies that you guys, or, let me put that in.

Quotations, good movies that you guys, not these based on a true story like Days of Thunder is where can they find more of your reviews? Steven? Is he, I

Crew Chief Brad: mean, days of Thunder is basically a documentary.

Steve & Izzy: Well, I believe you can find us everywhere at EIL F movies. That’s everything I learned from movies. We’re on Twitter, Facebook, Patreon, and [01:37:00] bluesky. So yeah, hit us up guys to check us out. You can follow us on Patreon for free and get a lot of the updates or throw a few shackles our way. You get exclusive episodes early access to the rest of ’em.

It’s good stuff. Check out. Oh, we have some good, uh, patron exclusives coming up. Hell yeah, we do. Do you like 70-year-old guys in booty shorts? Uh.

Crew Chief Eric: Wasn’t that senior moment?

Steve & Izzy: I don’t know how many booty shorts were in senior moment. Moment, not enough. Uh, babe, are you on social media at all? You know, you could find me everywhere at untidy Venus, that’s a goddess who’s bad of housekeeping.

I’m on all the social medias at Untidy Venus. You can also find me selling my goods and wears up and down the Wasatch front. Steve, you’re laughing. Are you thinking about the interview we did where I said my, uh, business name was Untidy Venus and the host of the podcast said that? That’s unfortunate.

Yeah. Oh, I’m glad they’re not a podcast anymore. No, I don’t know. They’re, they’re just fine. How about you guys? Where can we find you?

Crew Chief Eric: Much like you guys, we’re all over the social medias and the Patreons [01:38:00] and things like that. We have all banded together, our creative powers under the banner of the Motoring Podcast Network, where you can find wonderful shows like Break Fix, the Motoring historian, the Ferrari marketplace, the drive through, and many, many others where you, where you’ll meet all sorts of wonderful personalities like the folks here tonight and others as part of the Motoring Podcast network.

So check us [email protected].

Steve & Izzy: Yeah, do it now.

Crew Chief Eric: And on that bombshell,

Steve & Izzy: see, I guess, until next time, I’m Steve. And I’m Izzy.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, do we have to sing it?

Steve & Izzy: And I’m Eric, can I bring, oh, we’re gonna let you s You guys say your names first, but

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s okay. You did it. Go ahead

Steve & Izzy: and we’re with everything I learned from movies.

Have a good night, everybody.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at grantor [01:39:00] Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew [email protected].

We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig Newton’s, gummy bears, and Monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without [01:40:00] fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Gran Touring Motorsports and Everything I Learned From Movies team up for a comedic crossover episode reviewing Days of Thunder while opening with an extended tribute to Robert Duvall’s role. The group discusses our nostalgic rewatches and the film’s cast and creators (Tony Scott, Simpson/Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Michael Rooker, Randy Quaid, Cary Elwes). They recap major plot beats: Cole Trickle’s rough start, Harry’s mentoring and “rubbing is racing,” sponsorship, the crash and hospital storyline, romance with Dr. Claire Lewicki, rivalries with Rowdy Burns, Russ Wheeler’s rise, Cole’s fear and comeback, and the Daytona finale – while comparing the movie to NASCAR culture and later parodies like Talladega Nights. They share fun facts, Rotten Tomatoes scores, box office, and wrap with plugs for their podcasts and the Motoring Podcast Network.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

Steve and Izzy watch bad movies, drink good beer, funny third thing. Cheers! Learn more about them by catching their podcast “Everything I Learned from Movies (EILFM)” on all your favorite podcast apps. Or follow them on social @eilfmovies. Look forward to more quarterly crossovers with this dynamic duo and the GTM team! 

There’s always more! Check out the un-cut, un-editing, un-censored version on Patreon!