Tom Cruise will be dusting off his Cole Trickle character next year during production of the “Days of Thunder” sequel, and he may also be dusting off his racing skills.
NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell revealed during an interview with Front Office Sports that Cruise has shown an interest in entering a real race.
“I was shocked. We have an ARCA Series, which is our national touring series, and Tom wanted to go race in one of those. I’m not sure that’s going to happen. But he wants it to be as authentic as it can be,” O’Donnell said.
NASCAR bought ARCA in 2018 and it serves as both a fourth-tier development series and venue for part-time seasoned drivers. Cruise definitely qualifies as one of the latter.
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Long before he got behind the wheel of a stock car to shoot “Days of Thunder,” he raced in the SCCA Showroom Stock A class, after his “The Color of Money” co-star Paul Newman got him interested in motorsports. Cruise drove a 1984 Nissan 300ZX prepped by Newman’s team in 16 races during 1987 and won four.
The car he drove was auctioned on Bring a Trailer in 2022 with the original livery for $102,200.
Legend has it that Cruise also drove a Cup Series car around Charlotte Motor Speedway in 31.4 seconds during “Days of Thunder” filming, which was just .2 seconds off the lap record at the time, but no hard evidence exists to confirm this.
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Cruise was once the champion of a very different racing competition, however. During an appearance on “Top Gear” with Cameron Diaz, he set the fastest time in the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment while famously driving on two wheels in the final curve. The record was later broken by several drivers.
As far as an ARCA entry goes, the series kicks off the season with the rest of NASCAR at Daytona in February with the General Tire 200 on the 20th of the month.
