NASCAR and Hollywood are getting back together again!
After tie-ups such as Days of Thunder and the recent documentary series NASCAR: Full Speed, actor Dennis Quaid will star in a series on AMC called Thunder Road about the multigenerational saga of the Whitlock family, “whose legacy in stock car racing is as deep as the family’s ties to the southern hill country roots that shaped them.”
“The series features family dynamics, fierce rivalries, and the untold stories behind one of America’s most iconic sports.” Quaid plays racing legend Duane Whitlock, a.k.a. The Wrecking Ball, “a towering figure who built a racing empire from a legacy of moonshine runs and dirt tracks and refuses to let it die.” The series is further described as “a story about a blue-collar dynasty at the edge of extinction—and the old king fighting to hold onto his crown.”
Heck, I want to watch it just based on that.
H-Wood Loves Racing
It’s also interesting that it’s being produced in association with NASCAR, which can take all the help it can get to attract new fans and keep the old ones. The series is “still in development,” meaning it hasn’t been picked up yet. But the presence of Quaid, whom IMDB notes has starred in four films that have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar—Breaking Away (1979), The Right Stuff (1983), Traffic (2000) and The Substance (2024)—certainly helps. Quaid has played both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton but aligns politically with the current president, which might help draw the NASCAR fan base.
Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford family and spent many hours holding a trouble light over a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor while his father cursed the Blue Oval, all its products and everyone who ever worked there. This was his introduction to objective automotive criticism. He started writing for City News Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and became editor of a car magazine called, creatively, Auto. He decided Auto should cover Formula 1, sports prototypes and touring cars—no one stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show and has been with us ever since.