{"id":52981,"date":"2025-08-07T21:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/52981\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T21:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:42:08","slug":"kyle-larson-slams-will-ferrell-movie-that-turned-nascar-into-a-joke-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/52981\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Larson slams Will Ferrell movie that ‘turned NASCAR into a joke’ – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Larson believes one of actor Will Ferrell\u2019s most successful films made a mockery out of NASCAR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This summer, motorsport<\/a> has once again become a hit at the box office following the release of \u2018F1: The Movie,\u2019 which starred Brad Pitt<\/a> and drew rave reviews from fans and critics alike<\/a>. Back in 2006, it was \u2018Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby\u2019 that drew droves of moviegoers to the cinemas.<\/p>\n

The comedy, which grossed $163.4 million worldwide, paints NASCAR in a satirical light as Ferrell \u2013 who plays the outspoken Ricky Bobby \u2014 wrestles with life as a driver both on and off the track.<\/p>\n

The comedy, which grossed $163.4 million worldwide, paints NASCAR in a satirical light as Ferrell \u2013 who plays the outspoken Ricky Bobby \u2014 wrestles with life as a driver both on and off the track.<\/p>\n

Despite cementing itself as one of many cult classics that Ferrell has starred in, Talladega Nights hasn\u2019t exactly drawn praise from real-life NASCAR drivers. While making an appearance on the \u2018Games With Names<\/a>\u2019 podcast, Larson<\/a> criticized the film for making his sport look bad.<\/p>\n

Larson is far from the only Cup Series driver who\u2019s spoken out against Talladega Nights. Back in February, Bubba Wallace<\/a> and Chase Elliott<\/a> additionally blasted the movie for its inaccurate portrayal of NASCAR. \u201cIt\u2019s not like a good racing movie. It\u2019s just a comedy,\u201d Wallace said on the \u2018Rubbin is Racing<\/a>\u2019 podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember watching it. I think I was in high school, maybe. A freshman or something. I saw that come out, and I was like, \u2018They\u2019re making fun of our sport.\u2019 I was like, \u2018That\u2019s not right.\u2019 But then i\u2019ve watched it multiple times now and I\u2019m like, \u2018Ah okay, some scenes are funny.\u2019 It\u2019s Will Ferrell \u2014 love him as an actor for sure. But people that say that\u2019s the best racing movie, it\u2019s like you guys are missing the boat for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elliott expressed a similar sentiment, chiming in: \u201cIf you\u2019re a driver and that\u2019s your favorite racing movie, man, I don\u2019t know about that. That\u2019s pretty far off base. It\u2019s so hard to convey [being a NASCAR driver]. The easiest way for them to convey it is the way they did it, and that\u2019s such a departure from reality. But that\u2019s the easiest way for them to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS<\/p>\n

Not all NASCAR stars have talked badly about Talladega Nights, however. Dale Earnhardt Jr. \u2014 who made a cameo in the movie \u2014 encouraged his motorsports peers to lean into the lighthearted jokes and stereotypes that the film pokes fun at.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first part of the movie is just a lot of jokes about NASCAR, like \u2018What do I do with my hands\u2019 and all of that stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s all just quick, witty jokes about our sport \u2014 which was really fun, the self-deprecation of NASCAR.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though it was a joke, we can definitely handle being the butt of the joke. I didn\u2019t mind it, I thought it was good for NASCAR, I thought it put us in front of a new audience. Yes, it poked fun at us, but I don\u2019t know that it was detrimental to NASCAR. If anything it improved our popularity out of our own bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyle Larson believes one of actor Will Ferrell\u2019s most successful films made a mockery out of NASCAR. This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,4386,2332,634,35802,82,34667,1357],"class_list":["post-52981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-kyle-larson","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-criticism","tag-sports","tag-talladega-nights","tag-will-ferrell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}