As it turns out, the articles in this series might number over a dozen by the time we’re done.
I’m trying real hard to not make these obnoxiously long, which becomes an issue for certain seasons that had a bunch of movie schemes (see several years in the 2000s, which had nine to 10 each).
So I’m trying to keep that in check and not publish articles that require loads of scrolling for y’all. We’ll keep things going with 2000 through 2002, where we had nine movies promoted via stock car livery.
Mission to Mars (2000)
Probably ranking in my top 10 of movie schemes to ever hit the track, Steve Park rolled into Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the third race of the 2000 season with this beauty.
The unfortunate thing is that it’s sponsored by Mission to Mars, which scored a whopping 24% on Rotten Tomatoes. What’s worse is that it was directed by Brian De Palma! This is the guy that did, among others, Scarface, Carrie, The Untouchables, Dressed to Kill and the first Mission: Impossible.
A space movie with him at the helm should’ve been sick.
Sure, it finished last due to engine issues, but that’s a damn good scheme.
Juan Pablo Montoya‘s Axe Apollo scheme in 2013 kind of echoed it a little bit, though the stark orange-red of Mars’ surface stood out far more than the No. 42’s curvature of the Earth.
And the fact that it’s complete with astronauts and all that stuff is pretty sick. Easily one of my favorites.
The Mummy Returns (2001)
First of two Mummy-related installments that you’ll see in this series of articles. The first movie didn’t have a scheme, but Jimmy Spencer had a flag-to-flag top 10 day at Fontana with this car — starting ninth, finishing seventh.
Jurassic Park III (2001)
I really love how much Joe Gibbs Racing committed to running promotional movie schemes in tandem with their two cars — we’ll see it at least two or three more times with this pairing, and this is the first time it happened in Cup.
Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart each got some dinosaurs to ride with them to promote Jurassic Park III at Daytona International Speedway in summer 2001.
Labonte started 33rd, but finished fifth in this thing — I’d venture that most of the drivers were too worried about the dinos to stay in the Pontiac’s way for too long. Stewart, running a similar car but with a weird-ass roof number in a totally different font than normal, qualified even worse and finished 26th.
These proved to be the last Jurassic schemes, as neither Jurassic World nor Fallen Kingdom nor Dominion made it onto cars. Only one of those movies is even moderately acceptable, by the way … though Dominion makes Fallen Kingdom look like Citizen Kane.
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
2001 at Homestead-Miami Speedway brought us a rather appropriate scheme, at least in terms of colors for the Floridian environment.
Not much to speak to in terms of design, but it’s a pretty simple, nice green-blue-and-white scheme promoting Monsters, Inc. Terry Labonte drove it to a respectable 11th-place finish.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2001)
So the timing of this one might’ve been a little off — a year after How the Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey was released and still over a month before the actual holiday — but it was to promote the movie’s release on home video. Remember when it took them over half a year and not just a few months to put stuff on physical media?
Mr. Excitement did decidedly less on-track with this scheme than the Mummy car, though, starting 30th and finishing 40th.
E.T. the Extraterrestrial (2002)
One of the few times a driver ran two different schemes for the same movie in two different series in the same race weekend — try saying that a few times fast — came in 2002.
Kevin Harvick had a pair of schemes commemorating the 20th anniversary of the release of E.T. the Extraterrestrial at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2002.
In the Busch Series race, Harvick started 12th and finished 24th, while the Cup event was kind of the reverse: started 22nd, finished 10th. I personally think the better scheme excelled; while the Busch scheme is more E.T.-centric, its red-on-black gradient doesn’t really fit the movie.
The Cup car’s blue-and-black thematic is more suitable, plus it also features E.T. on the hood while also calling back to the flying-bike-in-front-of-the-moon scene on the sides.
Quick soapbox: E.T. is not the best alien movie to come out in 1982. That title goes to John Carpenter’s The Thing.
Spider-Man (2002)
Two severely underrated schemes ran in the spring of 2001, sharing one race weekend between them. Sam Raimi was handed the reins of the first truly huge Marvel superhero movie with Spider-Man, the comic I grew up with and also the first superhero movies I can remember watching.
Raimi was an interesting choice, especially because he’d begun his career two decades prior with the incredible Evil Dead trilogy and had since ventured into Westerns, dramas and more. Spider-Man proved to be a huge hit, and the film made its way onto two schemes.
The standout was Robby Gordon‘s Cup Series car, complete with Spidey on the hood and rear bumper and a web design behind the door and roof numbers. Not to mention the variance in sides, with Spider-Man on one side and Green Goblin on the other. It’s just got a really fun, vibrant flair to it that I love.
If only the Cup schemes for the sequels were this good.
Gordon’s car ran at Fontana and Richmond Raceway, respectively finishing 12th and 37th (as a Richmonder, the better result was, unfortunately, not at my home track).
Down in the Busch Series, webbing also graced Lyndon Amick’s car with his Dr. Pepper sponsorship. The car had a slightly more intimidating Spidey on its flanks, but didn’t do as well. It finished 41st at Texas Motor Speedway and 20th at Fontana.
That season was also Amick’s final year of double-digit starts in the secondary series, as he enlisted in the military in 2003 and was eventually deployed to Afghanistan in 2007.
Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones (2002)
Hey, look! Yet another movie scheme that probably cracks my top 10 of all time.
The early 2000s were just full of good cars. John Andretti drove this car at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2002 — fitting that one of the best schemes would get the most time on track.
This scheme wouldn’t fly today with the two different sides, though, so it’s kind of a moment-in-time deal, sort of like that old Rodney Combs French’s / Black Flag car that had two different-color sides to it.
We get a whole load of Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones characters crammed onto this car.
The driver’s-side Jedi theme has Obi-Wan, Anakin, Mace Windu and Yoda, plus a clone on the bumper; the Sith-themed passenger side has Jango Fett on the hood, with Count Dooku, assassin Zam Wesell (in her humanoid form) and another clone trooper.
We’ve rarely seen a scheme this bonkers since. I love it.
Scooby-Doo (2002)
Andretti wasn’t the only one driving a movie scheme in the 2002 Coca-Cola 600.
Jeff Green also took to the banks of Charlotte in a livery pushing the live-action Scooby-Doo movie, which despite its negative reviews is one of the best encapsulations of using actor popularity of the time it came out.
It made around $275 million, over three times its budget, and was led by a cast who were already veterans of horror and immensely popular: Matthew Lillard, who’d already been incredible in Scream (and went on to give one of Twin Peaks: The Return‘s best performances 15 years later); Freddie Prinze Jr., a few years after I Know What You Did Last Summer; and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was still in the waning seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
It also starred Linda Cardellini, who was already famous for Freaks and Geeks — among other projects.
Green didn’t have quite as good of a run as Andretti, finishing 20th. It’s rare to see multiple movies represented in the same race, though, and coincidental that both drivers were from true racing families.
Adam Cheek joined Frontstretch as a contributing writer in January 2019. A 2020 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he covered sports there and later spent a year and a half as a sports host on 910 the Fan in Richmond, VA. He's freelanced for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and also hosts the Adam Cheek's Sports Week podcast. Adam has followed racing since the age of three, inheriting the passion from his grandfather, who raced in amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s.