We’ve arrived at 2006: the year of the NASCAR-themed movies.
Both Cars and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby hit theaters across the spring and summer of ’06, bringing NASCAR to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist — one geared at kids filing into theaters with their parents, one at teens and adults who wanted to see Will Ferrell do some stock car racing.
Cars begat two sequels, while Talladega Nights was the beginning of the Will Ferrell – John C. Reilly partnership that extended to Step Brothers two years later (we don’t talk about Holmes & Watson).
But between the promotion of those movies — which was strangely lacking — there were some other schemes that built up into 2006 becoming one of the bigger years of film-based liveries.
Ice Age: The Meltdown
I was recently talking to a friend about this movie-scheme project and mentioned Ice Age. The last feature film was in 2016, which I had no memory of existing. I’ve only seen the third one. We were shocked to learn that there are somehow FIVE, with a sixth in development.
The second one showed up on a Kyle Busch car at Las Vegas in 2006, where he started fourth and finished third.
This isn’t the last time Ice Age will show up on a car. 2012 (and Tomy Drissi) are on the way.
The Benchwarmers
Arguably the least successful movie paint scheme.
Kenny Wallace drove for Furniture Row Racing in their early, early days, before a shot at the championship in 2017 was even a glint in Barney Visser’s eye.
More than 11 years before the No. 78 rolled into victory lane at Homestead-Miami Speedway with Martin Truex Jr. that year, the middle Wallace brother attempted both Atlanta and Martinsville with his The Benchwarmers car … and failed to qualify for both.
This is genuinely one of the more bizarre sponsorships. Not because of the movie. Not because Jon Heder, David Spade and Rob Schneider were popular at the time, But because the hood text isn’t even in the same font as the movie logo; it’s split into two words for some reason; and there’s not even a “The” with it. Just: Bench Warmers.
I can’t find a loadable tweet of this car, so here’s a link to a Reddit thread with it.
Never ran in a race, and I think failing to qualify twice puts this one as the least-successful. Don’t worry, we’ve got one of the most successful coming up a few sections down.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Whereas Wallace’s car was one of the most bizarrely-executed designs, Elliott Sadler‘s car for Richmond Raceway was one of the most creative.
The entire car is a beach scene, plus the M&M on the hood is adorned with a Jack Sparrow-esque bandana and beads and is backed by crossed torches. On the flanks, we get the green M&M with Jack’s hat and a treasure chest and the yellow M&M with what looks like a volleyball designed like Cast Away‘s Wilson (plus a parrot). On the rear bumper, below the decklid’s movie logo, the red M&M is holding another M&M as if it’s treasure.
Fantastic scheme. Started 37th, finished 13th in the Commonwealth.
Cars
The pole-sitter for the 2006 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway was … Scott Riggs? With a scheme promoting Cars?
Hell yeah, he was.
This is another edition of potentially being the closest a driver ever got to their first win. Riggs led 90 laps and was out front as late as lap 359, but a pit road violation ended his shot at a win. The No. 10 came home 13th.
Riggs also later drove a slightly amended version, which promoted the DVD in small text on the sides, at Texas later in the year. He crashed and finished outside the top 30.
Speaking of crashing, how’d it go for the Kyle Busch edition of the Cars scheme?
Busch started 28th and finished 38th, with every single character depicted on the car taking a beating. Busch took one of those notorious shots into the D-oval angling of the walls at Charlotte, which destroyed the car.
Yet, somehow, he wasn’t the worst-finishing Cars car (ha) that night. Enter Tony Raines.
Raines started 42nd and made it 264 of the 400 laps before his engine let go. He finished 40th, but did have the best scheme of the three. Can’t beat being one number off of Lightning McQueen while replicating the lightning-bolt livery.
Death Toll
I don’t really have much for this one, but Chad McCumbee made just his eighth-ever Craftsman Truck Series start at Texas Motor Speedway in 2006. This was a couple years removed from his only acting credit, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story.
On a related note, he piloted a silver No. 08 truck in the trucks’ visit to Fort Worth in ’06 … for a movie that didn’t come out until 2008. Starring the great DMX as “The Dog” (what else would his character name be?) and La Bamba‘s Lou Diamond Phillips, the movie was actually released two years later. The truck had no real discerning marks, just the ominous “DEATH TOLL” text without even a “Coming soon to theaters” notation on it.
He was featured pretty prominently in the race, though, as he started 24th and finished ninth. I dug through the transcript of the full-race upload on YouTube and found him spotlighted around 33:07 — plus, he’s in the thumbnail:
Click
Once again proving my point that Evernham Motorsports had some of the most killer paint jobs, Kasey Kahne rolled into Michigan International Speedway in June 2006 with a stark blue livery, emblazoned with yellow numbers:
Kahne was promoting the Adam Sandler vehicle Click, which I’ve heard is decidedly not great, but the scheme was pretty sick. The red wheels added a certain je ne sais quoi to the car, too.
The No. 9 started from pole and only led 19 laps, but was there when it mattered, crossing the start-finish line first to become only the second Cup movie car to visit victory lane.
Superman Returns
Rolling off fourth at Daytona International Speedway’s summer night race was Jeff Gordon, driving … Superman’s chest?
Well, the hood looked like that, at least. Superman’s cape flowed out across the roof, deck and sides of the car, promoting Clark Kent / Kal-El’s latest adventures.
While that movie is kind of a chore to get through (Brandon Routh later went on to get more memorable roles, like Todd the vegan in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), the scheme did look good. It made it 154 laps before getting junked in a crash, finishing 40th.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
I’m still blown away that Talladega Nights didn’t get more promotion.
Instead, it only got a Craftsman Truck Series scheme in early July. Great execution, with the truck mocked up to resemble Ricky Bobby’s No. 26 Wonder Bread Car as well as Will Ferrell on the sides and the movie logo, but one truck? That’s it?
The honor of driving it did go to the class act of Bill Lester, though, at Kentucky Speedway.
Lester started eighth, but finished a dismal 28th.
The Shaggy Dog
I’m still not sure what to make of this one. Apparently, The Shaggy Dog was a real movie with Tim Allen and Danny Glover that has a resounding 1.9 out of 5 on Letterboxd and a 4.4 out of 10 on IMDb.
I’d never heard of it until Jason Leffler‘s car from Gateway and Indianapolis Raceway Park in 2006 was brought to my attention.
Weird choice for a sponsorship, but I guess Great Clips makes sense as the partnering backer. It started in the top 15 both races, but its best finish came at IRP (19th).
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.