As our paint scheme journey makes the turn into the 2010s, you’ll notice a pretty big decline in frequency.
This is especially the case with 2010 itself, which had just two cars promoting movies — the fewest since 2000 (one).
Things pick back up in 2011, but they generally decline as the end of the decade draws near, which I attribute to the colloquial “NASCAR bubble bursting” on the heels of the 2000s. I do think it’s recovered a little, though movie sponsorships are still few and far between.
2010
Beginning with 2010, there were just two — relatively low-effort, I might add — cars that hit the track, both at road courses.
Toy Story 3
We had to wait until almost halfway through the year for the first movie car to hit the track in 2010 and it was kind of a disappointment: the long-awaited Toy Story 3 landed on Carl Edwards‘ hood at Sonoma Raceway, but it was only the hood.
So instead of a full-scheme design (see the Toy Story 2 cars from the late ’90s), we just got Buzz and Woody on the hood. Underwhelming, just like Edwards’ race (he finished 29th).
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Enter Tomy Drissi.
The tweet below is spoiling a few schemes for later articles, but I digress.
While Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a weird movie to promote via NASCAR scheme and the car itself was just black with white lettering, it begins Drissi’s run in NASCAR. In addition to racing, he also owns Drissi Advertising, which specializes in creative promotion in the film industry.
He finished 18th in Montreal in the above-right car, but it began over half a decade of movie cars for the Trans Am veteran.
2011
As for 2011, we had a few more that picked the pace back up. Oddly enough, besides a couple exceptions, not many had much going on in terms of design, either.
Fast Five
For one-sixth of the 2011 Cup Series season — six races across a month and a half in April and May — Robby Gordon Motorsports fielded a Dodge Charger emblazoned with Fast Five branding before the film’s release and during its time in theaters.
Robby Gordon first ran it himself at Martinsville Speedway (above) on April 3, finishing 23rd. Then they changed the number font to a spiked No. 7.
Gordon ran four more races in the spiked version at Texas Motor Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway, Richmond Raceway and Darlington Raceway, recording a best finish of 20th at ‘Dega.
Then Scott Wimmer took the reins of the No. 7 for the Fast Five‘s scheme’s last race (Last Seven? There’s something there) at Dover Motor Speedway, shown in the above image.
Cars 2
About a month after the Fast Five car had its last hurrah, Juan Pablo Montoya landed his first movie sponsorship with Cars 2 jumping aboard the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet at Michigan International Speedway.
Despite the movie being decidedly not very good, I actually don’t mind the scheme: full-car design, features the characters prominently and doesn’t have too much going on. The huge block white No. 42s fit very well against the dark blue backdrop.
Not a bad scheme. Better than the movie.
Cowboys & Aliens
Similar to Fast Five, there were two iterations of Mike Wallace‘s No. 01 Cowboys & Aliens scheme for JD Motorsports.
First, there were four races with what I call the “landscape” version of the scheme, where the sides of the car featured cowboys on horses battling with alien spacecraft. That one ran at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, Michigan and Road America.
You can see it at 1:38:30 in the full-race Road America video below, because I couldn’t find a solid close-up photo of it. Video doesn’t do it justice, though, and there’s a better photo of it on Wikimedia Commons.
The movie ran a contest for fans to send in photos of themselves to create a “mosaic” scheme for the next four races, with the “landscape” design still in the background but the scheme made entirely of those photos — similar to the “Shutter Speed” cars Red Bull Racing ran at Charlotte that spring.
It was called the “Face Car” contest and offered entrants a chance to win a trip to Daytona.
Unfortunately, whoever won that trip got to see the No. 01 car — with their face on it — cross the start-finish line in a crumpled mess of metal and sparks and come to rest in the Daytona infield.
Wallace got caught up in the last-lap crash with more than half of the top 10 at the time of the wreck,
Great schemes, though. Both are easily my favorites of 2011.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Not much to write home about this one, but it might be the only time Chris Cook has been tagged in the history of this website. Maybe.
Cook ran for Larry Gunselman and Max Q Motorsports at Sonoma. having made sporadic Xfinity Series starts over the past decade-plus.
Backing from the (actually good) franchise-reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes showed up on the No. 37, which had a very Front Row Motorsports-esque font to it.
Cook, a Bob Bondurant School instructor, brought IMSA and road-ringing experience to the car and finished a respectable 27th in his second-ever Cup start.
Alvin & the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
Drissi’s second straight year with a NASCAR movie scheme was an improvement on the Wall Street car, though marginally (it would be 2012 before we get the super-involved, cool schemes).
The third movie in the franchise, Alvin & the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked had a scheme featuring Alvin, Theodore and Simon on the hood. The scheme was white with red numbers, so it fit its branding, and appeared in two races (Watkins Glen International and Montreal).
Drissi didn’t finish better than 27th in either race, but there’s a photo floating around of another Alvin car with No. 41 on its flanks and roof.
From diving on Racing Reference, the No. 41 attempted each race, but Drissi failed to qualify for the Glen (but qualified the No. 75 34th?). The No. 41 also failed to qualify at Montreal, but a driver change indicator shows the reins went from Cook to Drissi.
Immortals
Closing out 2011, AJ Allmendinger hit Texas Motor Speedway in quite the random one-off.
The Universal film Immortals appeared to be another attempt at capitalizing on the Greek-myths-in-media trend that really started with the Percy Jackson books and movies, as well as Clash of the Titans grossing nearly half a million the year before.
Also of note, this happens to be Isabel Lucas’ second movie to appear on a stock car (after Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009) and a pre-Superman Henry Cavill film.
It’s honestly a very good scheme — my favorite of 2011 besides both of Wallace’s liveries. Striking look, good branding, all of that.
Movie got middling reviews, but who cares when the scheme is that badass?
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.