I feel like 2017 was the last time anyone really did a burnout in victory lane at Michigan International Speedway, which 1) is sick as hell and 2) more people should’ve done so.
2017 was also the last time a movie-themed paint scheme won a race. And that feels like an appropriate note to start my 100th edition of Reel Racing on.
But before we get there, let’s visit Kansas Speedway in early May, where a movie scheme got the opposite of a race win.
Wonder Woman
Danica Patrick‘s No. 10 started out looking great: Wonder Woman was DC Comics’ upcoming film and became their flagship release of the year, especially after Justice League was a disaster later in the year (more on that later). The Gal Gadot-starrer was a solid summer movie (and now looks even better when compared to the horrendous sequel).
Patrick’s car had Gadot crossing her arms/gauntlets (a Google search tells me they’re called the Bracelets of Submission) on the hood, plus an action shot on the driver’s side and a pretty cool still of her wielding her sword on the opposite flank.
Patrick also had an insanely cool firesuit to complete the ensemble.
All that came to a crashing halt in a shower of sparks and sheet metal, though, in the infamous crash that broke Aric Almirola‘s back.
Almirola got the worst of it from a physical standpoint, while Patrick’s car got the worst of it from an automotive standpoint. A mechanical failure Joey Logano’s No. 22 sent the No. 10 hard into the wall right on the nose and driver’s side, tearing apart the front; the impact also tore the rear bumper half off, and the car was still on fire when Patrick clambered out on the apron.
Cars 3
Two weeks after the wild Wonder Woman wreck began a multi-week, month-long saga of Cars 3 schemes. First up, at the end of May, Chris Buescher‘s No. 37 for JTG Daugherty Racing sported a Lightning McQueen-esque livery that became a common occurrence week in and week out — on one car or another — through most of June.
It even had the nice little decal of the Rust-Eze movie sponsor on the quarter panels.
Buescher started 29th and finished 20th with this car in that year’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
For the next couple weeks, Cars 3 went to the Xfinity Series on Bubba Wallace’s No. 6 for Roush Fenway Racing, this time with purple accents instead of red. It was presumably to reflect the character he voices in the film (Bubba Wheelhouse).
Wallace finished eighth at Dover Motor Speedway and 11th at Pocono Raceway in the car.
The following week, on June 18, Kyle Larson bore a scheme similar to Buescher’s at Michigan.
The No. 42’s scheme cleared Buescher’s by a big margin, mostly in part to the eye-catching numbers (bold red backed by black on the doors, stark white on the roof) and the striking white rims in the wheel wells.
Larson also put on a performance typical of that era for him at Michigan, as he started on pole, led nearly half the race — 96 laps — and won. He capped it off with a burnout in the track’s victory lane along the inside pit wall.
The following week at Sonoma Raceway, Clint Bowyer‘s scheme for Stewart-Haas Racing generally mirrored Larson’s, though with fewer associate sponsors and a paler number on the sides.
The number blended too much with the red of the scheme, and I’d argue this was the weakest of the Cars 3 liveries. But Bowyer nearly made it back-to-back weeks of a movie car winning, finishing second to teammate Kevin Harvick.
Justice League
More than four months later, movie cars and DC Comics cars were back. Texas Motor Speedway’s Cup race was held on Nov. 5, a couple weeks before the opening weekend of the flagship team-up film Justice League, which the franchise had been building to for a few years.
It didn’t have the same oomph to it that The Avengers did, but it did feature director Joss Whedon completing the filming after Zack Snyder stepped away for personal reasons.
So much like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice the year prior, Hendrick Motorsports had two cars emblazoned with promotion for the movie.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. got the Batman side of the coin, and the more monochromatic characters:
Ben Affleck’s Batman was on the hood, of course, flanked by Jason Momoa’s Aquaman on the driver’s side and Ray Fisher’s Cyborg on the passenger panel.
I’m not sure if it’s because Henry Cavill didn’t sign his likeness usage papers, but he wasn’t on Earnhardt’s Man of Steel car or Jimmie Johnson’s BvS car. Instead of Cavill as Superman, Gal Gadot graces the hood of Kasey Kahne’s No. 5 machine.
Ezra Miller, as Flash, is on the passenger side, but for some reason, the right side just has the Superman logo. Kahne ended up with the more colorful, vibrantly-clad characters.
That’s weird. Or maybe it’s because Cavill looks terrible in the movie because his mustache was CGI-ed out due to filming and contractual commitments with Mission: Impossible — Fallout. Fallout is far and away the superior movie by several miles, so Cavill made the right decision there. But it’s odd that his five co-stars are on the car while he isn’t.
I digress. These cars were pretty cool as well, and I like that each section for each character — the side panels or the hood — was sort of themed to their thing or color accentuations.
Unfortunately, this begins our slide downhill into fewer movie schemes over the following few years.
The next article will span 2018 and 2019 as we finish off the 2010s.
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.