Car racing films

There have been lots of car racing films over the years, none of them really successful - even when they seem to have everything going for it, such as Days of Thunder. Grand Prix made some money but not enough to cover its massive cost. Steve McQueen at his height couldn't propel Le Mans to a decent gross. The problem is this: in car racing movies, the cars just go around and around. You can stack it, but that's it. If you have a hero who is in danger of collapsing while driving, then the audience lose sympathy for him. And cars crossing a finishing line isn't that exciting.

Car chases are different. You can have high stakes - life or death, ticking clocks, all that stuff. Also the chases are unpredictable. That's why The Fast and the Furious and Smokey and the Bandit made so much money. Or you need to take a typical car race and make it life or death, like Death Race 2000.

Car racing films offer a similar problem to surfing films. The thing about surfing is - why go into the surf other than for a competiton? You can't have a "surf chase". So it gets repetitive.

Incidentally, does anyone remember the stock car racing boom of the late 1960s? It was a mini boom, staring with Fireball 500 (1966), an AIP film that seems to have meant to be a grown up Beach Party, with songs and Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, plus Fabian - it does have more adult content. It was followed by Thunder Alley (1967) with Funicello and Fabian. Then Fabian starred in the formula one The Wild Racers (1968) and ex Funicello co-star Tommy Kirk featured in Track of Thunder (1968). The films never matched the popularity of biker films though - again, too limited by going around in circles.