In 1987, three years before Days of Thunder reached theaters, Tom Cruise climbed into a Hendrick Motorsports car at Daytona and ran about 178 mph.
Now 64, the man who played Cole Trickle wants to go race for real before the sequel, and the head of NASCAR admitted the request caught him off guard.
NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell told the story on Tuesday, October 13, in an interview with Eric Fisher of Front Office Sports at its Tuned In event. He said Cruise has expressed a desire to run in an ARCA Series race as part of his preparation for Days of Thunder 2.
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“I was shocked. We have an ARCA racing series … Tom wanted to go race in one of those,” O’Donnell said.
That is the man who runs the sport talking, and even he did not see it coming.
Tom Cruise Wants to Race in ARCA, and NASCAR Is Building About 80 Cars for the Film
O’Donnell made no promises. He was honest about the odds and clear about why Cruise asked in the first place.
“I’m not sure that’s going to happen, but he wants it to be as authentic as it can be,” he said.
ARCA is NASCAR’s national touring series, and it often serves as a feeder into the sport’s top three series. NASCAR acquired it in 2018, so it will be up to NASCAR to decide whether Cruise is qualified to race there.
The series has seen a wide range of ages behind the wheel. The late James Hylton raced in ARCA at 78 in 2013, which Motorsport.com notes is the age record, and ARCA has also let 15-year-olds race. YouTube star Cleetus McFarland made his ARCA debut at Daytona in 2025. At 64, Cruise would sit well inside the ages the series has already seen.
The cars for the movie are as real as the request. O’Donnell said NASCAR is producing “probably over 80 race cars” for the film, and not all of them are meant to make it through.
“Some we don’t expect to be back – they’ll be wrecked as part of it,” he said.
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He also shared the message Cruise gave NASCAR, that the movie would put the sport in front of an entirely new audience and it needed to be ready. O’Donnell called the film a whole new open door for NASCAR to bring in new fans.
Cruise is producing the sequel alongside Jerry Bruckheimer and Tommy Harper, with Jonathan Levine directing from a screenplay by Will Staples.
Days of Thunder 2 Brings Tom Cruise Back to Cole Trickle and to Daytona
Cruise has gone after the real thing since the first movie. The car he tested for Hendrick Motorsports back then was a second-tier Busch Series car, the series now known as the O’Reilly Series.
Speaking to drivers at Daytona, he remembered the last time he worked at that track.
“Last time I was at this track, actually, I was on the backstraight and I was shooting with two very heavy cameras traveling — I don’t know, 180 miles an hour — and suddenly the hood was off of the car,” he said.
At the Coke Zero 400 drivers meeting at Daytona, he told the drivers he was proud to have reflected their culture in the first Days of Thunder, and that the same culture is what the sequel is going for. He once told Pat McAfee that he had been thinking about Cole Trickle for a long time.
He made the sequel official on Instagram on August 29, 2026, with a photo of a green race car and the caption “Days of Thunder. He will play Cole Trickle again, and Anne Hathaway co-stars as a racecar team owner and engineer. The film is dated for release on June 2, 2028, and it will be shot for IMAX and released only in theaters.
The 2027 ARCA Menards Series season opens at Daytona on February 20, at the same track where Tom Cruise ran about 178 mph in 1987 while getting ready for the first Days of Thunder. Whether he ever lines up in an ARCA race for Days of Thunder 2 is NASCAR’s call, and 39 years after that test, he is still asking for the real thing.
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