The Awful Joy of Bad Racing Movies — (Driven, 2001)

It's Not the Car

“Driving a race car,” Sylvester Stallone once said, “is terrifying.”

Aw, Sly, buddy—that just makes me sad, you know? A big ol’ dollop of Guy Fieri bummer sauce. You’re missing out! It’s only terrifying if you’re doing it wrong!

Speaking of: What if you made a horrendously expensive movie about IndyCar while knowing almost nothing about the sport? What if, a quarter-century later, that film was widely held up as one of the worst in history?

Here now, the story of Stallone’s 2001 cinematic assterpiece, “Driven.” Little-known trivia! Joyous dissections of inaccuracy! Awful behind-the-scenes insights! And at the end, Sam makes Ross and Jeff act out lines from the film, because he is clearly a broadcasting nightmare and should never be allowed to run anything.

This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. We call this format “INTC Movie Club.” If you like it, don’t worry, we’ll do it again. Probably with “Sharknado.”

Related Trivia: Ross, a former IndyCar driver, seems to loathe this film with every fiber of his being. As far as I can tell, Jeff simply finds it an amusing trainwreck, like watching a dog try to bake a cake.

Unrelated Trivia: Sam’s wife no longer lets him bake anything in the house.

This episode was produced by Mike Perlman.

**

Support It’s Not the Car:

Contribute on Patreon ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/notthecar/⁠⁠⁠⁠

**

Topic suggestions, feedback, questions? Let us know what you think!

⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠

**

Where to find us:

⁠⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/j.v.braun⁠/⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠instagram.com/rossbentley/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠instagram.com/thatsamsmith/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠instagram.com/intcpod/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠facebook.com/INTCPod⁠/⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠rossbentley.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠speedsecrets.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠facebook.com/Drivercoach/⁠⁠⁠⁠

**

ABOUT THE SHOW:

It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. We tell racing stories and leave out the boring parts.

Ross Bentley is a former IndyCar driver and an internationally renowned performance coach and author. Jeff Braun is a championship-winning race engineer. Sam Smith is an award-winning journalist and a former executive editor of Road & Track magazine. Together, we explore the emotion at the heart of the machine.

We don’t love racing for the nuts and bolts—we love it for what it asks of the bag of meat at the wheel.

New episodes every Tuesday.