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Film: Days Of Thunder

1990 action drama starring Tom Cruise as Cole Trickle, a race car driver who enters the world of NASCAR. His attitude gets him into trouble with not only other drivers, but his own team as well. Directed by Tony Scott, the film co-stars Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid, Cary Elwes, and Cruise's future ex-wife, Nicole Kidman.

These tropes seen in this film include:

Badass Driver: Goes with the territory.
Breakaway Pop Hit: Maria McKee's "Show Me Heaven" reached No. 2 in the UK pop charts, despite NASCAR being more obscure outside America.
Defictionalisation: Kyle Busch being nicknamed 'Rowdy' Busch as a nod to the movie. The name has stuck.
Fair Cop: Subverted She wasn't really a cop
Gretzky Has the Ball: Despite the official cooperation of NASCAR and several race teams, the movie still has some howling inaccuracies.
Hospital Hottie: Nicole Kidman in a lab coat. Enough said.
The Mentor: Harry to Cole.
Odd Couple: Young hotshot driver Cole and jaded veteran crew chief Harry.
Product Placement: All over the place in terms of sponsorships. As the movie is about NASCAR, this could also be fairly construed as Truth in Television.
Reality Is Unrealistic: "Cole Trickle" was derided by some critics as too much of a stereotype NASCAR sounding name. Except that the name is a Shout Out to Dick Trickle.
Rivals Team Up: Cole and Rowdy, by the end.
Spiritual Successor: Tom Cruise controls (pilots) an extremely fast piece of machinery, deals with a crisis about 2/3's of the way in following a traumatic accident involving a friend, only to come out of it at the end and win the heart of his higher-class love interest. All with a power ballad soundtrack.
Understatement: "You boys are late."-Big John "We, uh, had, car trouble."-Rowdy
Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Cole Trickle was based on Tim Richmond and crew chief Harry Hogge on Harry Hyde. Richmond being a former Indycar driver and an upstart outsider who started winning when paired with a gruff veteran engineer.