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Mistakes

Any NASCAR fan knows that when you spin in a race like Cole Trickle did that you would flat spot your tires and therefore you would require a pitstop for new tires. You wouldn't just be able to keep on racing. See more...

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The scene where Tim approaches Harry at a tractor was filmed at the farm of NASCAR legend Junior Johnson. See more...

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Days of Thunder (1990) - 12 corrections

Directed by Tony Scott, starring Cary Elwes, Don Simpson, John C. Reilly, Michael Rooker, Nicole Kidman, Randy Quaid, Robert Duvall, Tom Cruise (add more)

Genres: Action, Drama, Romance, Sport

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Many real-life NASCAR drivers, including Rusty Wallace, appear in the film. [This isn't trivia. Many of the race car drivers are listed in the credits.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
In the final Daytona 500 there is a big wreck where Cole makes it through OK and thus he feels he can win the race. He is up to 9th place in no time. Why did NASCAR not put out a yellow flag for a 5+ car wreck in Turn 3? [Because at the time NASCAR's rule if there was there was a crash was as follows: "If a yellow flag came out on the track, Drivers could still race for position until they cross the Start/Finish line on the racetrack. Upon crossing the Start/Finish line then they would start to slow down for the yellow." The rule was changed in the late 90's or early 2000, when Dale Jarrett crashed right before the Start/Finish line stranded in the middle of the track. The entire field of cars had to race by him , which could have injured or killed him. It also prolongs the time to safely get a fire-truck or ambulance out on the track to help a injured driver.]
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No team could use a single race car for an entire NASCAR season, especially when it is being wrecked every week. [Alan Kulwicki did it in 1986. ]
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Towards the end of the movie when Tom Cruise and Robert Duval are fighting in his Garage, Tom's Nascar racecar is in the shot. This car is still showing the signs of a major amount of "rubbing" and or contact sustained during a race, yet it is still showing the yellow and green City Chevrolet livery that the team were running earlier in the season. As the film progresses, the team run a Superflo Oils livery up to Cole's accident. It is also mentioned earlier in the film (by Randy Quaid) that he needs Robert Duval to build him a car singular for his driver. Why would a struggling team paint a damaged racecar in the livery of a former sponsor? [It is practical and logical to assume that with the new sponsor of Superflo, a new car was built and the old car parked in the garage where it sat until this conversation took place.]
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At the begining of the movie when Tom Cruise is due to test the car, Randy Quaid says that his driver has come from single seaters, when Tom Cruise arrives, he produces an open face helmet with peak and Microphone - a single seater driver would wear a full face helmet. [Randy Quaid says Cole had, "Two All-Star wins, seven straight Feature wins, and he's been driving ASA." ASA was a lower Stock Car division at the time, and quite plausibly, that could have been where he got the helmet.]
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Cole was a rookie. All rookies have a large, yellow stripe running the length of the bumpers. Where was his? [If a rookie has racd on the track before, he may not be required to have the yellow stripe. Conversely, a non-rookie, who hasn't raced at the track before may have the stripe. Finally the movie was made in 1990, and Nascar may not have required a stripe at that time.]
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Nicole Kidman's character is a neurosurgeon, yet she has no objection to a helmetless motorcycle ride. [So?? Even though she is a neurosurgeon and probably sees the effect of not wearing a helmet in a crash, it does not mean that she would wear a helmet. In real life people who should know better do stupid things too.]
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At Daytona speedway, if a car is even lightly touched, it will go out of control. These guys bang wheels and the wall viciously and battle to the end while still leading the race. [At Daytona pending on the location of the hit on the car, it will not go anywhere. You will see winners of the Daytona 500 and the Pepsi 400 with donuts on the sides and beat in fenders especially in the time frame of the movie. Dale Earnhardt would always put donuts on cars as a patent so to say. So a vicious battle to the end is not that far off, Richard Petty and David Pearson did it.]
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Cole tells Harry he doesn't understand the difference between loose and tight conditions of a car setup. Any experienced racer from open wheels would know the difference. [Not really. He may not know the terms. He can describe to his crew what is happening and they fix it accordingly. You never know what the relationship between him and his crew on the open wheel cars is like. Most of the open wheels have onboard computers that relays information to the pits on what the car is doing.]
Edit Corrected by Vernon Gilmore
When the good doctor is lecturing Cole on being an "infantile egomaniac" she mentions him driving around a track with 40 other "infantile egomaniacs". Technically if she was stereotyping all of them there would be 42 others on the track. Winston Cup runs a field of 43 cars. [This film was made in 1990, 43 cars weren't run in a Winston Cup race until 1994. In 1990 it would have been 41 in the field.]
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The slingshot pass strategy was emphasised in the race and used by Cole to win the Daytona 500 at the end of the movie. This slingshot pass has not been used since the 70's, when radial tires and restrictor plates were implemented into NASCAR. [Apparently restictor plates were first used in 1988 and the radial tire was used in the early 90's.]
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A driver would never pit under the green with three laps to go; especially not at Darlington where he got his first win. He'd be at least a lap behind, or more because a crew member yelled that the air gun was jammed. [Some people have disagreed with this due to the yellow flag. However, it is impossible with an average pit stop of at least 50 seconds (from the entance line on pit road to the exit line on pit road) then an extra 10 seconds (on average-when a gun jams) for Cruise to come out in 1st when the pack only takes 40 seconds to drive around Darlington a lap under pace car speed.]
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