Notes | DVD director, marshals and more

Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009

Director Michael Bay was at Lowe’s Motor Speedway Saturday and wheeled a pace car as part of the campaign to promote the DVD release of his latest movie, "Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen."

Bay, who has directed both of the immensely popular Transformer movies said he was working on a third installment in the series. It will not be about NASCAR, though it will include some serious machines.

Two race cars – Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 and Ryan Newman’s No. 39 – had special paint schemes promoting the movie Saturday night. It’s not as if the movie needed much promotion, having earned more than $830 million – more than even Jimmie Johnson – this year.

Bay said it was his first direct exposure to NASCAR since he was a youngster.

“They asked me to drive the pace car,” Bay said. “It’s a long way to go to drive a pace car 45 miles an hour, but it is pretty exciting when you have 43 drivers behind you.

“A lot of my movies have dealt with fast cars so I’ve been around them. It’s interesting to come see it and spend a full day here.”

Bay got some track time early Saturday, getting comfortable in the pace car. He said he hit approximately 100 mph in one lap, but NASCAR required him to keep it at 45 during the pace laps.

Bay said he will have devoted five years of his life to the Transformer movies when he completes the third installment.

Asked if he has a racing movie in his future, Bay was non-committal.

“Racing movies are tough to do,” he said. “Sports movies are tough to do. It’s like the team has to lose and then it has to win.”

REALLY GRAND MARSHALS: When Lowe’s Motor Speedway picked grand marshals for the NASCAR Banking 500, officials didn’t go with some corporate types.

They went for racing aristocracy.

The grand marshals were Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, Teresa Earnhardt and Brian France.

They were chosen to represent the first class of the new NASCAR Hall of Fame.

THINKING PINK: As part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, there were five pink cars in the field Saturday night.

Bobby Labonte, Bill Elliott, Kyle Busch, Michael Waltrip and Elliott Sadler had pink cars.

Labonte said his sponsor, Ask.com, will make a $1-million donation to the Susan G. Komen Foundation and he favors more pink cars during October races.

“I would like to see 43 pink race cars on the track,” Labonte said. “I’m not afraid to wear pink.”

Kyle Busch wore a pink fire suit.

“I’m real proud to be part of it,” Busch said. “You can see me from a long ways away. It’s pretty good-looking.”

TALKING ABOUT DALE: Richard Childress, the team owner when Dale Earnhardt won six of his seven championships took a few minutes Saturday to talk about his relationship with the late hall inductee.

"He really, really took his fans very passionately,” Childress said.

“Everything he wanted on the track, he wanted for them, the fans.

“He was great to work with. I bet you could count on one hand the number of disagreements we had and we would work them out. We knew each other well enough where I could walk in a room, go over, sit down and he would say, ‘All right, what’s on your mind?’

"And I could do the same with him.”

AN INTIMIDATING RIDE: Construction workers topped out the new Intimidator roller coaster honoring Dale Earnhardt at Carowinds this week, said Richard Kinzel, president and CEO of Cedar Fair, which is producing the new ride.

The ride will open in the spring and is one of two Earnhardt-themed coasters under construction. The other is being built at Kings Dominion near Richmond, Va.

The Carowinds coaster reaches a height of 235 feet and a top speed of 75 mph with approximately one mile of track.

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