Producers, CART officials hope moviegoers are …

Tuesday, April 24, 2001 | 10:10 a.m.

Selected movies that have featured auto racing in the plot:

Grand Prix (1966): Starring James Garner as an American Formula One driver.

Winning (1969): Starring Paul Newman as an Indy Car driver.

LeMans (1971): Starring Steve McQueen as an endurance sports-car driver.

Bobby Deerfield (1977): Starring Al Pacino as an American Formula One driver.

Six Pack (1982): Starring Kenny Rogers as a NASCAR Winston Cup driver.

Heart Like a Wheel (1983): Starring Bonnie Bedelia as drag racer Shirley Muldowney.

Stroker Ace (1983): Starring Burt Reynolds as a stock-car driver.

Days of Thunder (1990): Starring Tom Cruise as a NASCAR Winston Cup driver.

NASCAR's Winston Cup Series owes at least a part of its enormous popularity to the 1990 release of the movie "Days of Thunder," a highly dramatized account of the stock-car racing series that starred Tom Cruise.

Open-wheel racing's version of "Days of Thunder" will premiere this Friday and Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) drivers and officials are hopeful that the movie "Driven" will generate the same type of interest in their series.

"Driven," starring Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds and featuring cameos by several CART drivers, opens nationwide on Friday following special screenings this week in several North American cities, including Las Vegas.

"We think 'Driven' is going to be great for CART in terms of exposing our series and our sport to the casual fan and even the non-fan that's just a moviegoer," Mike Zizzo, CART's vice president of public relations, said.

"We're hoping it expands our fan base because the movie really and truly portrays the excitement of a CART event. We're hoping that will appeal to people who have not really touched our sport yet."

And having a heavyweight such as Stallone, who also wrote the screenplay and is producing the movie, associated with the project only adds to its appeal, said CART president and CEO Joe Heitzler.

"Our main objective in working on this film with Sylvester Stallone ... was to reach out to individuals who have had little or no exposure to our sport and to demonstrate to them the thrills associated with CART and Champ Car racing," Heitzler said.

"This movie accurately conveys the sense of bigness, the spectacular nature of our racing and the excitement associated with each of our 21 events. We believe many people who see this film are going to walk away thinking about coming to a CART race or watching one of our events on television.

"It's a great sampling opportunity for CART."

As was the case with "Days of Thunder," "Driven" takes liberal dramatic license with its racing sequences, but several drivers who previewed the movie last week gave the film a thumbs-up.

"It's an action film," Kenny Brack, last year's CART Rookie of the Year, said. "Some of the racing stuff was a bit over the top but some of it was really good from our perspective as drivers."

Paul Tracy, a Las Vegas resident and a nine-year veteran of CART who has a cameo role in the movie, agreed.

"I thought it was very entertaining," Tracy said. "The special effects are fantastic and they did an awesome job of putting you in the driver's seat.

"I think it should bring some new fans to the sport."

Tracy's cameo appearance is not the only local tie to the movie, which was directed by Renny Harlin ("Die Hard 2" and "Cliffhanger"). Many of the cars used in the movie were prepared and painted to look like authentic Champ Cars by the CART 101 Driving Experience at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

LVMS officials also are in the process of negotiating with Heitzler to bring a CART race to the 1.5-mile superspeedway next year.

Stallone, who portrays a former Champ Car driver who mentors a young driver in the movie, prepared for the project by going through the Derek Daly Driving School at LVMS and a CART 101 program.

Whether the movie makes a lasting impression on the public remains to be seen, but the experience of making the movie has had an effect on Stallone, who said he was considering getting into CART as a team owner.

"I can see how this stuff gets in your blood," Stallone told CART.com. "It's intoxicating."