DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. _ Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in a reflective mood as he prepares for his final ride at Daytona International Speedway as a Cup regular.
He touched on many things, but one of the liveliest topics involved his memories of the movie "Days of Thunder," celebrating its 25th anniversary release date this week.
Spoiler alert: Tom Cruise may want to buy some ear muffs.
Earnhardt, then 17, met Cruise when he made a cameo appearance in Mooresville, N.C., at the Earnhardt garage known as the Deerhead Shop because of the mounted deer on the wall.
"This is all hearsay because nobody was in the room except dad, and I guess the director and Cruise," Earnhardt said. "So Tom Cruise comes over to the Deerhead shop and we're excited. We're going to meet Tom Cruise. Me and Kelly (his sister) come in, we're all giddy.
"He comes in and he's about a foot shorter than I thought he'd be and he has pimples all over his face. They go into dad's office and they come out 30 minutes later and I guess they're picking daddy's brain. The rumor was they offered dad the role of Rowdy Burns, but dad turned it down because he didn't want to play the bad guy."
Pardon the interruption, Dale, but a few things:
Tom Cruise has PIMPLES?!!
Your daddy didn't want to be the BAD GUY? For the Love of God, his nickname was "The Intimidator."
Anyway, we digress.
Michael Rooker ended up playing the role of Burns, the bad dude racer and Winston Cup Champion who becomes the adversary to Cole Trickle (Cruise's character). "OK, I'm going to pull this rookie's chain," he says at one point in the movie.
Junior's review? Check it out.
"I thought the movie was fun," Earnhardt said. "Great. I was a big Robert Duvall fan because I loved the series Lonesome Dove. I thought he was great in anything ... I thought it was a fun movie."
