'NASCAR 3-D' tingles

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By Philip Wuntch
The Dallas Morning News

Posted: March 12, 2004

"NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience" tingles.

The 49-minute film is directed by Simon Wincer, whose credits include television's magnum cattle-drive opus "Lonesome Dove" and the big screen's "Phar Lap." The latter film relates the saga of the ill-fated Australian racehorse and is definitely due rediscovery after "Seabiscuit's" success.

Director Wincer knows his way around a race, and "NASCAR" presents curves and challenges ideal for both the intimacy and the vastness of IMAX scrutiny. You get all the thrills and some of the spills of this white-knuckle sport that allows a driver only a few seconds to emerge from a fiery crash. NASCAR cars go 186 miles per hour even when spinning out-of-control and upside down. When a runaway tire heads straight for the theater audience, unanimous ducking is in order.

Kiefer Sutherland delivers the insightful, humorous narration, which traces the bucolic roots of stockcar racing and describes the colorful histories of racing heroes, interviewing drivers, their families and, sadly, sometimes only their survivors. In keeping with all the racing movies you've seen, the drivers feel definite bonhomie off the track but are fierce competitors once the engines roar.

It also shows the intricacies of making a racecar, a feat that goes beyond mere craftsmanship into the realm of painstaking artistry.

"NASCAR 3D" deserves the widest audience of any non-feature-length IMAX film.