*Quick Summary: The author writes about an auction where Days of Thunder cars, props, and equipment were sold.*
When filming on Days of Thunder was over, the decision was made to sell many of the left over items Hendrick Motorsports had. They bought much of the prop inventory from Paramount, and it was time to move that stuff along. General Manager Jimmy Johnson made the decision to send them to the Kruse International Car Classic auto auction held in April 1991. There was so much apparel, props, and cars from the movie, and Jimmy had a race team to run, so that stuff needed to be liquidated. Keep in mind, we had no idea Days of Thunder would turn into the “classic” racing movie it has in years since. To us, it was a bit of a distraction from our real jobs. The sooner we were rid of all that stuff the better. Little did we know or care at the time how much it would gain in value later.
In addition to the movie cars and props, many of which can be seen in The Making of Days of Thunder, Tim Richmond’s personal Chevrolet Blazer, and a Hendrick Motorsports Corvette GTP car were to be sold. I tried to buy Tim’s Blazer before the auction, but Papa Joe wouldn’t let me. He feared losing a lot of money on it by selling it beforehand, and as the money was going to Tim’s family, it was only right for it to continue to auction. I did make a point to drive it to the auction though!
Speaking of driving cars to the auction, Danny Pledger and I also drove most of the movie cars from Hendrick Motorsports to Charlotte Motor Speedway. Yes, almost two miles, on public streets, in race cars, up Morehead Rd., across Hwy 29., and onto track property. He and I, banging into each other on purpose at the stoplight and trying to go side-by-side up the two-lane road. On one trip when I was driving a van behind him bringing supplies, Danny stuck his arm out the window of the #46 SuperFlo car to wave at a Cabarrus County Sheriff who happened to be driving by. Danny being Danny, he revved the engine at the same time. I just knew the Sheriff would turn around and stop him/us, but he just drove past shaking his head. I promise we knew better, but we also enjoyed having fun occasionally, so we thought it would be quicker and more entertaining than loading them individually on trailers or ramp trucks. It was! So if it ran, we drove it. Certainly not something we’d do today! Or, would we?
Below are some scans of the auction flyer as well as a couple of pages from the program, along with a small gallery of photos I took with a disposable camera. I know the disposable camera pics are all very bad, but photos from this auction are extremely rare, so I included them for context. Also below are two videos, neither of which are high quality. I apologize in advance. If there were better quality videos available anywhere on the Internet, I’d link to them instead, I just haven’t found any. The first video is of the entire auction on the day we were there. If you are here to watch that video for movie cars, you’ll have to scrub a bit to find them. It’s 4:17:04 long, so trust me, scrub! The second video is just of Tim Richmond’s Blazer being sold.
