NASCAR's Kyle Larson was a guest on Julian Edelman's Games With Names podcast this week and eventually the conversation turned to race car movies, providing the opportunity for the driver to offer up a somewhat surprising take on Talladega Nights.
"I mean, I like the movie," said Larson. "I think it did not do anything good for our sport. I think it turned our sport into a joke, unfortunately. But that is one of the most popular racing movies ... I feel like the rest of the world, that's what they think about our sport now."
Now, comedy is exactly what Will Ferrell, Sacha Baron Cohen and the rest were going for, and it should be noted that that everyone on a microphone for this podcast was chuckling through the discussion (at the 43-minute mark below), so it's not a huge lament. And no amount of critique from the NASCAR community is going to stop cable channels from playing the 2006 classic on repeat.
But there is a little bit of truth in every joke, and one could see how people who are passionate about the sport may want to point out that the ballad of Ricky Bobby was not exactly an honest or particularly flattering portrayal of all the brave left-turn enthusiasts out there.
Thankfully there are no shortage of other great racing movies that offer a more serious look at the sport, stock car or otherwise.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as NASCAR Driver Not a Fan of What 'Talladega Nights' Did to the Sport.