The Friday, Feb. 6, edition of ESPN2′s “NASCAR Now” will include an interview with actor Tom Cruise, the sports network says.

Scheduled to run at 5 p.m. Eastern time, Cruise discusses his interest in stock car racing and recalls driving at Daytona during filming of the 1990 movie “Days of Thunder.” Cruise played Cole Trickle, a rookie looking for success in NASCAR’s premiere division. Robert Duval was the Trickle team’s crew chief in the film and Randy Quaid played the car owner. Nicole Kidman portrayed a doctor who was Trickle’s love interest.

The plot was loosely based – some fans and critics might say several rounds too loose – on some key NASCAR figures of the time: Cruise as Tim Richmond, Duval as Harry Hyde and Quaid as Rick Hendrick.

Then-NASCAR drivers Greg Sacks, Tommy Ellis, Bobby Hamilton and Hut Stricklin, among others, assisted in filming race scenes, while a number of other drivers, media and racing personalities of the time made appearances.

Cruise lays claim to a lifelong passion for racing and speaks with ESPN2 about racing and movies as the season-opening Daytona 500 nears. Some excerpts:

“You just see our history through time, our love affair with the automobile.

“Having that opportunity to drive those cars on the track, meet those drivers that I got to meet. Making movies, I love it because I get to enter into a world and you meet these people. And the generosity that I’ve been extended by these people – whether it’s NASCAR or “Jerry McGuire” – it’s a great life because I’m interested in life and in engaging in life, and to have those experiences I feel very privileged.”

(Source: ThatsRacin.com, Feb. 05, 2009)

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Tom Cruise still feels the need for speed.

The actor, 46, shares his love of NASCAR and racing in a new interview set to air on Feb. 6 on ESPN2.

“For me as a kid growing up, I always wanted to race cars,” says Cruise, who starred in the 1990 racing film Days of Thunder. NASCAR, he says, “is a very unique kind of racing that feels very American.”

Filming Days of Thunder at the Daytona International Speedway was especially thrilling. “My personal Daytona memory is getting up close to 200 m.p.h., personally driving on that track in the car,” he says in the interview, which was filmed in December at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Banquet in New York City. “Having that opportunity to drive those cars on the track, meet those drivers that I got to meet.”

The NASCAR season begins this weekend at Daytona International Speedway.

Check out the video on People.com!

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