CONCORD, N.C. - A race track isn't the typical site for a movie premiere, but the people who worked on the Pixar film "Cars" probably wouldn't consider it a typical movie.
The animated movie will have its worldwide premiere Friday at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
"This is Americana right here," said Larry the Cable Guy, one of the voices of the movie, in meeting with the press Wednesday. "This is the best place to do it. [NASCAR] is appealing to a broader audience, but the basis, hard core backbone of NASCAR is what it always has been.
"It's been that middle America, middle class, blue collar hard-working guy who works on their own truck. That's the heart of NASCAR."
The movie stars the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman and Bonnie Hunt. It tells the story of a race car who gets sidetrack on Route 66 during his trip to a race in California.
Among the NASCAR voices in the movie are Darrell Waltrip, Richard Petty, his wife, Linda, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
"They've done a super job," Richard Petty said. "I sat there and watched that movie and said, 'How dumb can I be? I'm sitting here watching cars talk to each other.'
"But after a minute or two, you forget that they're not real people. ... You see them as the car - that's their personality, and that's the way they look."
The movie opens June 9 in theaters nationwide. But the 30,000 people in Charlotte for the sold-out premiere will see the movie on big screens in the infield in a mix of a drive-in atmosphere at a race track. It won't have the feel of a typical movie premiere.
"I'm just like them," Larry the Cable Guy said. "They're not fashion-conscious, that's for dog-gone sure. I'm just like them. I'll go out to eat and wear a Michael Waltrip shirt and a pair of jeans.
"But that's how it is. That's how we are. We make no bones about it."
