Alright, gentlemen, start your engines. The world of auto racing may be foreign to myself — I simply don’t get it — but it’s a passion for countless Americans who flock to their local speedways to watch high-octane vehicles press the pedal to the metal in the hopes of glory in victory lane. One track in Long Island, New York has its beat up stock cars racing around its aged asphalt and is now the subject of the new documentary, The Last Race, from director Michael Dweck. This documentary about a struggling racetrack revs up its first trailer, featuring a glimpse at what looks to be an interesting examination of a certain slice of American life featuring some in-your-face scenes of metal-crunching racing.
Aside from just focusing on the various eccentrics that make up the drivers or the crowd that gather to watch these cars make laps around the track at high speed, The Last Race is really concerned about how this little slice of Americana is in peril due to a boom in real estate prices in the Long Island area. There are questions as to whether the 87-year-old owner of the track can keep the races going as the land surrounding the track is valued at millions of dollars.
Magnolia Pictures will be releasing The Last Race in theaters, VOD, and Amazon Prime Video November 16, 2018.
The official synopsis for The Last Race:
THE LAST RACE is a cinematic portrait of a Long Island stock car race track as its 87 year-old owners struggle to maintain an American racing tradition in the face of a real estate development boom. The film merges image and sound in a unique narrative form to bring the audience into the world of grassroots racing culture and explores a story that subtly grapples with questions of blue collar American identity that have taken on a profound relevance in the current political era.