In stock car racing, the cars are not carefully designed racing monsters – like in Formula 1 – but more or less ‘regular’ cars which have been fine-tuned to become grumbling and extremely fleet road warriors. The sport is especially well known thanks to NASCAR events, such as Daytona 500, a race in which the race car drivers compete by making – you guessed it – 500 circuits of the oval Daytona track.

Far from the glitz and glamour of NASCAR, hidden somewhere in the hilly mountains of New Jersey, Jim and Barbera run one of the last independent stock car circuits in the US. It’s a far cry from the sheening new rides speeding around the NASCAR tracks, instead featuring beat-up rides bouncing off each other at murderous speeds on the chewed-up asphalt. However, the track is on land that is worth millions these days, while Jim en Barbera are reaching the age when retirement looms. In The Last Race, director Michael Dweck shows viewers what an utter pity it would be to let bulldozers take over to transform the track into yet another mall and parking lot.

Packed with jaw-dropping slo-mo, revving engines and a motley crew of racers, spectators and fans, The Last Race is a loving ode to a unique racing sport. The documentary will leave you smelling that heady mixture of gas and burning rubber.

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