A Stephen Low Film
With MARIO ANDRETTI, MICHAEL ANDRETTI and
THE NEWMAN/HAAS RACING TEAM

Featuring the most REALISTIC, ADRENALINE-PUMPING RACING FOOTAGE ever seen on the large screen!!

 

Now Showing in:

Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Hampton, Jersey City, Louisville, Lubbock, Montreal, Myrtle Beach, Quebec City, San Bernadino, Seattle, Spokane, Syracuse, Toronto and Vancouver!

Imagine strapping yourself into one of the world's most powerful racing machines with legendary driver Mario Andretti. Imagine the sensation as you roar through a field of two dozen Indy cars, hitting gut-twisting speeds of 230 miles per hour. Now, close your eyes and imagine the thrill of all that speed and all that power as it surrounds you on an IMAX® screen eight stories high, and you'll start to sense the excitement of director Stephen Low's latest film experience, SUPER SPEEDWAY.

Acclaimed IMAX director Stephen Low has defied nature with films such as Across the Sea of Time, Flight of the Aquanaut and Titanica. With SUPER SPEEDWAY, he takes on the laws of physics with car racing footage of unparalleled authenticity, shot by Mario Andretti himself, and at the same time takes an intimate look at the fascinating world of championship race car driving.

Openwheel car racing is the world's most technologically advanced sport. Its racing machines create a force five times the power of gravity, always pushing the limits of physical possibility. Its drivers challenge these limits with peak physical conditioning (a driver can lose ten pounds during a two-hour race!), astonishing skill and instinct, laser-like concentration, and a will to win that eclipses fear, pain, extreme heat, dehydration, and the looming threat of instantaneous tragedy.

In making SUPER SPEEDWAY, Low was granted unprecedented access to some of racing's most compelling figures: Mario Andretti, the charismatic dean of the sport who retired following the 1994 season, after thirty years as one of the greatest drivers of all time; Mario's son, Michael Andretti, a second-generation champion; members of the racing team owned by Paul Newman and Carl Haas; the teams and drivers of the PPG CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) World Series, and a host of others who design, engineer, and maintain the fastest and most sophisticated cars in the world.

The film delves deep into the world of openwheel racing (so-called because of the position of the tires outside the chassis of Indy-type cars), interweaving three connecting story lines:

Building Michael's car for the 1996 season; The marvels of science and engineering behind Indy car construction, filmed in England at the Lola plant where the chassis is designed and molded, the Ford-Cosworth plant where the high-power engine is manufactured, and Cranfield University, where dramatic wind-tunnel and crash tests are carried out.

The close and complex relationship between Mario and Michael; father and son champions who are as much teammates and friends as they are fierce rivals on the race course. Follow the Andrettis through the 1996 season, at seven race courses across the U.S. and Canada.

A trip through the history and evolution of modern racing; Master vintage-car restorer Don Lyons accidentally discovers an historically significant 1964 roadster in an Indiana chicken coop, brings it back to life at his Michigan facility, and traces the radical transformations in racing technology over the past three decades.

Laced through it all is the heart-stopping racing footage shot by Mario Andretti. To accomplish this feat for SUPER SPEEDWAY, Low's production team came up with the idea of mounting a new, lightweight IMAX® camera onto an Indy car, and then convinced Andretti to drive it in actual race conditions at over 200 miles per hour, while simultaneously operating the camera with an on/off switch in the cockpit.

This was a perilous proposition on several counts: Indy cars are delicately-balanced machines worth close to half a million dollars, and their performance is altered even by the weight of a few extra liters of fuel.

Could the car safely withstand the aerodynamic drag and extra burden of a camera and mount? Insurance companies, racing officials and other drivers were nervous, and Andretti himself was skeptical. "I looked at the car, and thought we'll be lucky to average 150 mph. Next, would the camera withstand the punishment? Initial tests failed. As the car reached 200 miles per hour, engine vibrations tore the camera electronics apart, and the project was nearly scrapped" Explains director Stephen Low, "Mario and I agreed that we would only make this film if we could shoot the driving footage at real race speeds, without any of the trick photography usually used to give the illusion of speed." But, through repeated attempts, the team persevered and pulled off the miracle.

The last question mark was purely artistic: could Andretti, a non-professional cameraman, know when to get the great shots? Mario's son, Michael, gives the answer best: "The sensation you get is almost like you're in the car. I concentrate so hard that it never seems quite that fast when I'm driving. It's a little scarier on film."

There have been movies made before about the glamour and speed of championship racing, and many attempts to capture footage from inside the cockpit of a race car. But no motion picture has ever before been able to capture the authentic high performance feel of an Indy car race. With the magic of IMAX®, the assistance of the racing world, and one of the top production teams in the business, SUPER SPEEDWAY delivers the real thing.

Capturing the racing footage was made possible by the Newman/Haas Racing team, which provided the car and maintenance crew, and worked with the production to create the camera mount. SUPER SPEEDWAY was made with the additional support of Texaco, Kmart, PPG CART, and 37 IMAX® and large format theaters worldwide.

A Stephen Low Film produced by Openwheel Productions, Inc. Executive Producer Goulam Amarsy. Producers Pietro Serapiglia and Stephen Low. Director of Photography Andrew Kitzanuk. Editor James Lahti. IMAX® camera specialist Bill Reeve. Production Manager Lilly Antonecchia.

Press Release | Super Speedway Synopsis | The Andrettis
Restoring The Roadster - Don Lyons | In Conversation with Michael and Mario Andretti