Buckle up. Super Speedway delves into the death-defying drama of
Indy car racing and weaves together the stories of some of the masters of
the high-speed track. Making astounding use of the giant IMAX®
motion picture screen, acclaimed director Stephen Low and the production
team of Super Speedway have succeeded in capturing a unique experience
that has until now been the exclusive domain of a tiny handful of professional
race car drivers. Super Speedway puts audiences in the cockpit of
an Indy car and catapults them into world championship auto racing action
at mind-bending speeds in excess of 230 miles per hour.
At the core of
the film's action is Michael Andretti
and the Newman/Haas racing team he drives for. Together, driver and team
test a newly fabricated car and ultimately drive it in hot pursuit of the
championship in the PPG CART World Series.
Michael's efforts are seen through the eyes of his father, racing legend
Mario Andretti, who participates
in testing the new car and reflects on his own racing experiences and on
the art, science and risk of high-speed competition.
Set against the drama of the track are two story lines that follow the
remarkable craft of creating Indy cars: the restoration of a 1964 roadster
- a thoroughbred once driven at Indianapolis - and the building of Michael
Andretti's state-of-the-art Indy car at the Lola
car plant in England.
In Lola's
shops the powerful new racing machine for Newman/Haas takes shape: its form
is milled and molded, and in time-lapse, the final creation is magically
assembled on the plant floor by a team of technicians and engineers. Will
the new car perform? Will it be fast and forgiving? Testing the car on some
of the fastest tracks in the world, Michael
Andretti and the Newman/Haas team prepare for the upcoming season, striving
to create the winning synergy between car and driver that will help them
take the championship. Mario Andretti lends his expertise, taking the car
out himself to probe its behaviour and cornering limits.
As Michael Andretti's Indy car
is being readied for the racing season, car restorer Don Lyons is hard at
work in his workshop, deep in the Michigan countryside. Lyons' discovery
of a vintage 1964 roadster in a farmer's dilapidated chicken coop has lead
him into an extraordinary restoration project that will take two solid years
to complete. Only as the film unfolds and Lyons' lovingly restored machine
approaches completion does the illustrious identity of the roadster become
known.
Struggling toward the PPG CART World
Series, the Newman/Haas team turns to wind- tunnel testing with a model
to fine-tune the aerodynamic forces at work on Michael
Andretti's car. Smoke and ultraviolet dye stream across the car, highlighting
the moving envelope of air around the machine and helping the engineers
pinpoint adjustments that need to be made.
At race speeds, a delicate balance of aerodynamic forces helps keep the
car's tires in contact with the track and gives the driver crucial control
in turns. Testing a new car is an unpredictable, high-risk venture: "You
just don't have 
the sense of what this animal is going
to do," comments Mario Andretti
in the film, "these things can bite." As Michael
Andretti and Mario Andretti scream
around the track, pushing the limits of the untried machine, audiences will
experience viscerally the driver's true art and courage.
Super Speedway culminates in a spectacular portrayal of the racing
season: never-before possible giant screen footage captures the drivers,
machines and teams of the PPG CART World
Series battling each other for supremacy. Watching from the pits, as his
son's struggle for victory unfolds, Mario considers the great challenges,
joys and perils of the sport; he remembers the drivers and friends he has
lost on the track - racers whose luck ran out. On the screen, classic archival
footage depicts some of the sport's most dramatic crashes - calamities that
are, for drivers, an everyday risk.
The season is a challenging one for Michael and the team, but there are
proud moments. In the Winner's Circle, Michael and the other winners douse
the press and the audience with jets of champagne. Michael comes in second,
after having won five races, more than any other driver, though it is competitor
Jimmy Vasser who collects the most points and takes the championship.
Don Lyons' patient restoration work on the 1964 Dean Van Lines Special
is triumphantly completed and the white and chrome roadster is rolled ceremoniously
out of the workshop and its identity is revealed - it is the very same machine
that once initiated Mario Andretti, as a rookie, into the high-profile world
of Indy car racing. 
In the concluding moments of Super Speedway Mario is reunited
with the great old machine. "My whole career really began with this
roadster," he notes, as a black and white film clip from 1964 shows
a smiling young Mario strapping himself into the car for a test drive on
a deserted speedway
In the present, Mario straps himself into the roadster once again as
the car's proud restorer stands by. "The car and I were really made
for each other," pronounces Mario. "I just put my foot to the
floor and, as they say, the rest is history." The engine roars to life
and Mario takes the resurrected machine for a drive - hurtling nostalgically
through the fall colours of the Michigan countryside.
Press Release | Super Speedway Synopsis | The
Andrettis
Restoring The Roadster
- Don Lyons | In Conversation with
Michael and Mario Andretti