A documentary by Simon Wincer featuring narration by Kiefer Sutherland. Rated general.

If there's anything more entertaining than watching people driving really fast cars, it must be watching them crash. Hence the supremacy of NASCAR, the most-watched of all spectator sports.

Or so it is claimed in NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience , an official production of the racing association itself. That and other facts relating to the scope and history of stock-car racing are unassailable by me. When cousin Dave and I were tearing up the orchards and back roads of Rutland in our rusty pickups--although we were big fans of The Dukes of Hazzard and thus sympathetic to the moonshine culture that begat NASCAR--it was as imaginary Andrettis rather than Pettys. Compared to the futuristic Formula One cars, tight road courses, and exotic travel opportunities of open-wheel racing, NASCAR seemed provincial and tedious. How hard could it be to run flat-out in a big circle?

Plenty hard, as it turns out. Given the full cooperation of NASCAR and utilizing every inch of the IMAX format, director Simon Wincer puts us right into the (vibrating, horribly loud) cockpit of a handmade, high-tech, 800-horsepower monster. If it's not the scenery whipping by at 200-odd miles per hour that freaks you out, it's the fact that you've got speeding cars hanging a few inches from all of your ad-packed fenders and both bumpers. The slightest nudge can send you and up to a dozen of your neighbours cartwheeling and nose-plowing all over the track, spewing smoke, flames, and chunks of car in all directions.

As you'd expect, all of this "entertainment" tends to drive up the death rate, notwithstanding the soothing reassurances (in the purring tones of voice-over king Kiefer Sutherland) of NASCAR that driver safety comes first. The film is, in great part, a memorial to drivers shredded to death in various tragedies. If safety came even second or third, the average race would resemble the bombing of Dresden.

Still, the memorable image for me is neither the racing nor the carnage that entails but the astounding devotion of the fans. At Daytona, Wincer's camera pans across, literally, acres of white and orange: the tops of closely parked motor homes and the shirtless backs of plump, sunburnt spectators earnestly chugging brews. It's a scene as touching yet revolting as anything in a David Lynch movie.