Aside from the fact that it featured a bit in Disney•Pixar’s Cars 3 last year, dirt track racing doesn’t tend to get much attention on the big screen. I’ve written a bit about it before – the fact that I grew up with it, spending many nights at Santa Fe Speedway outside of Chicago, and traveling to countless ovals around the Midwest as a kid, my dad being a track announcer at the time. Now comes Shifting Gears – a little movie with family at its core, and one set against the backdrop of dirt track action. The logline: “It’s WE BOUGHT A ZOO meets DAYS OF THUNDER on dirt!” Check out the trailer and details below…
Starring M.C. Gainey (“Speechless”), R. Keith Harris (“The Walking Dead”), Brooke Langton (“Melrose Place”), M. Emmet Walsh (Blood Simple), John Ratzenberger (Toy Story), C. Thomas Howell (“Ray Donovan”) and more, Shifting Gears is now playing in limited theatrical release and on-demand streaming.
Tom (Harris) is a hard-working manager at a big box super store. He started in the stock room, always imagining himself at the helm. Now poised for a big promotion, he gets the news he always feared: “No college degree, no promotion.” In the face of this new reality, and lamenting the time he devoted to work over family, Tom and his wife, Carol (Langton), decide to change course and start a family business. They pack up their kids and move to a small town to take over a run-down garage bequeathed to them by Tom’s estranged father, Clem (Drew Matthews, Paper Towns). They sink their savings into renovating the garage, only to get another unfortunate surprise – the title to the property has been contested and now must be sold at public auction, with arch nemesis Conrad Baines (Ratzenberger) poised to take over the land in the name of “economic development.” In a last-ditch effort to avoid financial ruin, Tom and his teenage son, Jeremy (Adam Hicks, “Zeke and Luther”), join forces with old time racer “Dirty Harry” Hawkins (Gainey) and enter the Dirt Track Grand National.
Check out the official site for theater locations and streaming services.
