Santino -- what about 'Red Line 7000'?

By DAVID GREEN

It was one thing when the news reports that I read neglected to mention that Daytona 500 grand marshal James Caan once starred in a movie about stock car racing. It was understandable when the Speed TV crew that interviewed Caan this morning all seemed oblivious to this footnote in Caan's acting resume.

But I thought for sure Caan himself would mention his role as fictional driver Mike Marsh in the 1965 movie Red Line 7000, directed by Howard Hawkes.

Some critics thought Caan was particularly good in a mediocre movie. He was a star in the making, and Red Line was another in a long line of forgettable films about auto racing. As a teenager infatuated with the sport, I was ready to ignore the technical glitches and the curious soap-opera plot. I just enjoyed getting to see racing action on a big screen.

The footage was fabulous -- better, I think, than the staged "racing" or the computer-generated stuff from some more recent movies.

It included some great stuff of the spectacular tumble driver Rod Eulenfeld took during one of the 100-mile qualifying races at Daytona that year. (This footage also appears in the 1971 movie Vanishing Point.) Eulenfeld was not seriously hurt in the actual wreck, but the footage provided the basis for an important plot element in which one of the drivers is fatally injured.

I was learning fast how Hollywood takes great liberties with the facts, and so I took that in stride and just enjoyed the racing scenes. And I thought Caan looked a whole lot like Fred Lorenzen -- who, not so coincidentally, was the real driver of the No. 28 Ford driven by Caan's character.

Caan is quite an accomplished actor, best known for his present-day role in the television series Las Vegas and for his work as Santino (Sonny) Corleone in 1972's The Godfather. He's done a good bit of other work that I enjoyed, including the role of Chicago Bears running back and cancer victim Brian Piccolo in the made-for-TV Brian's Song in 1971.

But I saw him first in Red Line 7000. Later, when I saw him onscreen in other roles, I always remembered him as Mike Marsh, driver of the No. 28 Ford.

So, when Caan was asked if he'd ever been to Daytona before, I figured surely he had been -- and I figured he would mention his role in a movie about racing. I was wrong, on both counts.

Of course, all his scenes in Red Line 7000 were probably filmed on sound stages, or at the old Ascot Park dirt track in Los Angeles. Sure enough, today's trip to Daytona as grand marshal is Caan's first visit to a NASCAR event.

Welcome to NASCAR 2006, Santino. If you're not mentioning that racing movie because you're embarrassed for some reason, lighten up. It wasn't all that bad -- especially your part in it.