The Last Race

This documentary on Riverhead Raceway, on Long Island, N.Y., brought back memories to me of going to Freeport Raceway on Long Island (one of 40 active stock car tracks at the time) as a kid with my family for a night of racing and excitement.

Alas, Riverhead is the only remaining track of its kind in the area and seemingly barely hanging on, with its aging but dedicated owners Barbara and Jim Cromarty, and land developers on all sides of the track impatiently waiting for them to sell so they can develop another strip mall or parking lot on the valuable land.

This is not your typical doc, with its emphasis on the atmospherics of the stock car venue and the often quirky drivers and characters who keep it running. The film often seems disjointed, as it skips from one scene to another seemingly randomly. Thus, it will most likely turn off some viewers who expect a more traditional and orderly movie.

Overall, I found this doc to illustrate a slice of Americana that's still active but that more often than not will fade from our history.

Look for raw language throughout with the film being only about 1 hr. and 15 mins. in length.

This movie is the epitome, of what I feel, of car culture basics. This movie properly and well presented of the community's focus and services that the car culture provides. The movie shows how the community socializes and how the community contributes to each other's lives. What I feels is what needs to be absorbed and well grasped from this movie is the whole unity of the car cultures social foundation.

The car culture, was generally showcased as a culture of isofocused, for a lack of a better way to describe the context, but the car culture community, is not revolved around that reality. The reality of these people, from what I've obtained from the movie, is the whole association of the abilities to understand the car's capabilities, and mostly the car's historical significance and the importance of the car's performance. By having this "understanding" of the car's capabilities, will definitely provide you the insights of what it really means to have a "bet" on car racing. When you delve into the car culture, you'll definitely and quickly find the appreciation of what car racing is and does for the person. The Last race was a well created movie of what the car racing community does and focuses on.

I'm a huge grassroots, Saturday night racing fan. I was very excited to see this after seeing the trailer. However it is painfully slow, poorly edited and an hour plus of my time that I won't get back. It gets a three with me because some of the interviews are very good. However most of this is just long silent shots with absolutely no context. Just adding a narrator to this would have dramatically increased the reviews. Such a disappointment.

Let me start off by saying that I am a grassroots racing fan. Growing up, Saturday night was the night to go to the track with my dad and watch the asphalt gladiators do battle. I was fortunate enough to be able to race at my home track for a little while and will cherish those moments forever. Our track also went through owner changes, sitting dormant for a year and NASCAR affiliation coming and going. I saw this film advertised on Facebook, but unfortunately the trailer pretty much sums up the entire film. There are some real moments, such as the interview with the track owner towards the end of the film and the driver speaking of winning a race for his father after he had passed. The film does show what the track means to the racing community, especially being an area where so many tracks were prevalent during the birth of auto racing. That being said, this film is entirely too slow. The majority of the content is absolutely nothing. The opening scene set the tone for the film. I can appreciate the message that the film does loosely deliver, but it failed to deliver with any true excitement. There is some cool racing footage in the film, but most of it is just oddly misplaced here and there. Again, I can appreciate the people in the film and the message being made, but I feel it could've been portrayed in an entire different light.

This was all too real. It was far too real. Perhaps the most depressing metaphor for what we all face as we age. It's as good as doc's can achieve, but as eye-opening a film about aging and "development" as one can view.