Speed. To be able to control it

I read a partial interview with Louis C.K. in the Television section of the newspaper this afternoon. NYT: “Do you have a joke you keep in your back pocket in case you need to win back the audience?”
Louis: “I don’t really worry about losing the audience. What’s that movie with Tom Cruise as a car race guy? “Days of Thunder.” Robert Duvall teaches him that when there’s a car crash, and you can’t see because of the smoke, you just go straight through. If you follow their insecurity and their anxiety around, then you’re chasing their problems, and nobody knows what’s going on.”

Being me, I skimmed the Days of Thunder script when I got home, looking for the lines that inspired Louis. Robert Duvall’s character, Harry Hogge, drops some gems, as does Nicole Kidman’s character, Dr. Claire Lewicki. Tom Cruise’s plays Cole Trickle, basically an idiot. Dr. Claire Lewicki: “Tell me what you love so much about racing.” Cole Trickle: “Speed. To be able to control it. To know that I can control something that’s out of control.” Dr. Claire Lewicki: “Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody knows what’s gonna happen next: not on a freeway, not in an airplane, not inside our own bodies and certainly not on a racetrack with 40 other infantile egomaniacs.”

I think Louis was talking about the climactic scene at the Daytona 500. Harry Hogge: “There’s a crash at turn three. Oil at the bottom of the track. Cars are sliding down from the top of the track. You’d better go high. Pick a line you can drive through. Go around those wrecks. You can drive through it. I know it in my heart.” Cole Trickle: “I’m through it, Harry! I’m out of here.”