It’s time to shake and bake a birthday cake!
nascar” target=”_blank”>NASCAR< turns 50 years old today … at least he would if he were real.
(Columbia Pictures)
Will Ferrell’s character from the stock car racing parody “Talladega Nights: the Ballad of Ricky Bobby” lost his driver’s license while he was down on his luck working as a pizza deliveryman and ran his truck into a police officer, but earned it back during his hero’s journey of redemption.
A shot of the license and its epic photo reveals that Bobby was born on July 16, 1971, but the day has even more significance.
Ferrell himself was born July 16, 1967.
Ricky apparently got his start driving very early in life. A Dodge commercial released last year depicted Ricky, his father Reese and his sidekick Cal Naughton burning up the road in a trio of Dodge muscle cars in 1981, when he would have been just 9 or 10 years old.
Kurt Busch’s NASCAR Cup Series car featured Ricky Bobby’s "Me" livery at Talladega Superspeedway on May 5, 2012.
(Tyler Barrick/Getty Images)
Despite the 2006 film’s goofball depiction of the sport, the NASCAR community is entirely in on the joke and has embraced “Talladega Nights” to the point that drivers often reference it during interviews and Kurt Busch even featured Ricky Bobby’s “Me” livery on his car during an actual race.
