Ferrell plays Ricky Bobby, a hotshot NASCAR driver whose No. 1 status is threatened by a flamboyantly gay French driver, Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen), who brings his husband to the track and specializes in racetrack existentialism (he reads Camus’ “The Stranger” while he’s driving). Ricky is also losing his groupie wife (Leslie Bibb) to his best pal, Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly), who insists on maintaining their buddy relationship even after the divorce.

Ricky’s life is further complicated by a deadbeat dad, Reese (Gary Cole), who turns up every decade or so to give Ricky useless advice about losing and winning. Cole, who milks a remarkable number of laughs from this sketchiest of characters, revels in the utter worthlessness of the man. It’s an inspired portrait of anti-social dementia, and Ferrell & Co. should be given full credit for letting him run with it.

Also lending a touch of class to the proceedings are three relatively recent supporting-player Oscar nominees. Michael Clarke Duncan (from The Green Mile) does comic wonders with what could have been the peripheral role of Lucius Washington, Ricky’s sardonic crew chief, who often represents the sole voice of sanity.

Talladega Nights may be a comedy, but all of the driving stunts are real. "What we were hoping to do was obviously make a sports comedy which the sport that's involved has to have some awareness that we're having fun with what they do and that sort of thing. At the same time we made it clear to them that we wanted to make the racing look clear, real and intense and we wanted the footage to be as if it was from a serious racing movie. So we feel like we sort of split the difference. In early screenings of the film with friends and colleagues who were writers and other comedians, most of them having no knowledge of the sport their reaction was like, 'Wow. You really make the sport look really cool.' So we were just trying to split the difference, but it wasn't about making a film of fans in overalls in the stands and that sort of thing because if you go to these races you see a wide range of a type of fan and actually I don't know if we ever really met a drive who is like Ricky Bobby. I mean he is a throwback because the guys that you meet now are real polite and nice and they have so much responsibility that they kind of can't race the way that Ricky likes to race and that sort of thing. So the ultimate goal was to have a fun movie for people who didn't know anything about racing and then also to have a little fun and pay homage to the race fans who enjoy the sport."

Ricky Bobby was never intended to be a scathing commentary on drivers. He is a pure creation of Ferrell's. "It was more just someone who would be fun for me to play and cocky and southern were one of my goals. I mean it was also at the same time something that's always fun to have, however idiotic the character is or brace, to have some underlying thing of humanity. Ricky is cocky, but there is a part of him that's like still needs his friends to tell him he's on the right track. So he doesn't even know for sure."