Roadracers is a 1994 made-for-television film directed by Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez

Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...

, his second feature film following the success of his 1992 debut, El Mariachi

El Mariachi

El Mariachi is a 1992 Mexican-American action film that is the debut of writer/director Robert Rodriguez. The Spanish language film was shot in the northern Mexican bordertown of Ciudad Acuña with a mainly amateur cast...

. The film originally aired on Showtime Network as part of their Rebel Highway

Rebel Highway

Rebel Highway was a short-lived revival of American International Pictures created and produced by Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff and Debra Hill for the Showtime channel in 1994. The concept was 10-week series of 1950s "drive-in classic" B-movies remade "with a '90s edge"...

series that took the titles of 1950s-era B-movies and applied them to original films starring up-and-coming actors of the 1990s (including the likes of Alicia Silverstone

Alicia Silverstone

Alicia Silverstone is an American actress, author, and former fashion model. She first came to widespread attention in music videos for Aerosmith, and is perhaps best known for her roles in Hollywood films such as Clueless and her portrayal of Batgirl in Batman & Robin .-Early life:Silverstone...

 and Shannen Doherty

Shannen Doherty

Shannen Maria Doherty is an American actress, producer, author and television director, known for her work as Heather Duke in Heathers , as Brenda Walsh in Beverly Hills, 90210 and its spinoff series 90210, and as Prue Halliwell in Charmed .-Early life and career:Doherty was born in Memphis,...

) and directed by established directors such as William Friedkin

William Friedkin

William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...

, Joe Dante

Joe Dante

Joseph "Joe" Dante, Jr. is an American film director and producer of films generally with humorous and science fiction content....

, and Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...

. Rodriguez was the only young director to participate in the series. The series was produced by the son and daughter of Samuel Z. Arkoff

Samuel Z. Arkoff

Samuel Zachary Arkoff was an American producer of B movies.-Life and career:Born in Fort Dodge, Iowa to a Russian Jewish family, Arkoff first studied to be a lawyer. Along with business partner James H. Nicholson and producer-director Roger Corman, he produced eighteen films...

, the co-founder and producer of American International Pictures

American International Pictures

American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...

 (AIP), the distributor of the films this series takes its titles from.

Robert Rodriguez's take concerned a rebel named Dude Delaney (David Arquette

David Arquette

David Arquette is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, fashion designer, and occasional professional wrestler. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid 1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, such as the Scream series, Wild Bill and...

) who dreams of leaving his dead end small town and becoming a rockabilly

Rockabilly

Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...

 star but gets caught up in a nasty feud with the town's local sheriff (William Sadler

William Sadler (actor)

William Thomas Sadler is an American actor who works in film and television. His television and motion picture roles have included Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller in The Pacific, Luther Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sheriff Jim Valenti in Roswell, convict Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption,...

) and his son (Jason Wiles

Jason Wiles

Jason Austin Wiles is an American actor known for his role in the TV series Third Watch.Wiles was born in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S., and raised in Lenexa, Kansas, where he attended Holy Trinity Catholic School...

). Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek

Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez de Pinault is a Mexican film actress, director and producer. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role as Frida Kahlo in the film Frida.-Early life:...

 plays Dude's girlfriend, Donna.

Soundtrack Album

Although a soundtrack album is listed in the ending credits of the film as being available on A&M Records

A&M Records

A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.-Beginnings:...

, the album was never released.

Trivia

• Salma Hayek made her United States film debut with Roadracers.
• The film was shot in 13 days.
• Rodriguez was used to shooting films very fast and ran into resistance with his Hollywood crew (most notably the director of photography). He discusses these conflicts in the now out-of-print book
  Out-of-print book
  An out-of-print book is a book that is no longer being published. Out-of-print books are often rare, and may be difficult to acquire.A publisher will usually create a print run of a fixed number of copies of a new book. These books can be ordered in bulk by booksellers, and when all the...
  
  , Roadracers: the Making of a Degenerate Hot Rod Flick.

DVD

A Special Edition DVD release was scheduled for December 13, 2005 but for some unknown reason never happened. Rodriguez said in an online chat what the specs were for it: "It has a ten minute film school on it, commentary and a new digital color correction i worked on for a quite a long while... it looks really good, and i remixed the sound in 5.1 and beefed up the sound on it. One of my favorite movies. I shot it in 13 days, and the making of shows how to make a feature in 13 days..."

On the director's commentary for Planet Terror

Planet Terror

Planet Terror is a 2007 American action horror film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, about a group of people attempting to survive an onslaught of zombie-like creatures as they feud with a military unit, including a go-go dancer searching for a way to use her "useless talents." The film, a...

, Rodriguez mentions that the DVD will be released very soon.

It has been released on dvd in Australia and France.