The stories they say you can’t make up are too often stories you wouldn’t want to make up. In 2001 the racecar driver Michael Waltrip won the Daytona 500 for the first time. This was also the very first NASCAR Cup race he had ever won, breaking a 462-race losing streak. At this Daytona 500, however, a crash took the life of Dale Earnhardt Sr. The racing legend was not just a good friend to Waltrip — he was also a mentor who in several respects enabled his victory. Waltrip was part of Earnhardt’s driving team; Earnhardt’s company owned the car with which Waltrip won the race.

In “Blink of an Eye,” directed by Paul Taublieb , Waltrip, who wrote a book about the race with Ellis Henican and is now a racing commentator for Fox Sports, sits in front of some gorgeous automobiles to reflect on his life, and on that bittersweet victory. The world of auto racing, particularly in the American South, is fascinating: the machinery, the money, the hardscrabble origins of the drivers, who are often literal family as well as brothers in arms.