Keanu Reeves, star of franchises such as The Matrix and John Wick and, by all accounts, one of Hollywood’s genuine good guys, has never shied away from his petrolhead status. He co-founded Arch, a custom motorbike manufacturer, has owned a host of Porsche 911s, and last year presented an excellent documentary exploring Brawn GP’s fairytale 2009 F1 championship win.
And this weekend, the 60-year-old, who’s somehow managing to defy the ageing process, will take to the track in a Toyota GR86 in a proper competitive race.
Reeves is racing in the GR Cup North America, a one-make series that utilises a lightly modified version of Toyota’s fantastic (and sadly dead in Europe) rear-drive sports car. It’s on the support bill for the GT World Challenge America championship, which this weekend is paying a visit to the fabled Indianapolis Motor Speedway in, erm, Indianapolis.
Much like the similar Mazda MX-5 Cup, the low power, chuckable nature of these cars makes the GR Cup a hugely exciting series to watch, and we have to imagine even more exciting to participate in.
Toyota GR Cup racing
It won’t be Reeves’ first brush with racing, though. When Toyota was a title sponsor for IndyCar’s annual visit to the Long Beach street circuit in California, it held the Pro/Celebrity Race, a yearly invitational race that saw a mixed field of celebrities and pro drivers race in whatever Toyota’s littlest sports car happened to be at the time.
Reeves won the celebrity class in that race in 2009, and returned as a pro the following year, driving a Scion tC in both instances. This weekend’s race will consist of a similarly mixed field, including Cody Jones of YouTube channel Dude Perfect. We recommend nobody tries to take Reeves’ car off him – it didn’t end too well when someone tried that with his Mustang.
