Fast Company (1979) review

Professional drag racer Lonnie Johnson (William Smith) gets into a tiff with his boss Phil (John Saxon) over his 'reckless' behavior (and drinking) so Phil plots against him - meanwhile, Lonnie's grooming his apprentice Billy (Nicholas Campbell) to become the next "superstar."  If you look at Cronenberg's resume, this corny B-movie with some iffy acting has to be the oddball in the group and yet the way his camera ogles those car parts (in close-up) and how he has Billy pouring motor oil over a groupie's bare breasts ... you can see the (relatively sanitized) groundwork laid out for his adaptation of J.G. Ballard's Crash around seventeen years later.  The terrible theme song by Michael Stanley (which gets played quite often) must have been an influence on Trey Parker's 'vocal stylings': Canada, heck yeah!