Wasnt that the Cannonball Run? Seem to remember Burt Reynolds did quite well.
That guy with the long name who's car keeps going wrong is right - its absolutely massive in the US. Whenever i have been there and its in season its everywhere. I was in The ESPN zone in vegas which has 50 tv screens and of these around 40 were dedicated to NASCAR. The remainder had golf and baseball on. TBH they go crazy for all US based sports, the NBA playoffs were on when i was stuck at LAX one time and the people would not leave the airport untill it had finished. There is also a bar in the Sahara casino entirely dedicated to NASCAR, and an M&M sponsered car in M&M world (which i took a photo of with a beanie scooby on the bonnet). No other motorsport gets a look in, especially F1 which is seen as a very small minority sport.
I think its shown on sky sports but if you subscribe to Setanta you also get the North American Sports Network which shows all yank sports such as college (american) football which is also surprisingly popular and makes a fortune in betting. The only trouble is as sky repeats things so much it can be chronologically confusing at times.