NASCAR fans may have noticed that there were a couple of extra stock cars in the Daytona 500 on Sunday. The “Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon” rendition of Jimmie Johnson’s #48 and Dale Earnhardt Jr’s #88 took some laps around the speedway during pace laps. Both cars are outfitted as some kind of futuristic NASCAR tank-like things, which go by the tile of “Wreckers,” but in all honestly we’d have to watch the movie this summer to figure out just exactly why it is that two cars from Hendrick Motorsports are involved at all.

Actually, if the plot of Transformers 3 is anything like the previous two movies, we’ll probably still have no idea why they’re involved after watching the movie but our best guess is that it has something to do with “cross-promotional marketing.”

Neither the #88 or #48 pictured here have stock car drivelines as both are actually powered by an LS motor of some sort. These cars were used extensively in filming during the summer of 2010 in Chicago.

All three of the Transformers movies have been heavily supported by GM, with the 2010 Camaro making it’s world debut in the 2007 movie as the character of “Bumblebee.” The movie this summer will likely feature another barrage of GM flavored rides, perhaps even with some good old muscle mixed in in the form of a ’68 Chevelle SS 396!