 Successful rookie racer Lightning McQueen has, to his pleasure, just won a 3-way tie with elder rival Chick Hicks and champ "The King", but is also proud and unappreciative of long-time (mostly older) supporters enough to have his ignored pit-crew desert him. Accidentally lost en route to California for the tie-breaker, he crashes through Radiator Springs on Route 66, destroying the road and some property. Forced to remain in town until he repairs them, he s stuck in a small community whose tight-knit inhabitants accept neither his selfishness nor bad attitude. Refusing to respect them initially, he eventually returns the friendship of redneck Mater and falls in love with Sally, but can t seem to get gruff Doc Hudson, who keeps a painful secret, to change his mind about him. Soon Lightning learns the inhabitants of the town as a whole, who are almost a secret to the outside world, also had a past now painfully absent, and tries to help them enjoy it once more.