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, hes 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 cant 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.