Cars premiered on May 26, 2006 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, and was released on June 9, 2006, to positive reviews.
The film begins with the last race of the Piston Cup championship, which ends in a three-way tie between retiring veteran Strip "The King" Weathers, infamous runner-up Chick Hicks, and rookie Lightning McQueen. The tiebreaker race is scheduled for one week later at the fictional Los Angeles International Speedway in California. Lightning is desperate to win the race, since it would allow him to leave the unglamorous sponsorship of Rust-Eze, a rust treatment for old cars, and allow him to take The King's place as the sponsored car of the lucrative Dinoco team. Eager to start practice in California as soon as possible, Lightning pushes his big rig, Mack, to travel all night long.
While McQueen is sleeping, the exhausted Mack drifts off and is startled by a gang of reckless street racers, causing McQueen to fall out the back of the truck into the road. McQueen wakes in the middle of traffic, and speeds off the highway to find Mack, ending up in the run-down town of Radiator Springs and inadvertently ruining the pavement of its main road.
- CARS Official Trailer