Lightning McQueen competes to win the Piston Cup in Pixar's 2006 film Cars.
The Piston Cup is the championship trophy in the film's fictional stock-car racing series. At the beginning of the story, McQueen is a talented but self-centered rookie who finishes tied with The King and Chick Hicks after the final race of the season. The three drivers must then compete in a tiebreaker race in California.
McQueen's journey to that race is interrupted when he becomes lost and damages a road in Radiator Springs. The town's residents require him to repair the road, and his time there changes his attitude toward friendship, responsibility, and victory.
The Piston Cup is an invented name, but the racing setting draws heavily from NASCAR and American stock-car culture. It is not the same as the Dinoco sponsorship: Dinoco is a fictional racing brand, while the Piston Cup is the championship award McQueen is pursuing.