In Pixar's Cars 3, Lightning McQueen's first Piston Cup season was in 2006.
Cars 3 uses Lightning's career history to show how much time has passed since the original Cars. The first film, released in 2006, introduced him as a rookie competing for the Piston Cup. By the third film, he is an established champion whose career is threatened by the arrival of technologically advanced racers such as Jackson Storm.
The year 2006 also has a notable Pixar connection: it is the release year of the first Cars feature. Lightning's career chronology is therefore closely associated with the franchise's real-world beginning, even though the Cars universe does not always provide a detailed calendar for every event.
This fact is easy to confuse with 1995, the year Toy Story was released and the origin of Lightning's number 95. The number on his sides is not the year of his first Piston Cup season. Cars 3 instead presents him as a veteran of a racing career that began with the original film's rookie season.