Lightning McQueen enters the fictional Piston Cup championship in Pixar's Cars.
At the beginning of Cars, McQueen is a rookie race car competing for the Piston Cup. He finishes a three-way tie in the season finale with Chick Hicks and The King, forcing a tiebreaker race in California. His journey to that race is interrupted when he becomes stranded in Radiator Springs.
The Piston Cup is modeled on American stock-car racing, especially the visual language of NASCAR. It is not a real motorsport championship, but the films treat it as the premier racing series in their fictional world. The cup itself is named after the mechanical piston and is presented as the season's most important trophy.
Cars 2 shifts attention to the World Grand Prix, an international event with a different format. Cars 3 returns to the Piston Cup and explores McQueen's changing place within it. The Dinoco sponsor is connected to the championship but is not the championship's name.