The Piston Cup is the main championship racing series in Pixar’s Cars films.
Lightning McQueen competes in the Piston Cup during the first film. The championship is modeled broadly on American stock-car racing, especially NASCAR, with oval-track events, sponsor liveries, pit crews, and celebrity drivers.
The Piston Cup is named after its trophy, and its most famous sponsor is Dinoco. Lightning begins the story focused almost entirely on winning the championship, but his experiences in Radiator Springs teach him to value teamwork and relationships.
The World Grand Prix in Cars 2 is a separate international racing competition, so the two are easy to mix up. Cars 3 returns to the Piston Cup world as Lightning struggles against high-tech rookie Jackson Storm. The series therefore provides the franchise’s recurring competitive framework even when individual films change genre or setting.