This story starts out with McQueen racing in the Piston Cup while pitted against his old racing friends. On the final lap of one race, Jackson Storm appears out of nowhere on the track, roaring past McQueen to win. Storm continues to win race after race throughout the season, and many veteran racers are prompted to retire or are fired by their sponsors to make room for the next generation. During the final race of the season in Los Angeles, Lighting sends himself into a dangerous crash. The gang are all shocked in horror to see McQueen's crash. The film's premise revolves around McQueen recovering from the crash that happened earlier and being trained by Cruz Ramirez during the offseason in hopes of returning to his racing career. His main motivation to return to racing is to be able to enter the Florida 500 race and defeat Storm, after being given an ultimatum by new sponsor Sterling to permanently retire to a life as a paid spokesperson if he loses his next race.