- This article is about the racing series. For the die-cast line, see NASCAR (Die-Cast Line).
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing.[1]
History[]
Cars[]
In Cars, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, Mario Andretti, and Artie Kempner all voice their vehicle counterparts in the film. H.A. Wheeler also voices Tex Dinoco in the film.
Cars: The Videogame[]
In Cars: The Videogame, Darrell Waltrip and Richard Petty come back to voice their animated counterparts, Darrell Cartrip and The King respectively, with the former being the commentator in the Piston Cup races. They are also playable but can only be used on Piston Cup-related tracks.
Cars 2[]
In Cars 2, Darrell Waltrip returns to voice his animated counterpart in the movie, along with Jeff Gordon voicing his animated counterpart, Jeff Gorvette, being voiced by Juan Pablo Montoya in the Latin American release of the film. In the French-Canadian dub of Cars 2, David Hobbscapp is also voiced by, and named after Jacques Villeneuve.
Cars 2: The Video Game[]
In Cars 2: The Video Game, Jeff Gordon returns to voice his animated counterpart in the game. Jeff Gorvette is also a playable character in most versions of the game.
Cars 3[]
In Cars 3, Jeff Gordon, Darrell Waltrip and Richard Petty return to voice their animated counterparts. Meanwhile, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Daniel Suárez and Darrell Wallace Jr. voice their brand new counterparts. Ray Evernham (Jeff Gordon's former crew chief) also appeared with an animated version of himself, known as Ray Reverham. Kyle Petty voices Cal Weathers, the nephew of The King. Junior Johnson voices the car version of himself in the film as well, and Mike Joy also lends his voice as Mike Joyride, the host of Piston Cup Talk 'Round the Clock. The pace car in the movie, Pat Traxson, is named after NASCAR crew chief, Pat Tryson.
Cars 3: Driven to Win[]
In Cars 3: Driven to Win, Darrell Waltrip once again provides his voice for his animated counterpart, however, he is only heard off-screen and is not a visible character. The game sponsored a car with a promotion with GameStop with Erik Jones driving the car at the 2017 Axalta presents the Pocono 400
Die-cast line[]
In February 2021, Mattel announced they would be making a NASCAR Pixar Cars die-cast line, featuring animated versions of some of the most famous current NASCAR drivers. The car versions of those names were Chase Racelott, Carstin "Ace" Dillon, William Byrev, Ryan "Inside" Laney, GoGo Logano, Danny Swervez, Aric Almirolling, Bubba Wheelhouse and lastly, Rowdy Revvin' Busch. They would also be releasing new Lightning McQueen, Mater, Luigi, Guido, and Jackson Storm die-casts with NASCAR paintjobs. Later on, a five-pack was made, including The King, Junior Moon, Mario Andretti, and an exclusive NASCAR variant of Cruz Ramirez.
YouTube[]
Pixar has also featured NASCAR drivers on the official Pixar Cars YouTube channel such as Austin Dillon, Hailie Deegan, Cole Custer and Austin Cindric to read stories out of the 5-Minute Racing Stories book collection and Joey Logano as the voice over for GoGo Logano in die-cast races on the channel. They have also featured Bubba Wallace, Chase Elliott, and William Byron in videos as well.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Mario Andretti, Jacques Villeneuve, and Juan Pablo Montoya competed in both NASCAR and Formula One.
- Cars 2 has the least NASCAR involvement out of all the Cars movies as Jeff Gordon, Darrell Waltrip, Jacques Villeneuve, and Juan Pablo Montoya are the only drivers from NASCAR that have voice roles in the film.
- The name of the in-universe space program, NASCA, is play on the names NASCAR and NASA.
- There have been multiple times where NASCAR race cars promoted the Cars movies.
- They also promoted Planes, despite there being no NASCAR involvement in the movie.
- NASCAR has had involvements with all three Cars games based on the films.
- The Piston Cup's name originates from the Winston Cup Series that sponsored NASCAR from 1971-2003.
- On November 17, 2022, the official NASCAR on NBC Twitter account mentioned Lightning McQueen as a "Top-five NASCAR driver of all time" and dishonorably mentioned Chick Hicks in a follow up tweet.[2]