bowsersnutsack:

the-kings-tail-fin:

As has become apparent, we all know that Lightning is a huge racing nerd. He knows all about the legends, and has from a very young age. Honestly, he’d be a little embarrassed to admit just how much he knows. It’s that much.

That being said, I don’t think that any one racer stood out to him as a young car. He just wanted to be like all of them, to be mentioned among them. That’s all he wanted, and he was going to try his hardest to get there.

I think there’s a blip in the Cars 3 bonus behind the scenes extra stuff that show a young Lightning in the stands at a race, watching Strip and Chick duel it out. I thought that was kind of cool. The combination of seeing the best of the best in person, so close to the action you can feel it, it’s a powerful thing. I think that while maybe they weren’t directly inspirations for Lightning, their presence had some effect on him. They were the ones that made him push himself to be the best whenever his rookie season rolled around. If he could keep up with them, he would one day be mentioned among the legends.

the-kings-tail-fin:

Of course they tried to cheer him up – they’re not just gonna let him suffer on his own. But Lightning didn’t want their help. He was far too busy wallowing in his own misery and contemplating his future.

When he finally got fixed up and returned to Radiator Springs, the townsfolk were almost overwhelming. They wanted to make sure that he knew that they’d do whatever they possibly could for him, and while that’s great, they couldn’t do the two things he needed most – to make him the best of the best again, and to bring Doc back. And thus he cut himself off. He needed to mend, but he had to do so on his own terms. 

To the townsfolk, it looked as though he was dealing with depression of sorts – which I’m sure the midlife crisis was part of it, but they didn’t understand the true depth of what was going on in his mind. Mater couldn’t understand why Lightning didn’t want to go out and try to have fun anymore. Flo would bring drinks by every now and then just to find that he hadn’t touched the previous ones. Sally just wanted to talk, not necessarily about anything important, but something to feel his presence again. But Lightning didn’t want that. He needed time to come to his senses.

Likewise, a few of his racing friends tried to reach out, despite dealing with their own struggles. I mean, they’d only gotten fired – they’d not had a life threatening wreck. Cal and Brick both tried calling, but McQueen never answered. They and a few others wrote some short letters that Lightning never got around to opening. He just didn’t want to be bothered. It wasn’t personal, and he did eventually follow up after the events of Cars 3, but in that four months of recovery time, he had to rediscover himself first.

spikedmauler: