Checkered Flag Here I Come!!

I think that Mack's relationship with Lightning is, simply put, that of a hauler and a racecar! I don't think it needs an analogue. At its heart, theirs is a professional relationship--but that doesn't mean it isn't also loving.

Mack calls Lightning "Boss," but I don't think Lightning actually is... Mack's boss. Not really. Lightning doesn't own Rusteze, and judging by Mack's plates (RUSTEZ4/RUSTEZ3) he's contracted with Rusteze, not with Lightning personally. (This might change post-Cars 3, or even by Cars 3, once Lightning has more capital to his name. Despite his winning ways, I don't think Lightning is actually particularly wealthy--his being at Rusteze at all suggests he's cheap, young talent, and given the stipulations Harv rattles off re: ancillary rights unto perpetuity, etc., I don't think Lightning signed a particularly good contract. I don't think he could personally hire Mack even if it would have occurred to him to want to. Though--and this is a digression--he probably saved Rusteze a decent chunk of money with the no crew chief and no-tires-just-gas "strategy," such as it were. I also don't think Rusty and Dusty are good at money, so this was probably a vital part of keeping that race team afloat in its rookie year.)

Anyway. Rusty and Dusty are Mack's bosses, and Mack was hired to support Lightning. While Lightning can call the shots sometimes (and is effectively being chauffered around by Mack like some hotshot), I think Lightning probably defers to Mack more often than not. Mack keeps Lightning's schedule--he is the vessel that both dictates and allows Lightning to be at all the right places at all the right times, whether that's racetracks or the literal race intros or sponsor appearances. He's clearly read Lightning's contract, and knows where Lightning can and cannot push (skipping sponsor tent post-race? No. all-night canonball run to schmooze Dinoco in LA? maaaybe). He's not just blindly driving Lightning around--he's instrumental to Lightning's career.

Mack also clearly loves him--calls him Boss, whether it's true or not; would've served as his gas man even though "gas can" is not, in fact, his middle name; and unlike Not-Chuck, Mack never seemed put off by Lightning's antics. I mean, he's a good-natured guy in general. But Mack probably understood better than anyone how young Lightning was, by virtue of how much shepherding he needed and how experimental his self-spectacles tended to be, and was amenable to letting Lightning figure out who he was in a very hands-off way. Mack's not the disciplinarian; he doesn't create teachable moments; he doesn't weigh in on Lighting's behaviors. He doesn't call Lightning out or in. He knows what's in Lightning's contract, and he also knows what's in his. More to the point, he knows what's not.

They're friendly, but not friends, per se, not family; they spend time together because they work for the same company. There's a decent chance Lightning has not actually ever interacted meaningfully with another car outside of the context of work. It's all he knows, and all he's ever had. Which is sad when taken on its own, but I think that when Lightning does make friends, and does find a world outside of being racecar, then the value of his professional relationships also appreciates. Falling in love with Radiator Springs does not actually diminish Lightning's love of racing, or even his desire to win Piston Cups. LMQ loves racing, and he loves being a racecar, and I think that once it becomes clear he does not have to be lonely in order to love these things, it also becomes a lot easier for him to understand and value the professional relationships that make it possible--and to value them for exactly what they are.

Even in Cars 3, after ten years on the road together, Lightning doesn't have heart to hearts with Mack when Cruz leaves, or when he's trying to figure out what to do. He doesn't tell Mack about Smokey. That's not the relationship they have; their devotion is different. I feel like after so long on the road, Mack could easily slide into being Lightning's hairdresser-type, you know? Just chatting, semi-therapeutically. But they don't. That's not Mack's job, nor anything it's likely ever occurred to Lightning to want from him. But Mack still drives him clear to Thompsonville from Daytona, and knows exactly when they need to leave in order to make the 500 some days later. There's still a catch in his voice because he knows Thompsonville did not avail Lightning of what he (thought he) wanted.

I think what Mack and Lightning have is really lovely, because their relationship is very much defined by what's written in their contracts, and circumscribed by racetracks and the roads en route to them. These boundaries are never exceeded by either party. Yet there's love there--a particular kind of professional love, of a sort that perhaps you need just as much as the Doc kind, or the Sally kind, or the Mater kind.

Somewhere on this blog, there is a headcanon that prior to becoming a hauler for Rusteze, Mack was in the honeybee business. Every year he'd take them out to California to pollinate almonds, and then he'd drive them back to overwinter in Florida. Mack had loved the bees, he really had. He'd liked imagining their vibration inside his trailer, even though realistically that's not something could feel. Not like Lightning, 3200 pounds of (often quite animated) steel. Not like Lightning, who could say the most insane things--he was significantly more imaginative than the bees had been--without realizing that's what he was doing. Not like Lightning, who loved. Mack's not sure the bees had ever really loved something in the way that Lightning did. They'd had an animal calling, maybe. A prime directive. Mack's heard racecars can be like that. Purpose-built, hyperfocused.

Well, Lightning is like that, Mack admits. But maybe no more than Mack is. Mack is a truck, and he likes being a truck. He likes trucking. He's content to be a truck that trucks. But Lightning is not content. Lightning is not here simply to fulfill the purpose he was made for--the one that graces his every pinch-weld, cotter pin, and gasket. He'd have found his way here even if he hadn't been built this way, Mack's pretty sure. (And this surety is only confirmed when Lightning finds his way to places and cars he absolutely hadn't been built for, and absolutely loves.) Lightning loves things, and Mack sees this to be true whether Lightning knows yet what he loves, or how many things he can love, or what it means to love something that isn't already in you--isn't you.