#rusteze

All from today

Francesco Bernoulli (white base)

"Ka-ciao Francesco !"

Ruste-ze Racing Center Lightning McQueen.

All Cars 3 McQueen's paintjobs (excluding Fabulous one)

The King

McQueen helps The King finish his last race before retirement (poorly recreated)

The Piston Cup (Cars 1)

The King with Piston Cup

Lightning McQueen with Piston Cup

i was gonna draw Miguel but i gave up 😔

Pride Masterlist

he runs races in kingman at the local track, towing his car on a trailer behind his good ol’ 75’ chevy k10.

its familiar for him. he used to race these cars, he used to race against young drivers and old drivers alike — sometimes, he even got a chance to race against real cup drivers. those were the coolest days of his life at the time.

he recalls the victories and the championships he won in his years as a super late model racer, the only childhood pictures he has being the ones from when he was 15-17 that hang on the wall of macks truck with such intense pride. the idea brings him nostalgia, and the very real realization that he can afford to build a new one — his old one sitting comfortably in the rusteze racing museum — and, since hes done working on his truck, he has all the time in the off season to waste.

his first order of business is a chat with rusty and dusty to work out a sponsor deal.

rusty and dusty are excited at the idea, but being a primary sponsor IS expensive.. so, they tell him that they’d be willing to partner with tex to work out some sort of team and dual primary situation. they KNOW tex has always wanted to sponsor lightning, so why cant he do it now on his lower league car?

tex is delighted by this idea. he gives lightning funds to build the car, as well as works with rusteze to make a middle ground, hot paint scheme that’ll ignite the track and catch everyones eye.

once he has all the materials, his second order of business is putting everything together.

having been his own mechanic for quite a while before his radiator springs racing team came in, he knows the inside and outside of his car like the back of his hand. with minimal instructions, hes got the chassis and frame together in less than a week.

he never told doc about any of this — so imagine the mans surprise when he steps into his garage one morning, lightning is still asleep inside, and he finds the skeleton of a brand new racecar propped up on a bunch of cinder blocks.

he interrogates lightning, finally getting a confession of ‘oh, right…. uhhh wanna be my crew chief in a second series now?’, and he agrees. he helps lightning build the car too, happy father-son bonding time as they discuss what this kind of racing would look like as doc isnt too familiar. when theyre done, ramone paints her, and she’s ready to be entered in a race.

tex essentially covered the entire cost of the car itself, all lightning has to do is pay the small fee of entering it into the local track and everything is settled..

these races turn into a sort of therapy for him. he can race without all the big crowds, and he can have more personal connections with fans this way. it brings the track in kingman more publicity.

lightning is LOVED by the owners of the track. he decides it’d be in his best interest to do autograph signings and fan days there, bringing the track more publicity and more funding — cause all money from these events goes right to them.

aside from that, lightning also cant find it fair for him, a cup driver, to be racing against younger people and teams that arent as wealthy.. each win he gets there results in donation of the money.

sometimes he gives the money to second or third place finishers/their team, depending on who wants it. other times, he donates the winnings to the 50/50 raffle right before its called and he ups the pool — hell, sometimes he’ll just straight up donate the money to a local charity or school. on some random and perhaps slightly rare occasions he gives the money back to the track. its nothing against them, obviously, but he donates a ton already and he thinks other people should get chances — and they completely understand.

the only thing he would ever keep from these wins are his trophies, and even if he doesnt run ever race or he doesnt win every race, being able to get trophies reminiscent of those from his beginnings in the sport brings a smile to his face.

but… imagine one race he just gets Walled. it’s bad. his car is fucked and suddenly the world is spinning — as his car rolls down onto the apron of the track and the caution lights come on, he makes a poor attempt at crawling out of the car. its ends up with him half-sprawled across the pavement trying to remove his helmet and firesuit, racecars going by at a still high speed just meters away from his head.

it sucks, its stupid — the impact broke a bone in his knee and hip that he’d already experiences issues with from a past crash from a similar situation.. he doesnt wanna admit hes hurt, so, he avoids as much contact with medical services and doc, and just insists he’ll walk off the godawful limp hes fighting with — the one sending shudders and tremors through his whole body with each new step he takes — and he wants to fix his car.

A few years after his and Cruz's joint victory, Lightning McQueen finally made the decision to slow down. He took himself off of the track after he finally came to terms with the rapid advancement of the world of racing. However, it was impossible to keep him away from the pits. He spent all of his time focusing on making sure Cruz had all of the support that she needed to better herself both on and off the track. In essence, he became a guardian to her. It was a role that he shared with her Sponsor, Tex Dinoco.

Tex had made sure to look after Cruz since the day he invited her into a sponsorship with Dinoco, but he felt just as responsible for McQueen as he did for her. He had watched him traverse his career, transforming cockiness into kindness and humility. He could not have been more proud of the boy, and he knew that Cruz could not have a better crew chief.

After a race involving another win for Ramirez and the compulsory celebrations that followed, Tex gave Lightning the Rusteze training centre. Lightning was absolutely blown away by this gesture, but Tex simply held a calm and gentle demeanour, stating he wanted him to do good things with the new position as CEO. And Lightning promised to do just that.