Texas 2024

Pressed for time, short recap: The one where P2 was the Death Zone and cars wrecked or spun out of P2 on four separate occasions. Widespread carnage and pit road fiascos. (Also the one where the 5 lost an entire wheel but far later in the pit cycle than one might expect, given there's only the one lugnut.) The booth was struggling HARD today, from not having stats ready to getting tongue-tied to failing royally to vibe off each other. This is not something I particularly mind--I'm someone who historically prefer the "was this filmed in someone's garage" sensibility of Fox's coverage to NBC's relative polish--but boy, it was ROUGH. First Chase win since late 2022, which was so long ago I was actually rooting for him!

I mentioned last week I had to drive a panel van for a field trip this Saturday. Good news: I turned out I did not have to drive a panel van! Bad news: It was a Chevy Traverse, LOL. My nemesis. Weird choice of information to display/not display on the dashboard (no odometer or trip miles by default?). Definitely felt heavier and boatier than my car, but that's because it is. I also tend to be a fairly light touch on the gas pedal, which did not suit this car at all--it felt like we were absolutely lugging it on the uphills, though I assume there's more power accessible; I just wasn't giving it as much as it wanted, but rather what I thought it should need. But substantially less cabin noise than my car; I think of soundproofing as a "new car" thing, which held true here. I think this was partly the number of tall people stuffed in the backseats, but boy, I could not see anything out that rear window. Bring back fishbowl windows!

going from my old car (a Dodge) to a car that puts all its stat points into safety (a Toyota) is still a little funny, even after I've had this car for going on three years soon, because sometimes I forget that my car has these additional little safety features. like tonight I got home and went to hop out of the car and I left my lights on, so the car beeps to remind me to turn them off. except I forgot it does that so I'm just sitting there like "what is it boy???" like he's Lassie about to show me danger

Hey Whipple! I hope you’re doing well and that you’re having a good week!

Here’s your weekly ask!

What do you think Sally and McQueen do to hype each other up when they have a bad day or need an ego boost?

:)

This could also apply to Flo and Ramone.

I feel like this is another one where the best examples already exist in canon. It's already in the text. We see Lightning hype Sally up on some level (bringing back the town's neon as a thank-you, after she wistfully describes the town before I-40), and see Sally do it directly at the start of Cars 3, when Lightning is weighing his options after his major wreck.

I think they ultimately vibe with each other so well because they can both be incredibly mushy-heartfelt, but also find genuine expression in sarcasm. I say "genuine expression" because they don't always use sarcasm as a veneer or distancing technique--sometimes it's a way of pulling back or not coming across as too invested, sure. But it's also just the way that words come out of them sometimes, and it's loving while also being the tiniest bit abrasive; it's not necessarily trying to hide anything. Like, Sally doesn't throw some sarcasm into her hype message because she's afraid of having a heartfelt moment with Lightning as he watches endless Doc crash videos in a dark barn in primer. It's a love language in itself; she says it because that's I love you.

Hey Whipple! I hope you’re doing good!!

No ask this week! Just wanted to say thanks for always giving such amazing insightful answers to the asks everyone sends you!

You’re a great person to have in the fandom!

That's very kind of you to say! Thank you! I don't know that I'd consider myself rightfully "in the fandom," unless watching NASCAR Cup and owning a car counts, but I did bring Lightning McQueen to a solar eclipse potluck this week, on account of him having seen the 2017 eclipse in Wyoming last time. I think he had a good time, mostly in the hands of my friend's 15-month old daughter!

Of all the fandoms I've been part of, I think Cars fandom absolutely has the most positive overall vibes and greatest generosity of spirit and genuine passion for and appreciation of both source material and especially the fanworks. <3 I feel like it's a fandom that's really here for each other, if that makes sense!

Meme: Nine people you'd like to get to know better!

I was tagged by @snurtle! Thank you!

Last song i listened to: "My Girl" by Aerosmith, which I've always assumed was about a car, but I suppose could be about a woman.

Favorite color: Deep red, though for homegoods I tend to go with blues or greens; same with clothes, except clothing also involves a lot of purple. On a car? Blaze Yellow. This is an absurd color for a car and I love it:

Look at that little inner-banana! Who put that color on a car and was like, "Oh man, that's hot. That's cool." Me, that's who.

I also think this is a great and severely underrated green:

Currently watching: At this exact moment, nothing! But I did watch the first season of Northern Exposure with my father when he came to visit.

Sweet/savory/spicy: Either sweet or savory in their turn, but I'd probably go with savory as a snack preference, and due to not liking things that are TOO sweet.

Relationship status: Trying to make local friends, I guess? I say "I guess" because I recognize and believe in the importance of having local community, but I also have very low social needs, so the idea of having to know more people than I already know is exhausting. Especially because I have non-local (or no-longer-local; I moved two years ago) friends I already vibematch really closely so hanging out doesn't feel like a social expenditure, and whom I want to keep in touch with. To say nothing of my Friends on the Internet! But I think I'm going to try to see if I can befriend the Bike People, so I can learn more about bicycles.

Current obsession: Honestly, I'm too exhausted to even think about the word "obsession" right now. ToT But I've watched a lot of bicycle videos recently, on account of doing research pre-/post-bicycle purchase. Were I not too exhausted my answer would be "MY BLEACH FANFIC."

I'll tag those who I see in my recent Activity! @sigurbjorg, @tom09sblog, @thatonelightyear, @pywackett-barchetta, @starrshot

And anyone else who wants to do it. Feel free to tag me if you do, because I love reading these when people do them!

Martinsville (1) 2024

Missed this one too due to a work event but I can’t be mad at a 1-2-3 HMS finish!

The person I was interviewing wanted me to be “more like Ezra Klein” (in response to my having shared rough notes/questions ahead of time) and ngl I spent most of the event thinking, “for someone who wanted ‘more like Ezra Klein’ it sure seems like he could have prepped himself to be more like someone Ezra Klein was interviewing!’” (That is, prepared to offer thought-out, succinct responses.) That is all to say I’m at a crossroads! Is Ross Chastain my Nemesis, or Ezra Klein?

I am very stressed and this/next week were supposed to be regular, catch-up-with-everything weeks, but now it turns out I’m ~chaperoning a field trip~ next Saturday from 9-4:30 (and I have to drive a stupid panel van. Whyyyyyy) and then covering for a coworker while she deals with a family emergency (which is certainly much more stressful and intensive than literally anything I am being asked to do) I am so tired I am so tired I am so tired I am so tired but I should be able to see Texas and whatever comes after Texas (Dega?) before missing Dover. TEXAS COME TO ME

Richmond (1) 2024

Okay, I didn't actually watch this race, but I just watched clips of the overtime. RIDICULOUS BEHAVIOR, I approve. Stellar. Beloved.

But what I really came here to say is that I've spent 30 of the last 48 hours working. (DEADLINE, MET.) I haven't showered in three days; I am starving; I need to go grocery shopping; I desperately need to vacuum. I've only left the house once since Thursday, and it was to...

Go to the car wash??????

Because it was well above freezing this weekend! I was like, "Oh no, gotta get the salt off!"

I chose to go to the car wash over taking that time to shower myself.

All I can say is, I hope my car remembers these sacrifices.

Car! Are you reading this!

COTA 2024

Did I technically watch this race? Yes.

Can I think of anything to notate for posterity? Well.

NASCAR races are generally when I do my cooking and cleaning, and I had a butter explosion in the microwave, so that was fairly involved and pretty memorable. I also have company coming!! Which meant I did a lot more cleaning than I usually do, so things are feeling very clean.

Other than that, ummmmmm, Kamui Kobayashi was here, which is always a net positive. CBell managed to turn 2 out of 2 Kyles in this race, neither of which were actually that big a deal but does give me some fodder to add to my completely baseless dislike of Christopher Bell. KyBu finally got a T10 is probably my main takeaway.

"Vehicle" for the purposes of this poll refers to cars, bicycles, etc.

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We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

Bristol (1) 2024

Absolutely bananas race from start to finish. The tire management race to end all tire management races, to a degree that surprised everyone--including Goodyear. Everyone loves tire falloff being part of the race strategy, and today was excellent for that, but everyone was still baffled by the degree.

KyBu's terrible, horrible, no good very bad year continues apace (sigh), but the 5 did a great job quietly running in the T10 all race before a loose tire violation put him to the back of the field--only to execute some miracle of tire management and pit cycles and end up P5 anyway?

Only the first five cars finished on the lead lap

54 lead changes sets a new short track record for NASCAR, displacing the earlier record of 40 (1991)

HMS led their 80,000th lap today, which I guess is a stat someone is keeping track of

Denny wins!

Hey Whipple! I hope you’re doing well!!

Here is a very positive ask I hope you like! :)

I headcanon that the ending of Cars 2006 , took place in mid November 2005.

How do you think the townsfolk, including Sally felt having him back, as a new addition to the community?

I feel like this is best answered by the movie itself!

--

As concerns the timing, one of my favorite pieces of Piston Cup lore is the series' racing calendar. In Cars 2, the 2010 season ends just before summer, which puts it off-cycle from the NASCAR season, which runs Feb-Nov. And while this isn't canon-official, I did find a Cars 1 lampshade at a thrift store once that puts the tiebreaker race in late May, which would align with Cars 2:

What's better than a Cars lampshade? Absolutely nothing--aside, perhaps, from the look the Lamps Department guy gave me when I brought it over to buy it.

Yet! In Cars 3, the Piston Cup season has shifted. Now it's aligned with NASCAR's season, with the coming season set to begin in February, in Florida.

This suggests to me that at some point during LMQ's career, the Piston Cup realized that summer produces some of the best racing weather, and the most evening daylight, and *it should be a summer sport actually* and completely overhauled the ENTIRE SCHEDULE. Which would be absolutely bananas but sounds very on-brand of them.

The King had probably been trying to turn them onto the idea for literal decades.

Phoenix (1) 2024

@the-kings-tail-fin and I actually attended this one!

Phoenix itself is a nice track--the stands are set up so as the race starts most of the seats are in the shade, which is fantastic. And it has seats, not bleachers! It was (almost) our first time at a track that wasn't in the Eastern timezone, so the early start time was enjoyable, too. (I say almost because Gateway is in Central, but one hour difference is negligible.)

My favorite thing about being at the track, aside from live nyooms, is how much control you have over the narratives that play out. You're going to see a different race than TV can give you, but it also means you can watch things that are off-story, so to speak. Which is great because that's where all my faves ran today--the Realm of Complete Irrelevance. But it was still cool to see that it was possible to pass the back half of the field, but if you got mired mid-pack that's where you stayed. If you had a really fast car, like MTJ, you could get back into nearly the T10. RCR unloaded so awful I'm not sure how Kyle Busch survived the day without combusting. He deserves so much better than what they showed up with today. And Denny, in classic Denny fashion, managed to Disaster Denny himself into mid-pack from P1/2 for most of the race prior to his spin.

I kept being like:

Upside: The 48 is not the lowest-running Hendrick car

Downside: It's the 5 lol

But somehow KL ended up the highest-finishing Hendrick car, if only because the 24 9 48 also finished like garbage, but worse garbage. Upside, although Bowman was the lowest-finishing Hendrick car, at least his teammates were with him?

We sat behind an older couple, Joey Logano fans, and when he got wrecked out they packed up and left!! We would never. Usually when we are physically present at a race our faves run mid-pack at best, or are claimed by early mis fortune. Which is honestly impressive, because my faves generally aren't mediocre--just when I'm watching!! (Denny is the only one who's ever been cool while I was watching in-person. But Denny has also been extra mediocre when I've watched, because he likes being polarizing like that.)

Flat Kyle!!

Flat Kyle has attended every NASCAR race we’ve ever been to. He has survived longer than:

Kyle Larson in the 42

CGR in NASCAR

Credit One as a team-specific sponsor

A true testament to the tenacity of cardstock and packing tape!

Hey Whipple! It’s nice to see you back! I really hope you’re doing well!!

Here’s an ask , if you don’t mind.

How do you think the RS townsfolk helped Sally after having dealt what she dealt with in LA?

I actually hadn't gone anywhere until you sent this ask, at which point I was sitting in an airport, haha. I would not expect this blog to be particularly active; my primary focus on Tumblr is actually my sideblog.

I'm not sure what you're imagining in terms of "what she dealt with" in LA, but my headcanon for her is that she was a corporate environmental lawyer. It was her job to make sure companies complied with NEPA and did all their required environmental assessments and, on the other end, handled tort law when it came to getting sued for damages. But with environmental law comes deep knowledge of history--of the highways that built LA, for example, and the communities destroyed by them--as well as frustration about the fact that NEPA doesn't require altered actions in light of the required assessment--just proof that the assessment was done. That kind of thing.

So she drives and drives and eventually she breaks down and the rest, of course, is history.

They say there are no secrets in small towns, but even if there was no anonymity of the sort you might find as one car in a big city, there wasn't a nosyness in Radiator Springs. Maybe this is an effect of having dealt with Doc in prior years. But the residents of RS never really pressed Sally about where she came from or why, just took her as she was. It's not that they weren't interested--they'd listen if she mentioned something, would ask questions. But never the sort that would require Sally to justify anything.

That's what was refreshing to her. Not having to justify every act, or thought, or want. Not feeling as though she were the one on trial, not in the courtroom but at work, everyone around her assessing or trying to measure themselves against her--the expectation that she, too, would be embroiled in the calculus of what clients might help her make partner and when.

She doesn't stop being ambitious in RS, even if that's what it would look like if she had anyone in LA she wanted to get back in touch with. She's still interested in history, and environmental justice, and throws a whole lot of ambition into the Cone, the town. We see this from the start of Cars 1, and we see RS let her do her thing, and take her as she is.

(When Lightning first careens into town, that's the last thing she wants to do, or that she thinks someone like Lightning needs. But it turns out watching him and Mater together--maybe it was, after all. Lightning needed to someone to take him as he was before he could become someone else.)

Last night I had a dream that my car was sending more power to one spark plug than the other three, and in the interest of, well, not doing that, he refused to turn on at all. Also, The Rock worked at my mechanic shop?

My car is currently sitting in a parking lot several thousand miles from where I am, so I hope he's doing okay on his own, sweet baby!!!!

Thanks for the tag, @jushiro-ukitake!

challenge -> you’re starring in a movie with the last person you saved in your camera roll and the last song you listened to is the title

At first I was like, do people... do people save photos of people onto their phones?? Like, excluding photos of people you know in your life? But it turns out I had, indeed, saved a screenshot of a person:

Congrats Matt Kenseth on running the Tokyo Marathon!

I was moved to listen to Luxury Disease, the newest album by the Japanese rock band, 1OK Rock. Here's the first song, which feels relevant to the marathon that I guess Kenseth and I are gonna run together in our big movie:

Kenseth's gonna have to carry me tho ToT

I'll tag @dreaming-about-seireitei @bijectiveandinvertible @allisonreader because I saw your names in my Activity recently and want to say hello! :)

Do you know what happens to Jackson Storm after the big race in the third movie? He kind of just disappears, and we never see what happens to him.

I don't think anything happens to him! He's just not, ultimately, what is important to Cruz or Lightning in that moment; the scene does not include him because their thoughts don't. Cars 3 is ostensibly driven by rivalry with Storm, except it's not. Even though Lightning often narrates his goals through he idea of rivals, he also regularly FORGETS that these cars are his rivals or that they exist at all (there are scenes in both Cars 1 and Cars 3 where Lightning needs to be reminded of Chick or Storm lol). Perhaps they're usual tools ("for motivation!" as Cruz would say) but it's never really about them. Anyone on the Piston Cup circuit will tell you that when you're on the track, you're racing yourself. (You may also be racing time, grief, change, the past--)

This is how race broadcasts work, too. A race might have any number of storylines playing out in the actual field, but the broadcast needs to pick a few to follow. It's a live event, and over the course of the run they likely choose wrong a few times; but when the checkered flies all the storylines drill down, essentially, to one: Who won?

The 96 team's mid-race switch, Cruz's rookie venture, her win, are all storylines that blow Storm's losing out of the water. Even Storm putting her in the wall doesn't really matter, because that's racing, that's all happened before. Cruz using the wall to flip over Storm for the win? Yeah, they'll be talking about that one for years.

I think Storm was there; that cameras just weren't for him that day. It's likely some reporters still approached him for comment, maybe for radio or print press rather than the TV broadcast, but he may have chosen not to comment. Racers do that sometimes. He probably didn't stick around. And while he probably hated all of this, seethed about it, made it very personal, the Piston Cup's storyline isn't ultimately personal to him, and it's probably a grace that everything that happened was so monumental in its own right the Piston Cup didn't need to nurture the "rivalry"storyline.

Honestly, the fact that the big story of the weekend wasn't at all about him probably spared Storm a lot of grief, because then he doesn't need to live the "rivalry" storyline for the next couple weeks, or however long it takes for the storyline of the season to shift. He's not "the guy Cruz beat" because who took second that day doesn't matter at all. And while a young racer's career is built on being able to keep your name in the headlines and your livery on screen, this time, it's good that it's not. That if you're not first you're last.

You show up to the track the next week, and it's another weekend, another race. The Florida 500, as it concerns anyone or anything that isn't Cruz Ramirez, is quickly becoming yesterday's news.

There's a whole season to race, and Storm is going to win a lot of it.