Disclaimer: Well if you have read the other two chapters then you know that this chapter is unbetaed so please let me know if you find an error so that I can get it fixed. Thanks.

The Language of the Track

To say that McQueen loved dirt would be an understatement. He loved the feeling of his tires when they dug into the grit and the way the dust billowed behind him as he drifted across hard packed soil. But most of all he loved the fact that dirt had given him a second chance to do the thing that he loved most. Because while he didn't have the speed the keep up with the next generation of racers on the concrete and asphalt speedways, dirt was the racer's great equalizer.

In the year since he had formally retired from the top tier of asphalt round-track racing, McQueen had had the opportunity to fly across all sorts of tracks. He had fought to keep traction on grass and dug into the sand. Spun out on while ice racing and careened across a board track. He had even had an opportunity to try to clock his best speed gunning his engine across the Bonneville Salt Flats. Somewhere along the way, McQueen discovered that while exhibition races may lack extreme speeds were challenging to satisfy his itch for competition.

The fact that he was still technically racing didn't change the fact there was another vehicle wearing the Rusteze Red and the #95 driving around the big fast tracks, which was always kind of unnerving for McQueen. He had to keep himself from double talking every time caught the new Rusteze car in the corner of his eye. It didn't matter that Carlos was a great guy, it was just weird to see someone else in your paint…not that it was technically his paint anymore. Tex had let his newest exhibition racer stay in his Hudson Tribute paint. Midnight Blue with the Fabulous Lightning McQueen picked out in white and gold.

When McQueen wasn't representing Rusteze in the rapidly growing dirt track competition, Tex had also let McQueen continue to coach Cruz. The pair of them had allowed team Dinoco to dominate winner's podium. Even in practice, the younger racer had long outpaced him on the asphalt straight away which did tweak McQueen's pride a bit…though his ruffled muffler was soothed by the fact that when it came skill challenges he could still leave Cruz in the dust.

In many ways, it was the fact that skill could still win against speed that had made McQueen the elder statesman of the racing world. While vehicles no longer expected him to win every race, Lightning had an uncanny ability to read the track and to remain in complete control when a lesser car would already be in the tulips. And as long as McQueen could still push the envelope of racing skill, he wasn't going to be ready to hang up his Lightyears.

So every morning as the sun came up across the desert, Lightning would find himself once again hitting the track. Once again digging his tires into the dirt and pushing his engine to its absolute limit. After all, the Japanese had invented something called drift racing, and Piston Cup champion thinks he would like to give it a try.

End Note: Huge thanks to everyone who read and enjoyed this story. While I was doing the researcher for this piece it was really fascinating to learn that most cars max out at 160 miles an hour on a dirt track because of the difficulty of the driving surface. After watching McQueen almost hit 200 miles an hour in the movie I couldn't help but think that Lightning had clearly missed his calling when he started racing on asphalt and getting pushed out of that circuit basically means that he has a chance for an amazing second career. Thank you again for reading this story and I hope that you will join me on future adventures.