I am no stranger to fan projects. It can be a good starting point for aspiring writers. My second entry for the American Songwriter song contest is for the rock category, and is in many ways both a fan tribute and a fan reimagining.
Presenting: Lightning In The Fast Lane
Based on deleted scenes by Pixar Animation Studios.
There is quite a bit of a backstory behind this song.
During the production of the 2006 Disney Pixar film Cars, there was going to be a scene in which the protagonist Lightning McQueen has a nightmare that his engine was transplanted into the body of a steamroller and he is forced to pave roads as one. The scene basically implies that in the Cars universe, their engine is the seat of their soul. The scene esculates when the rusted tow truck Mater has his own engine transplanted in McQueen’s body and then goes joyriding in it, causing McQueen to worry and fret that Mater will crash his body and wreck it. Mater tells McQueen he’s just “borrowing your body” and that he’ll “give it back when you’re done.” But quickly has second thoughts when Mack arrives to pick up McQueen and take him to the Los Angeles International Speedway – not knowing that it is actually Mater in McQueen’s body – where Mater presumably wins the Piston Cup in McQueen’s place. The nightmare ends with McQueen screaming at his predicament of paving roads for all eternity, “He’s stealing my body! He’s stealing my life!”
This deleted scene, along with several others, were included on the Cars DVD as bonus features. The scene was was titled Community Service. It never made it past the storyboard phase, but the scene has since been animated in Pixar-accurate computer graphics by Willian A.
I always thought premise behind this Community Service deleted scene had enough material in it to carry an entire sequel. Bodyswapping, identity theft, McQueen’s endgoal of getting his body back. Unable to ignore the ideas, beginning in late 2024, I began brainstorming a screenplay based on this scene. I had no intention of writing it as a fan fiction project, but something I hoped to pitch to Pixar. Cars 4 perhaps?
Because of their established friendship throughout the Cars franchise, the original idea of Mater stealing McQueen’s body and identity wouldn’t have worked. So I came up with an original antagonist to be the perpetrator. Enter: Rev Vanguard, a blue Dodge Viper GTS-R racer whose promisingly career ended in horrific crash at Glen Ellen racetrack indirectly caused by McQueen’s antics. Consumed with vengence, Vanguard kidnaps McQueen and puts his engine in a steamroller: slow, cumbersome, incapable of racing, specifically selected to make McQueen feel what Vanguard lost after his career-ending crash. He then puts his own engine in McQueen’s body and assumes his identity.
By August 2025, I had written quite a few scenes or otherwise ideas building on this premise. What I did not know at the time was that Pixar had apparently already revisited the identity theft premise! On August 9th 2025, a deleted scene from Cars 3 leaked from Pixar storyborder John Hoffman’s website. Titled McQueen is Discovered, this scene revealed that the film was originally going to have an identity theft plotline.
In this alternate Cars 3, a lonely blue sedan named Gerald Carr spent his miserable existence living in his abusive grandmother’s basement. She never gave him any presents on Christmas day and constantly berated him, calling him a “dipstick” and “waste of metal” whilst simulatenously fawning over McQueen and unfairly compared her grandson to him, “Why couldn’t you be more like him, Gerald? Make something with your life!” Presumably, this drove (pun unintended) Carr to insanity and compelled him to kidnap McQueen and swap bodies with him, so he could steal the respect that his grandmother always had for him. No steamrollers this time around.
I’m still completely shocked by the similarities of what I was developing in my screenplay and what Pixar was originally going to do for Cars 3. Their motivations may differ, but not their means of achieving their same goals. Both steal McQueen’s body and identity. Even the colour scheme they gave Gerald Carr was similar to what I gave Rev Vanguard! My original antagonist ultimately became my reinterpretation of Pixar’s deleted antagonist.
Lightning In The Fast Lane is a reimagining of those two deleted scenes, told from the perspective of Lightning McQueen after his engine was transpanted into a steamroller by Gerald Carr who then stole his identity.