Okay, I’m about to say something that may make many of us feel very old…but Disney and Pixar’s Cars movie was released in 2006, and that means the movie is celebrating its 20th anniversary THIS YEAR. Yep, it’s been 20 years since Cars premiered in theaters. We’ll be over here complaining about the pain in our backs, thank you very much.

Hi, Lightning McQueen!

Now, Cars is still more popular than ever, and the movie itself has had several sequels. In Disney Parks, Cars Land in Disney California Adventure is still one of Disneyland’s most popular lands, and a new Cars expansion called Piston Peak is being built in Magic Kingdom in Florida. Well, 20 years calls for a big celebration, so we had the opportunity to celebrate in the best way possible…at the Daytona 500!

Ka-chow! Yep, the Daytona 500 is celebrating 20 years of Cars. If you get a chance to visit the Daytona 500, you’ll notice that there was a Cars pop-up during the entire race weekend. If you love Cars, you don’t want to miss out.

REAL CARS!

We also discovered a lot of fun Cars-themed photo ops. That includes a chance to meet and chat with the ICONIC Lightning McQueen.

He’s there!

We also got a chance to check out some brand-new Cars merchandise. Don’t worry…if you can’t make it to the Daytona 500, you can shop this merchandise at Walmart, too.

Look at all the merchandise!

We even got to take an EXCLUSIVE tour of a garage at the Daytona 500. Y’all. This is SUPER rare, so we are STOKED. They talked us through tons of new information and secrets that we loved.

We were up close and personal!

Not only that, but we met some real-life NASCAR drivers. Like WHOA. We had the chance to speak with Daniel Suárez, who drives the No. 7 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Spire Motorsports. We got to check out so many amazing cars up close!

We got to get up close and personal with the cars!

Before the race even started, there was quite the entertainment! We got to see the Thunderbirds do a flyover, and Miranda Lambert performed. Plus, Nate Bargatze was the grand marshal, and the one and only Bart Simpson was the honorary starter. 

The crowds were out and about!

We got to be IN the pit lane when the race started, and it was such a surreal experience. We actually got to see a pit stop while standing in the pit lane, how cool?!

This is ON the track!

Then we got to watch the race from some SWEET seats. What an opportunity this is! We can’t wait to see who wins the Piston Cup… we mean, the Daytona 500.

Pit stop!

We’ll be covering even MORE cool Disney events and news, so stay tuned to DFB for more.

Uncovering the Secrets of Cars and Villains Expansions in Magic Kingdom

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Are you a Cars fan? Whose your favorite Cars character? Let us know in the comments!

Disclosure: In nearly all circumstances, Disney Food Blog writers and photographers pay full price for their own travel, hotel, food, beverage, and event tickets. We do this because it’s important to us as journalists to ensure not only that we give you unbiased opinions, but also that you can trust us to do so since we’re paying our own way. On rare occasions, when we are invited by a company to attend a preview as media, and when we choose to accept that invitation, we will always make you, our readers, aware of that situation. Today, we were invited by Disney to attend the Daytona 500 celebration of Cars’ 20th Anniversary. Note that when we attend events as media we are 1) Not required to review that event/food on any of our channels, and 2) Not required to review that event/food favorably. You can always count on DFB to give you a 100% unbiased and honest review of any event that we attend, food that we eat, or beverage that we drink. You can see more in our Disclosure Policy. Thank you for reading. — AJ