Radiator Springs Racers combines elements of both "dark" and thrill rides, taking riders around Ornament Valley and through Radiator Springs before sending them on a high-speed race to the finish line. Start your engines! The ride of your life is about to begin! Rocket through the desert landscape of Ornament Valley in a thrilling auto racing competition that includes some of your favorite locations and characters from the Disney-Pixar movie Cars.
Before you hit the open road, you'll stroll through the original settlement of Radiator Springs. See how Stanley capitalized on a natural cold spring and built a series of ingenious attractions - like a "pull up and fill-up" coolant station, a building made entirely out of empty oil bottles and the Comfy Cavern Motor Court - that grew into the lovely town we know today.
The attraction features third-generation Test Track technology, an attraction located at Epcot in Walt Disney World. Radiator Springs Racers is themed to the fictional world from Disney-Pixar's Cars. The attraction is the most expensive to be built in the entire Disneyland Resort, one of the most expensive attractions Disney has ever built, and one of the most expensive theme park attractions in the world at an estimated cost of over $200 million, which took up about 18% of the entire cost of the $1.1 billion expansion plan for Disney California Adventure Park. The attraction takes guests in a six-person vehicle through a briefing with Doc and Lighting McQueen, characters from the film Cars. Suddenly, guests find themselves racing another guest vehicle through hairpin turns and steep banks, ending with a randomized race result.
Ride Experience
Walking past the courthourse, the queue goes through some of the original buildings of Radiator Springs when Stanley first opened his Stanley's Oasis business at the natural Radiator Springs that provided the town's name and enter the old hotel he set up in Taillight Caverns. Guests board their ride vehicle and are taken on an idyllic drive through Ornament Valley Range.
The journey begins peacefully enough, as you board a 6-person car for a scenic road trip through Ornament Valley, including a drive by the valley's famous plunging waterfall, Radiator Falls.
Next, you'll head towards the town of Radiator Springs and along the way you'll encounter some familiar faces - including Lightning McQueen, Mater, Sally, Luigi, Guido, Mack, Ramone and Doc Hudson - who will welcome you to the big race and help you along the way. Well, they'll mostly help you; Mater is known to recruit newcomers to participate in one of his favorite activities, tractor tipping. To get you ready for the race, you'll fine-tune your car at either Luigi's Casa Della Tires or Ramone's House of Body Art. You'll want to ride multiple times to see both!
For the thrilling conclusion of the attraction, you'll be pitted against another car filled with Guests for a friendly competition to see who can get to the checkered flag first. Zip over hills, zoom around high-banked turns, and cruise down camelback straightaways past spectacular red-rock formations. While there is only one winner, everyone is sure to have a great time - just like in the movie Cars, it's about the journey, not the finish line!
Touring Tips
- Lightning McQueen and Mater take turns greeting visitors outside the Cozy Cones on Route 66, and Red the fire engine usually hangs out on the path to "a bug's land," so children not tall enough to ride can still meet some of their favorite Cars characters up close.
- Though the ride has a bank of Fastpass machines tucked inside a "garage" near the attraction's entrance, a second bank of machines installed near the entrance of a bug's land will be used instead this summer to help prevent crowding inside Cars Land.
- Like the other Cars Land rides, the Radiator Springs Racers queue is fully accessible to wheelchairs and ECVs, but riders must be able to transfer from their chair to the ride vehicle. The ride has a separate loading area for guests who need a little more time, with a system that sends two cars onto a spur track.
Facts
- Opened on June 15, 2012.
- The queue centers around Stanley's Oasis, which was built around a spring that formed the original settlement of Ornament Valley. Buildings in the queue, staged to look like roadside stands, provide additional details and serve as an interesting distraction during the wait.
- The first portion of the ride evokes the scene from Cars when Sally led Lightning McQueen on a drive to see the Wheel Well Motel. While you don't visit that Cars landmark itself, you ride around Willy's Butte and drive past Radiator Falls, as the onboard audio plays the "McQueen and Sally" theme Randy Newman wrote for the Cars soundtrack.
- The towering Cadillac Range mountains serve as a majestic backdrop for Radiator Springs Racers. Car aficionados will notice that the 6 mountain peaks resemble the tail fins of classic Cadillac models from 1957 to 1962.
- The mountains are inspired by the iconic Cadillac Ranch public art installation located along Route 66 near Amarillo, Texas. Cadillac Ranch features 10 vintage Cadillac automobiles with their front halves buried in the ground. The installation was created in 1974 by artists Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez, Doug Michel - known collectively as Ant Farm.
History
Radiator Springs Racers was part of an expansion of the original park boundaries and is in an area that was previously part of the Timon guest parking lot. The attraction, along with the rest of the Disney California Adventure multi-year expansion, was announced on October 17, 2007. However, the first indication of the attraction and the new land was some concept art published in the Dreaming section of The Walt Disney Company's 2006 annual report. By late 2009, construction on the attraction and the land within had begun, taking 2.5 years to build. Ride testing began in early 2012 with soft openings beginning in the spring. The ride officially opened to the public on June 15, 2012 with lines up to six hours. Radiator Springs Racers was one of the most expensive attractions ever constructed in the Walt Disney Company's history.
Hidden Mickeys
- There is a Classic Mickey hidden within Stanley & Lizzie's wedding photo. The framed photograph hangs inside Stanley's Cap 'N' Tap, part of the Radiator Springs Racers queue.
- In the Radiator Springs Racers Queue there is a old piece of equipment, perched high on one of the shelves in the queue, features a gauge with a miniature Classic Hidden Mickey.
- After leaving Guido's Casa Della Tires showroom for the big race, racers pass a pinstripped Mickey hidden on a large tool chest.
- A Mickey has been hidden along the power lines that hang over Route 66 in Radiator Springs.
- As racers get a new paint job in Ramone's House of Body Art, a pinstripped Hidden Mickey appears on a fuse box on the shop's wall.
- There are seven custom painted hoods on display in Ramone's. Each hood features a classic Mickey hidden somewhere within the paint job. This custom Ramone's hood is located inside, just behind the register counter.