The town road races have an unusual air of forgiveness to them. As is often the case in a road race, turns come quickly and make it easy to drive off-course. Rather than making the erroneous turns a hindrance to gamers and forcing them to find their way back on the road, the game gives a full three seconds to get back on course. If you fail to do so, the game quickly teleports you back onto the course; either with the same lead as before, or more often with a mind-boggling few seconds jump over the other racers. This turns off-course goofs into secret weapons for easy wins.
The other events get a little more inventive; including controlling Mater in a clever mini-game involving tipping tractor, and racing down speeding cars as a cop car. The most frustrating aspect of the game is the repetition of the mini-games. Each level passed gains a trophy point or two, needed to unlock Piston Cup races to progress the story. Unfortunately, the game does not stick to the seemingly lone requirement of a set number of trophy points to unlock a race, as gamers can see the requirement met, but have the race still locked until they complete the event unknowingly tied to the race.
The on-screen mini-map might be the most anger-inducing feature of the game. At a certain point players will unlock two additional areas to travel to, Ornament Valley and Tailfin Pass. Unfortunately, while the game does mention that you have unlocked the areas, getting to the new sections is a rather difficult feat. At the point when gamers have nothing left to do in Radiator Springs, the mini-map does not show a white circle indicating the need to travel outside of your hometown. Rather, the player must pull up the large map by hitting 'Back', and then figuring out from a completely different-looking cartoon map how to get to the other area.
Once the Piston Cup races have been unlocked, Lightning is free to begin his quest for the title against some incredibly easy opponents. Rather than the in-town five-car races, Piston Cup races are against a field of twenty racers, but the competition is no more difficult. Since your boost is unavailable during Cup races, a handful of the cars will keep you in check by frequently zipping past you to take a brief lead before you retake them after a lap. The rest of the cars are there as moving obstacles, but rather than impeding your progress through the race they are more wisely used as blockers to loose tailing racers.
In addition to the extra cars thrown into the mix for Piston Cup races, the game adds pit stops to the equation. In a more simulation-based race game, this would be a strategic point requiring careful thought as to when to pull in for a stop. Cars removes any need for strategy, as you are told when to pit. Gamers can blow off the pit stop request for an extra lap around the track, but there is no added risk or reward for doing so. At the stop, you are asked to complete a few simple mini-games (usually consisting of hitting a few buttons in rapid succession) to speed up the pit stop tasks and get you back on the track quickly. Regardless of what place you enter the pit, you seemingly always end up in first place upon your return to the track. Since the pit stops generally happen with a few laps remaining in the race, it makes for a smooth ride to victory lane for each event.
The Cup races are all held on a generic bland oval track, with the only difference being either the time of the race or a slightly longer straight-away section on a few of the tracks. While NASCAR races usually run on such tracks, they do have the occasional road race. The inclusion of a slightly different track for the Cup races would have added at least some excitement to the events. The lighthearted and fun commentary is a nice listen for the first race or so, but gets repetitive and wears out its welcome quickly.
