Call Back / Cars 3

• The film opens the same way as the original film - a black screen intercut with footage of racing cars, while McQueen goes through his pre-racing ritual.
• During the Demolition Derby, Lightning tells Cruz to "turn right to go left", a teaching Doc gave him in the first film. Much like Lightning at that time, Cruz doesn't see any sense in his words.
  • During the Crazy 8 race, one of the racers flips and lands upside down on top of another car, much like in the opening race of the first film.
• When Cruz reveals her idolization of McQueen, she says she used to watch him "flying through the air", referencing when Lightning leaped through the smoke during the pile-up in the first movie.
  • A picture of the scene itself can be seen at the museum in the Rust-eze Racing Center and on Smokey's bulletin board.
• Mater is in the pits watching all of McQueen's races, showing that McQueen kept his promise.
• Luigi starts Lightning and Cruz's beach race and later their first driving lesson together the same way he started the race with Lightning and Doc in the first film.
• Just before Lightning's crash, one of his back tires explodes and he swerves dangerously, like what happened at the Dinoco 400 in the first film (though he lost his left tire then, here he lost his right).
• The last thing Lightning says before his crash is "NO!"; in the second film, Rod "Torque" Redline said the same thing just before the Lemons make him burn to death.
• The Florida 500 has many parallels to the Los Angeles tiebreaker race:
  • The race begins with Lightning in the far back.
  • Lightning struggles to maintain the lead.
  • Lightning is distracted with flashbacks of his experience with someone else.
  • A crew chief makes a surprise appearance (Smokey for Lightning, Lightning himself for Cruz).
  • Lightning willingly resigns from the race halfway through to let Cruz take over under his number, like when he gave up first place to Chick in order to help The King after his crash.
  • After Cruz takes over, she has to beat the pace car so she isn't a lap down, like how Lightning did after getting his rapid fire pit stop from Guido.
  • When Lightning skids onto the infield on the last lap, he uses Doc's "turn right to go left" technique to take the lead. When Cruz is rammed into the wall by Jackson on the last lap, she uses Doc's "flip over the racer" technique from Smokey's flashback to overtake Jackson and win.
  • After she wins the Florida 500 for Lightning, Cruz turns down the offer to race for Sterling and resigns as a trainer, and chooses to race for Dinoco instead. In the first film, Lightning willingly turns down the Dinoco sponsorship in favor of Rust-eze, having learned the film's moral.
  • After the tiebreaker race, Doc says to Lightning, "You've got a lot of stuff, kid." Following the Florida 500 after Lightning wins his bet with Sterling and Cruz being surrounded by the paparazzi, he quotes to himself, "Kid's got a lot of stuff...eh, Doc?".
  • Lightning is offered the Dinoco sponsorship even though he lost, but turns it down and keeps Rust-eze. Following the fact he won his bet with Sterling after being considered a winner along with Cruz, Lightning decides to continue racing. In addition, both decisions are followed by a request being fulfilled, though not word-per-word (Mater riding in the Dinoco helicopter, Lightning signing as Cruz's crew chief for the rest of the season).
  • Lightning shows up in a different paint job in the final scene following each race (his half racing, half Radiator Springs getup in the first, his "Fabulous Lightning McQueen" getup in the third), both of which he wears throughout the Credits Montage.
• Lightning FINALLY is part of racing under Dinoco's banner, a goal he'd looked forward to in the first film... since Rust-Eze is now a wholly-owned subsidiary OF Dinoco!
• The press conference following the Gears and Glory 450 is virtually similar to the press conference following the Tokyo race of the World Grand Prix in Cars 2. The rival Lightning competed against (Jackson here, Francesco then) won first place and is being interviewed, and he proceeds to insult him with a random statement. Lightning even rolls his eyes and responds with a scoff followed by "You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!", just before sneaking away to attain to something else, similar to his reaction in the past film.
• Lightning's shocked reaction right when he is about to crash is similar to said reaction during the Willy's Butte race in the first film when he is about to hit the cactus.
• At the end of the film, during Lightning and Cruz's first driving lesson together at Willy’s Butte, Cruz teases Lightning and says, "Bring it on, old man!" This is a call-back to the epilogue from the first film when Lightning teases Doc and says, "Not today, old man!" during their first driving lesson together.
• Cruz's acrobatic roll during the Florida 500 heavily parodies Lightning's astonishing jump at the Dinoco 400 in Cars. Both were also shown in dramatic slow motion.
• Just before Lightning heads into the pits to switch places with Cruz, he encounters a massive crash between the other cars, similar to the crash he encountered in Cars 1. In both instances, he came out completely undamaged.
• The newspaper depicting Doc's crash is seen on the wall in both Doc's and Smokey's garages.
• The raised, Le Mans-esque spoilers worn by Jackson and the next-gens look very much like the one Lightning had during the World Grand Prix.