Disclaimer: I don't own Cars. I do not work at Pixar. Blah, blah...

What if...the Cars characters were turned into horses and thrown into our world?

Lightning McQueen and his buddy, Mater, were driving towards Frank's field to do some tractor tipping one evening, when the first noticed something strange lying in a ditch beside the road. Mater, not noticing it, kept driving, and continued with his rambling story.

"An' then Frank came outta tha woods, honkin' and screamin' after me, until ah was sure that that was the day ah'd die..."

Lightning, however,stopped, turned, and stared the thing until he finally figured out what it was.

"Huh. It's a videotape." He couldn't find a label on it at first, but after looking more closely, he found one, though it confused him. "'Lightning's Race'," he read out loud. "Hey, Mater! Come look at this!"

"Huh?" Mater stopped, unaware that he'd been driving solo up until now. "Be right there, Bud!" He proceeded to reverse all the way back to Lightning.

When he saw what Lightning had found, he recognized it immediately. "That right there looks like one a' them videotapes!"

"Yeah. What I can't figure out is where it came from."

Mater peered at the label on it. "Wull maybe one a' yer fans dropped it."

Lightning realized that Mater was probably right. "Yeah, maybe they taped one of my races. We should probably find a way to watch it, so maybe we can see who it belongs to and return it."

"Wull Doc has a TV. We watch it an' see." He laughed at the rhyme he'd made. "We kin ask if we kin use his TV, anyhow."

So the two cars backtracked and went to Doc's place.

"Well," Doc said when they told him about it. "Flo borrowed my TV yesterday. It'll be over at her place."

Lightning inwardly groaned at having to go somewhere else, but he followed Doc to Flo's, with Mater tagging along beside him.

When they got there, Sheriff was watching a tireball game on the TV with Sarge and Fillmore.

"Come on!" the Sheriff complained, absorbed in the play before him. "You can do better than that!"

Sarge just rolled his eyes and Fillmore shot his friend a tranquil glance.

"Hey, Sheriff," Doc said, sidling up to him. "You think we could borrow my TV?"

"Huh?" The Sheriff glanced up, just now noticing his friend beside him. "Uhh...sure." He backed up and left Doc to it.

They all watched as Doc tried to play the tape. "Stupid thing," he muttered as he pushed the tape in with a tire after the finicky VCR spit it out. Finally, the tape went in and stayed in.

In the time it took him to do this, more cars had gathered around to watch, thanks to Mater.

"Hey, guess what me an' McQueen found! We found a videotape an' we don't know whut it is yet, so we's a-gonna play it an' find out!"

The TV screen went static, preparing to play the tape.

Lightning leaned forward eagerly.

But instead of seeing himself, he saw a race of a different kind.

Two odd creatures barreled down a dirt track, fighting for the lead. One had a blaze on it's face in the shape of a lightning-bolt.

There was an announcer's voice in the background. "And down the home stretch they come, and it's Ornery Storm in the lead! But Rocket Fire is coming up fast! And Rocket Fire has taken the lead! Ornery Storm doesn't seem too happy about that--his jockey has to restrain him from taking a chunk out of Rocket's hide! Ornery Storm is falling back...and it's Rocket Fire...Rocket Fire...Rocket Fire has won the race!"

The two horses gradually slowed, the one called Ornery Storm flipping his head, ears laid back.

"And Storm once again attempts to quarrel with Rocket. Yes, Robby King will have his work cut out for him if he continues to choose to ride this horse."

It showed the two lathered horses being sponged down and Rocket Fire in the winner's circle, his jockey and owner accepting the prize. As the trophy was handed off, the sun caught in one of it's corners and glinted in the chestnut colt's eyes. He spooked and almost reared. His owner, a man of considerable build but little patience, snapped the reins to bring him back to earth.

"And it seems that Rocket has plenty of energy, even after pulling off that win as he did."

Rocket stood still, though wide-eyed at all the commotion.

"What is that?"

Everyone was broken from their trance by Lightning's question.

"Well, I'd reckon it's a form of horse racing," Doc replied. "Albeit a strange form."

"Huh. But what about those two-legged things?"

"I don't know about that one," Doc admitted.

"They seem a lot like us, though," Sally chipped in. "Minus the hood and tires."

Lightning, still thoroughly confused, simply shook his hood and drove away to his cone. "I'm goin' to bed."

I think I'll have an early night as well," Doc said, shutting off the TV and yawning.

The others agreed and soon everyone had gone to bed.

But none of them knew what would happen next.

Yay so that's the prologue!! I know it's a bit short, but oh well.:D Please R&R! I want to know what you think about my story so far...although nothing really has happened...(yet!)

My take on it is that there are animals in the Cars world that are similar to ours (the blue bugs flying around, the Sheriff's line 'the songdogs were howlin' at the moon' in the Ghostlight, etc.). So that's where Doc's line 'a form of horse racing' comes from.

I'll admit it was pretty hard to set this all up. But I did it.:) I hope that even people who aren't necessarily horse crazy will like this story, because, well...you'll find out!XD