Radiator Springs Racers - A photo review

If you're expecting Radiator Springs Racers (RSR) to be like Test Track, you'll be half-right. The part that's right is that the technology is the same, and yes, there's a section that goes fast. But it doesn't go AS FAST as Test Track, and it's a shorter race time. But there's good news counter-balancing those bummers: you aren't just going fast, you are really racing (sometimes you'll win against the other car, sometimes you'll lose). And the parts that aren't a race are an actual dark ride - it's way more interesting than the inside parts of Test Track.

Instead of empty warehouses, cardboard cutouts, and heat lamps (like you'd see at Test Track), in RSR you will find full-sized CARS cars that wink and blink and move and talk - animatronics. You basically drive outside town and then into town while on the ride (yes, the town is also built just outside the ride, but you accept the fakeness of that), enduring a few adventures and seeing familiar friends.

Then you meet up with the car in front of you (or maybe the one behind you) and have a friendly race. It's a fun ending that offers thrills without needing to take up too much real estate (which is at a premium here in Anaheim).

My overall verdict: this ride is great. Much better than Test Track. Maybe that's because I like dark rides and animatronics in general, but I rather suspect it's just a better ride, better realized, and better themed. Definitely worth the long wait in line (FastPass is better if you get there at park opening to snag one. And single-rider line is not a bad option, either).

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Kevin Yee is the author of numerous independent Disney books, including the popular Walt Disney World Earbook series and Walt Disney World Hidden History.

Seligman AZ - Inspiration for CARS' Radiator Springs

The PIXAR movie CARS was a smash hit, but was that town Radiator Springs based on any real town? Some articles have previously tried to line up the buildings and landmarks with other landmarks in real towns along Route 66, many of them in diverse places like Texas, California, and Kansas.

But the town itself - one part of Route 66 that dried up when the Interstate came through - is based on Seligman, Arizona. John Lasseter admitted as much to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in an interview, when he said that a lot of the story came from barber Angel Delgadillo from Seligman.

That begs the question: what's Seligman like today? In 2000 it had 465 residents, clearly down from its peak as a Route 66 town. The Interstate in question is I-40, and you'd pass right by Seligman if you went from Needles, California out to the Grand Canyon. Probably you'd pass right by it.

The town has a single major thoroughfare. We didn't venture to any side streets, which appeared to be extremely small in scale and scope. On the outskirts of town, you'll find an odd homestead, and maybe a junkyard (inspiration for Mater's junkyard?) We also passed by some cows, as it was a couple of miles from our off-ramp to get to the town. You could almost imagine Lightning McQueen making that one wrong turn and heading away from the interstate instead of toward it.

As we got closer to town, we saw a few sad motels. None of them looked busy or particularly newly painted. They also didn't stand out architecturally - nothing here was a visual inspiration for the movie. But the idea was the same.

Most of the town consisted of a few blocks in the middle, all along the main street, with various kinds of standalone stores. We saw eateries that were somewhat busy (which was somewhat surprising), but the vast majority of places looked lonely, and some looked closed and vacant. We were not joined by many cars on the road, but there were a few.

We saw several shops that hawked Route 66 souvenirs. Oddly, none of the shops proclaimed anything about the town's status as the inspiration for the CARS movie. I suspect it would increase their business if they did, actually. The closest we saw was a souvenir shop that gamely tried to dress up regular cars like the movie cars, though the Lightning McQueen race car missed the mark on the colors.

I was both amused and horrified by the name of the Roadkill Cafe. Sadly, we lacked the time to eat here, but I was sorely tempted.

After the central blocks, we passed the vacant fire department building and came to the residential area (also concentrated on just this one central road). Most of the homes looked to be boarded up and empty. That was also true of the modern-looking Exxon gas station at the very end of town, where we found an access road that led back to Interstate-40, which apparently we had been paralleling all along during our drive through town.

I left happy that I'd seen a slice of Disney movie history, but also sad for the fate of the town. It was like watching the movie but stopping before the final denouement when vitality returned to the town, and a bit of a downer.

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Kevin Yee is the author of numerous independent Disney books, including the popular Walt Disney World Earbook series and Walt Disney World Hidden History.

Carsland - A photo review

I'm just back from my SECOND vacation of the summer - this time to Arizona and California. I won't share my Grand Canyon pics and stories with you - perhaps you have your own? - but we'll take a detour to Seligman, Arizona in a later post for a Disney connection.

Today, let's focus on Carsland, the major addition to Disney's California Adventure. In a word, it's phenomenal!

The theming is complete and no obvious corners were cut. That alone is heartening (it's not always that way out here in Orlando). And it's exciting!

You feel like you've stepped out into the Cars movie, which is the whole point. The smaller riders are good, and the central ride (Radiator Springs Racers) is fantastic. I'll give more updates on each soon.

For today, let's just poke around town and admire the scenery. It looks so realistic!

The buildings are real (not just facades) and they seem properly sized. The seem to fit together, in fact.

The mountain range was put there to keep the public from seeing the rest of Anaheim, but apart from this very practical reason, it was impressive indeed. I loved that aspect perhaps the best of the new land. The mountains looked realistic and even larger than they already were - perfect use of forced perspective.

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Kevin Yee is the author of numerous independent Disney books, including the popular Walt Disney World Earbook series and Walt Disney World Hidden History.