Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious could beat Lightning McQueen at a race

The auto-racing world is full of legends, from the bootleggers who founded NASCAR to Formula 1’s Lewis Hamilton. However, each race cannot have more than one winner. This makes it the perfect arena to determine which racing icon is best: Vin Diesel’s Fast and Furious character Dominic Torretto or Lightning McQueen from the Cars movies.

While a showdown between the Corona-sipping family man and the Piston Cup’s greatest champion may seem unlikely, we think it’s important to acknowledge all kinds of racers, and pit them against each other in dangerous competitions that they were absolutely not designed for. So in the spirit of competition we’ve set out to figure out which is better, cinema’s ultimate driver or a sentient car voiced by Owen Wilson.

In one lane, we have Polygon’s resident Cars enthusiast Petrana Radulovic making the case for the one and only Lightning McQueen (for the record, he is not any car in particularly, though he does seem to have some characteristics of a Dodge Viper). Austen Goslin will be in the other lane, and will support Dominic Toretto’s 1970 Dodge Charger R/T.

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Lightning McQueen, Dom, and Dom are from completely different races, so we decided to try to unite them. We took inspiration from this underrated movie Cars 2In which race cars race on three distinct environments, open-wheeled stock cars and race cars are equal in their skills and weaknesses.

This competition has three rounds. There is a street race, 500-mile Daytona-style Daytona race, and then there’s a drag race.

Round 1: The Street Race

Universal Pictures

Petrana: My boy, unfortunately, is severely handicapped in a street race because he doesn’t have proper mirrors or headlights. Cars 3 goes to great lengths to prove that my boy is not good at driving where it’s safe. It is not racetracks. When it’s dark, he is totally screwed. So when it comes to the street racing component, he’s definitely taking a loss. We don’t even need to pull up stats and numbers here — Lightning is just gonna eat shit during this round.

AustenDom at home in street races? He’s done dozens in the Fast and Furious series so far, and in the later entries he’s usually being pursued by all manner of tanks, bank vault, and nuclear submarines. In other words, he’s a lock here. But it does seem like Lightning might get injured. As good as Dom is at driving cars, he’s just as good at crashing them, especially the ones he is racing against.

I think we can assume that this is a friendly competition and that Dom doesn’t necessarily want to hurt Lightning. Let’s say that Lightning’s injuries are light mostly because they’re self-inflicted on account of his general street-racing clumsiness.

Verdict: Lightning wins, Dom wins street race.

Round 2: NASCAR Race

Image: Pixar

Petrana: Lightning comes into thIs race at a disadvantage; it’s likely that he took a few injuries during the street race.That being said, the speedway is his forte and we’ve canonically seen him come back from major crashes.

AutosHe is then completely crushed. But while it takes months of rehabilitation to get back on his feet (er, wheels), I doubt he’d be completely wrecked by this stage. Lightning is seven-time Piston Cup winner, one of the most important awards in stock car racing. He is able to find his way around the race track. The majority of Autos focuses on Lightning in rehabilitation as he goes through trainer Cruz Ramirez’s bootcamp. He has some difficulties with the VR simulator but comes out victorious and learns important lessons. I believe he will race to victory, even with all the bumps.

Austen: This one’s gonna be tough for Dom. The day that his father died was Dom’s last time at professional racing. In other words, Dom doesn’t feel great about even showing up to that event. On top of that, most of his races only last about 10 minutes and Daytona’s 500 miles usually stretch on for hours. On top of the fact that this is Lightning’s forte means that Dom’s getting crushed here.

Verdict:Lightning is the winner.

Round 3: Drag racing

Universal Pictures

Austen: This is the most important thing. It is necessary to calculate the quarter-mile times for these races.

Dom’s car can run the quarter mile in nine seconds flat, according to the first Fast and the Furious movie. His custom Charger supposedly has 900 horsepower, and that’s before the boost from the NOS. While the nine-second time was with Dom’s dad at the wheel, Dom’s become a vehicularly enabled superhero since then, so we think it’s fair to say he could match his old man’s time. This makes Dom very prepared for the race. Mods and customization of cars are something Dom is quite fond of.

Petrana: Drag racing is about speed and reaction. Lightning McQueen’s sentient vehicle gives him an advantage. His ability to react quickly and without the need for fleshbags allows him to be more efficient. He’s a lean, mean racing machine!

However, because he is a stock car, he doesn’t have the same caliber of horsepower as Dom. We don’t know specifically What type of car Lightning is, but Dom’s canonical time is absolutely beyond Lightning’s capabilities. Dom, despite having a brief advantage, will soon overpower Lightning and achieve top speeds faster than him.

Verdict: Dom wins the title of greatest racer.

Unfortunately, Dom’s usual prize is a pink slip that offers him ownership of the loser’s car, but considering the car is sentient, this one’s probably just gonna be bragging rights only.