A newly published patent from Disney offers perhaps the best insight yet as to a dynamic ride experience that could be used for the upcoming Cars-themed rally race attraction coming to Magic Kingdom. As you may know, a portion of the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island is currently in the process of being rethemed into a new guest area based on the Cars franchise. The area is called Piston Peak National Park, and it will have two attractions – an off-road rally race and a family attraction. Let’s take a closer look at the off-road rally race attraction.
New Disney Patent Could Offer Hints for Upcoming Cars Rally Race Ride
A new patent was published yesterday after originally being filed back in September 2024, describing a new style of ride system featuring a free-range vehicle platform. What makes this patent particularly interesting as it relates to the Cars rally race ride is the descriptions that the patent uses when describing the field that the ride vehicles will traverse. In the abstract, the patent describes “uneven terrain” as a key element of the patent’s scope.
The detailed description of the patent describes a “free-ranging vehicle (FRV)”. The patent notes that FRV’s typically navigate along planar, flat surfaces due to the complexity of navigation and control. While the patent doesn’t specifically name attractions, we think of traditional FRVs as rides like Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, or Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Those vehicles are trackless, and they operate on flat surfaces.
That said, the patent seeks to evolve the traditional capabilities of FRVs to include traversing uneven terrain. The patent specifically states “off-road” terrain, including “grade changes”.
The present disclosure evolves the FRV platform to be capable of traversing uneven terrain (eg. off-road) and grade changes. The capabilities described herein allow for unique off-road type experiences and the ability to traverse up and down hills and orchestrate track paths across multiple vertical levels without the use of elevators…
Disney doesn’t stop there. The patent goes on to describe an optional ability of guest control. Guests would be able to control, to a certain degree, the steering and velocity of the ride vehicle. Of course, there would be a supervisory control that could provide an override or correction to keep vehicles within a safe envelope of ride elements and other ride vehicles.
In the screenshot below, we see a portion of a ride track. In the screenshot, we see a plurality of ride vehicles at different points along this portion of the track. The track itself is comprised of various elements, including uneven terrain (218), multiple paths (220), “more difficult” paths (226). Some of the “uneven terrain” described by Disney in the patent includes hills, valleys, undulations, berms, bumps, rocks, stumps, puddles, potholes, shrubbery, trees, debris, or the like. These elements are intended to simulate real-world environments such as desert terrain, forest terrain, mountain terrain, grassland terrain, back road terrain, highway terrain, and more.
What makes this extra exciting is that the patent describes guest choice. You may be able to choose a path that is slower or faster, a path that is more bumpy or less bumpy, or a path that runs through a cave or over the top of a hill. Each path would, in theory, allow for a different ride experience upon subsequent rides. While the screenshot shows two paths, Disney makes sure to note that there could be more than two options or paths at any given inflection point.
Not only could guests offer input to affect pathways taken, but there could be input to affect velocity as well.
Of course, all of this input would be within safe boundaries – both as it relates to the ride path and ride elements, as well as other ride vehicles. Some obstacles will be designated as able to be engaged with such as bumps, potholes, puddles, etc, while other obstacles will need to be avoided to maintain a safe ride experience.
Where this patent diverges from previously released information is the use of guidewires to steer and manage ride vehicles. The patent describes guidewires as either acting as a centerline guide for the ride experience or as bumpers of sorts, keeping the vehicle within a path.
A year ago, in a new episode of We Call It Imagineering, Imagineers discussed the upcoming Cars-themed off-road rally race attraction. They revealed a mockup that clearly showed that the vehicle will be guided along a track. Not only did Imagineers verbally confirm that the “vehicle will steer itself through a track system”, they also utilized video shown off at the recent SXSW conference, showing a vehicle traveling along a track with bumps positioned strategically to create the feel of traveling in an off-road environment.
Unfortunately, the previously released information seems to be at odds with what is described in this patent. At the risk of getting too far ahead of the story, the ride experience described back in March 2025 is far less dynamic than what is described in the patent.
It will be interesting to see if Disney changes any of the previously released guidance and chooses something more dynamic. If we had to guess, it’s unlikely that we’ll see any major deviations from the track-based ride experience described a year ago. That said, I’m ready to be pleasantly surprised.
For everything we know about the Cars-themed expansion to Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland, check out our dedicated project page below!
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