Concrete Is Pouring for Cars Ridge Run Rally, as Ride Foundations Take Shape in Magic Kingdom's Old Rivers of America Riverbed

For most of 2026, the Piston Peak National Park site at Magic Kingdom has been a story told below ground: retaining walls, buried pipes, a crane base. This week it became a story about a ride.

Crews are now building forms and placing foundation concrete for Cars Ridge Run Rally, the off-road racing attraction headed for the Frontierland expansion, Blog Mickey reported on Thursday, October 22. Blog Mickey watched the work from the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad queue and called the fresh concrete in the former Rivers of America riverbed "the clearest sign yet of the ride taking physical form."

Concrete goes in from a bucket held up by a telehandler, near the tower crane. Photo: BlogMickey.com

How we know this patch is the Cars ride

The match comes from Imagineering's model of Piston Peak National Park, shown at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event in August. Comparing that model with the site, Blog Mickey ties this part of the dig to Cars Ridge Run Rally.

Here is what Disney promised for the ride at D23. In the Disney Parks Blog recap, "Cars Ridge Run Rally will send racers climbing mountain trails, cruising through snowy peaks, racing past erupting geysers, and bouncing their way back down the mountain toward the finish line." Lightning McQueen and Mater call the race from the sidelines. Blog Mickey adds that Imagineers described a family thrill ride with camelback hills and geysers to dodge, plus a splash through a creek planned to run beside the Frontierland boardwalk.

Disney concept art of Cars Ridge Run Rally racing past the geysers. Image: Disney

What is actually in the ground

The bulk of the new work is at the foot of the tall retaining wall beside the Diamond Horseshoe:

• A new slab: a poured slab with a raised ledge on top and short concrete walls coming up from it.
• The next pours: wooden forms are framing the next sections.
• More to tie in: upright rebar lines the slope above the wall facing the Diamond Horseshoe, which Blog Mickey reads as waiting for another pour.
• Layout crews: surveyors were out with GPS equipment and a tripod-mounted laser level.

Nearer the tower crane, a telehandler held a concrete bucket over an excavation at the edge of the water while a worker steered the drop hose. In the timber-shored pit behind them sit two round structures that Blog Mickey suggests are utility or drainage vaults.

New foundation concrete at the base of the retaining wall, with a row of arched dewatering hoses along the water. Photo: BlogMickey.com

Pouring through standing water

A cold front brought several days of rain to Central Florida earlier this week, and Blog Mickey found much of the old riverbed covered in shallow, muddy water. Pumps sit in the basin, and a line of arched hoses at the water's edge runs into a long header pipe, which Blog Mickey reads as a dewatering system. As Blog Mickey puts it: "While the rain may have slowed things down, it hasn't stopped the pours."

The view from above

Aerial photos from Bioreconstruct, taken a few days before Blog Mickey's ground visit, show new, paler concrete in a curved bay of the retaining wall, with the crane's jib reaching over it. Rebar mats are laid out close by for the next pours. The square pad under the crane itself is a separate pour, the crane's foundation from July.

From the air: fresh concrete inside the curved retaining wall, under the crane jib. Photo: Bioreconstruct via BlogMickey.com

How we got here

Blog Mickey's timeline of the project:

• March 9: the project's first concrete, poured on the south side of the site.
• March 19: aerials showed upright retaining wall sections in place for the land's future stream.
• June 5: underground pipes going in across the site.
• July 28: the tower crane's concrete foundation poured.
• August 15: D23 brought the official names, Cars Ridge Run Rally and Miss Fritter's Daredevil Spin-Along.
• October 1: the tower crane spotted operating for the first time.

Disney has not announced an opening date for either Piston Peak attraction, and, according to Blog Mickey, paperwork Disney filed in February sets 2028 as the completion target for infrastructure work on Piston Peak National Park and Villains Land.

Your guess: does Cars Ridge Run Rally open before or after Villains Land?

Sources

• BlogMickey.com, "Concrete Pours Begin for Cars Ridge Run Rally Attraction at Magic Kingdom" (October 22, 2026)
• Disney Parks Blog, "D23 2026: News, Updates, and Info for Disney Experiences Around the World" (August 2026)

Image credits: BlogMickey.com; Bioreconstruct via BlogMickey.com; Disney.