| Director | Mike Marvin |
|---|---|
| Budget | $2.7 million |
| Box office | $3.5 million |
In the town of Brooks, Arizona, Packard Walsh, the leader of a gang of car thieves, coerces people with fast cars into racing, with the winner of the race taking ownership of the loser's car. Packard controls everyone through intimidation including Keri Johnson, whom he views as his property. Keri's boyfriend, Jamie Hankins, was the victim of an unsolved murder and Keri, who was with him, has no memory of the traumatic event.
Jake Kesey arrives in Brooks riding a dirt bike. He befriends Billy Hankins (Jamie's brother) and Keri. While swimming at a river, Jake is shown to have knife scars on his neck and back.
Packard's control of the illegal races comes to an end when an all-black Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor supercar appears with a driver covered head-to-toe in black body armor and helmet, and metal braces resembling those worn by victims of physical trauma. The driver challenges Packard's gang to a race, ending in high-speed, explosive crashes in which one of the gang members is killed. His body appears unharmed afterwards except for burned-out eye sockets. The Turbo Interceptor then reconstructs itself and eludes the pursuing Sheriff Loomis in a cloud of glowing light.
Two more gang members, Skank and Gutterboy, are killed when the Turbo Interceptor races inside the gang's warehouse, causing an explosion, with Rughead, the gang's tech-geek, witnessing it from a distance. Rughead, who had nothing to do with the gang murdering Jamie, figures out why each of the gang members had been targeted. When Loomis arrives at the scene of the destruction, Rughead tells him Packard and his gang had murdered Jamie Hankins.
Now with his gang mostly gone, Packard decides to flee town. He kidnaps Keri and beats up Billy when he tries to intervene. When Packard tries driving to California, Keri resists. As they both exit the car and he pulls a knife on her, the Turbo Interceptor arrives and challenges Packard to a race. Packard accepts and is then killed in an explosive head-on collision with the Turbo Interceptor, like the rest of his gang were. Loomis calls off the hunt for the mysterious driver, believing it to be futile.
As Keri arrives home that night, the Turbo Interceptor pulls up and Jake emerges. Keri realizes that Jake is a revived form of her dead boyfriend Jamie, who had returned for a chance to rekindle their past relationship. He then asks her to wait for him because he has one last thing to do. Jake then gives his car to Billy. When Billy asks who he is, Jake says that Billy already knows, and as he rides off on his dirt bike, Billy then realizes Jake is Jamie. Jake picks up Keri, whom Loomis is watching from a distance. Together they ride off along the desert highway into the moonlight.