Plot

Trouble ensues when a motorcycle gang stops in a small southern town while heading to the races at Daytona.

It's circa 1959/1960 in the rural American south. A group of six bikers is heading to Daytona to watch the races, they having made plans to convene at a prearranged stop along Hwy. 17 so that they can ride down together. That stop - a town where no one would make the conscious decision to live - could be mistaken solely for a truck stop in being a proverbial blip along the road. Their stay is extended for what is estimated to be a day when one them, Hurley, has to make necessary repairs to his motorcycle, this delay which doesn't sit well with many of the other five in having to endure the boredom of the town. While some of the townsfolk they encounter see them as an injection of excitement in what is otherwise a proverbial backwater, most consider them no better than animals in not wanting to deal with them at all. One of the townsfolk, teenage Telena, hooks up with one of the bikers, Vance, she already used to danger of a different kind in being the daughter of an abusive father, wealthy widowed Tarver, who in some respects rules the town in regulating the flow of oil to the local service station. While many of the encounters between the bikers and the townsfolk have the potential to be explosive, it is that between Vance and Telena which may be the one, if any, to set off the fuse to the powder keg.—Huggo

A motorcycle gang of greasers becomes involved in trouble in a small southern town. The group of bikers congregate at a rural roadside diner and gas station en route to Daytona. Their stay in town is extended as one of them, Hurley (Phillip Kimbrough), has to fix his motorcycle which should take upwards of a day. The owners of the diner and gas station are nervous and one of the customers, Tarver (J. Don Ferguson), seems to be violently resentful toward them. The bikers hang around the garage, tinkering with their bikes, playing chicken with switch-blades, drinking, dancing and so on. A teenage girl named Telena (Marin Kanter), who is Tarver's daughter, arrives in a red open-topped Corvette. Vance (Willem Dafoe), one of the bikers, talks to her and they go for a drive, buying beers and whiskey for the rest of the gang. Vance and Telena go to a motel room where they have sex. As they are about to leave, they are disturbed by gun shots outside. It is Tarver, who spotted her car, and in a typical fit of anger decided to shoot out the car tires in order to punish her. He breaks into the room and takes Telena with him. Some of the other bikers, in a chance encounter, run Tarver's car off the road, causing him to crash his car. Telena is injured in the accident. Later in the evening, the gang is in a local bar. Augusta (Elizabeth Gans), one of the waitresses from the diner who is bored with life in town, performs a striptease dance and the male customers of the bar become a little feverish. While in the men's room of the bar, Tarver convinces Sid Bob Hannah), his brother, to join him in ambushing and killing the bikers later along the road, that despite Tarver having earlier "earnestly" congratulated Vance for the sexual encounter with Telena as fulfilling the needs of a man. Ricky (Danny Rosen), one of the bikers, goes to the bathroom to use the urinal, and Tarver, sensing an opportunity, attacks Ricky with his pants down. The struggle spills out into the bar where the violence escalates and gun shots ring out. Tarver is shot, and as the confusion in the bar reigns, the assumption is that the bikers have shot him in revenge, but it is Telena who has shot her father in response to his lifelong abuse of her and her mother, who committed suicide in that abuse. Further gun-shots are fired. Outside, Vance stands smoking and sees Telena, now in the driver seat of her car, proceed to use the same pistol to shoot herself dead. The bikers quietly get on their motorcycles as they ride out of town.

In the late 1950s, Vance, a young motorcyclist (Willem Dafoe) from New York, is on his way to Daytona, Florida to watch the races, when he pulls over to help a woman with a flat tire. She hands him some cash for his effort, but he is not satisfied and steals the rest of the money in her wallet. Along the highway, he stops at a diner in a desolate, Southern town and orders coffee and scrambled eggs. While waiting to rendezvous with his fellow bikers, Vance asks Augusta (Elizabeth Gans), the waitress, whether the area is a real town or just a truck stop. She declares that there is no reason to stay unless you were born here and reveals she never had the courage to leave after her husband died in a scaffolding accident. When Vance's friends, Davis (Robert Gordon), La Ville (Lawrence Matarese), and "Sportster Debbie" (Tina L'Hotsky) come into the diner an hour later, Vance complains they are late. La Ville explains that the primary chain on Hurley's motorcycle broke, and they left him behind. Evie (Margaret Jo Lee), the cashier, would rather not serve the leather-clad gang and discourages the waitress from speaking to them. Augusta, however, sees them as "just customers" and gives Vance the location of a nearby garage where his friends can work on repairs. The owner of the garage is reluctant to help until Vance assures him they can pay for using the space. The remaining members of the gang, Hurley (Phillip Kimbrough) and Ricky (Danny Rosen), finally arrive with Hurley's motorcycle on the back of a truck. Annoyed by the delay, Vance tells Hurley they will probably miss most of the Daytona races, but will wait for him to repair the bike. Meanwhile, Tarver (J. Don Ferguson), a local swindler who is illegally siphoning gas from a pipeline, tries to intimidate the owner of the garage about a business deal. As Vance hangs out at the garage, Telena (Marin Kanter), Tarver's rebellious teenage daughter, pulls up in a red convertible sports car to buy gas. The pretty girl immediately attracts Vance's attention and flirts with him. They take a ride together in the convertible, and Vance tells Telena he met his friends while serving time in prison for stealing cars. When Vance asks about the scar on her face, she reveals her father cut her during one of his tirades and also mistreated her mother, who could no longer bear the abuse and shot herself. Telena's father has an "oil business" and bought her the car because he felt guilty. Debbie, Hurley, Ricky, and Davis are happy when Vance returns to the garage with beer and liquor. Vance shows Telena photographs of Ricky's motorcycle accident that required 51 stitches. The owner of the garage tells his son that the bikers are "animals," but he also wishes he could trade places with them for a day or two. At the nearby Midway Motel, Vance and Telena have sex and are lounging in the room, when Tarver surprises them. Barging in with a shotgun, he drags his daughter to the car and speeds away. While driving, Tarver grabs Telena by the neck, until he swerves off road to avoid three of the bikers who are cruising down the middle of the highway. That evening, Hurley finalizes the repairs on his motorcycle, as Vance and the gang drink at the town nightclub. There, Tarver is on edge and declares to his brother, Sid (Bob Hannah), and other locals that the bikers are "commies." Augusta, the waitress, works nights as a stripper at the club, and Davis ridicules her dance as "square." In the men's restroom, Tarver persuades Sid to help him murder the bikers later that night. When Ricky enters to use the toilet, Tarver attacks him and drags the biker back into the bar with his pants down. Suddenly, Telena arrives and shoots her father several times. While Vance watches from the nightclub entrance, Telena returns to the car, places the gun in her mouth and fires. Vance and his friends hop on their motorcycles and leave town.