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.