In a small town in northern Minnesota, the much-anticipated Saturday night dirt-track race at the old-fashioned, barely viable Headwaters Speedway becomes, in many ways, an important life-changing event for all the participants on and off the track.

Dylan and Robby do everything together, but when they're at race camp, they're given different partners for the big challenge of building a stock car. Dylan is secretly pleased--he's a little sick of know-it-all Robby--until he mets his new partner, Joe, and wonders how he can build the best race car and beat Robby when his partner is a girl.