DAYTON EDGE is the best engine builder in stock car racing, and nobody knows his name. Every DuPont Racing engine carries his plate; every trophy goes to BUCKY WILSON, the team's golden-boy driver. When Bucky blows a tire in a qualifier and quits on the spot, Dayton pulls on a spare fire suit and Bucky's gold helmet, drives from a lap down, and wins. Then he hands the helmet back. An unentered driver would sink the team, so the world crowns Bucky "the Racing God" and Dayton goes back to his workbench.
But a man who wants nothing can't be bought, and that terrifies Bucky. His brother FORREST, the crew chief, steals Dayton's notebook and forges the evidence; JUNIOR DUPONT, running the team while his father recovers from a heart attack, believes every word. Dayton is fired on live television, dumped by his girlfriend LACY MAE for the Racing God himself, and handcuffed on pit road in front of forty thousand fans. He could end it all with one sentence. He never says it, because the truth would land on Big Wade DuPont, the dying man who raised him.
Then the track PA crackles. CLARA-LYNN ARMSTRONG, owner of the broke rival team at the cheap end of the garage, saw Dayton walk to that car in Bucky's helmet. She's never told a soul. Now she proves the receipt fake in front of the whole speedway and offers him the keys to her barn, a black helmet, and a shot at everyone who buried him. The real Racing God is about to drive again... for the enemy.
