Plot

Somewhere in the middle a desert, Lyle wakes up from the nightmare which must have been his past, and heads for what he hopes will be a new and successful life on a stretch of Highway 99. His only companion from the past is his 1968 Dodge Polara, a souped-up former California Highway Patrol car which he knows is the hottest car around. He soon finds a job at a gas station and gets to know the other attendant, who becomes his roommate. Dale's girlfriend, Pat, introduces Lyle to Sherry, who waits tables at a nearby cafe. Sherry, almost thirty and feeling that it might already be too late to find a husband, worries that she might be doomed to spend the rest of her life as a waitress on Highway 99. She clings quickly to Lyle, hoping that he might be her way out. Lyle eventually quits the gas station for a better job, but is ultimately unable to cope with it either. Lyle's patience grows thin with Dale and Pat who spend most of their time sitting around the apartment drinking and with Sherry who is pressuring him into marriage. Finally, as everything begins to crumble, Lyle gets into his trusty Dodge and must decide what he should do with what remains of what until now has seemed like a pointless existence.