SUPERCHARGER

Three young adults whose families have been severely impacted by a local cartel build the ultimate getaway car—but when they rob the drug-runners, they set off a high-stakes, high-speed turf war that threatens everything they hoped to protect.

Patrick Sloburn, Shane Townsend, and Mateo Morales, grew up in California’s Central Valley, building and racing classic stock cars. Patrick and Shane’s fathers are in prison for a gang-related bank robbery, and the story opens with the murder of Mateo’s older brother, a delivery man for a local drug Cartel, which consists of an uneasy truce between a clan of white-power meth manufacturers and Hispanic dealers.

Mateo tries to enlist his two friends in a scheme to get revenge. He shows them a Chevy Chevelle that he’s covered with Kevlar, and he knows the location and timing of cash deposits at a meth manufacturing compound. But Shane has to care for her handicapped mother, and Patrick is only back on break from his first year at Stanford.

Circumstances agree with Mateo. The Phelps clan of meth makers has a 99 year lease on the land the Sloburns occupy and bring in lawyers to declare that contract void. Patrick’s parents must hire legal counsel and tell Patrick that college will no longer be possible. And to get Shane to drive for them, the Cartel has their men inside the penitentiary assault Shane’s father.

By the end of the first act, it’s all boiled over. Patrick helps Mateo improve the getaway car. The vehicle has bullet proof plating in back, can drop spike strips, or coat the road with slick oil, it can spew a cloud of smoke, and has battering-ran bumpers. Not to mention a customized, high-tech supercharger.

Their first strike is to run the cash courier off the road and rob them. They inadvertently cause the death of both men in the car, which Mateo is proud of but causes moral conflicts for Patrick. Next stop, fire-bombing the manufacturing compound. The clan and the cartel suspect each other and gather their men. The Phelps clan pursues the Chevelle in a pair of Monster trucks. Races ensue, but Patrick is a skilled driver and escapes them and the local police, who are also on the take.

Meanwhile, Shane gets word that her father is in critical care after another attack, so she joins the Phelps clan as a driver and is sent out to search for the robbers, not knowing it’s her life-long friends.

More chases and shoot-outs leave both Patrick and Mateo with injuries. They retreat to an abandoned quarry shack. Shane finds them, pulls a gun and takes the stolen money. Patrick and Shane have a moment; he tells her how he secretly worshipped her in high school, and Shane recalls the time they made out after prom. But Patrick went away to college, and for Shane, abandoned by her own father, that is too much rejection. She leaves with the loot.

A full fledged turf war breaks out. In the bloody chaos, Patrick and Mateo get away. Shane gets on the CB and announces that she has the money, come and get it. She drives circles around the police, but a stray bullet leads to a gas leak and her car blows up. She barely escapes. Patrick causes the wreck of the final Monster truck.

In the end, Shane reveals that she stashed the money before racing off. The themes of doing bad to do good, of running away versus confronting problems, of dreams versus family obligations, have all played out. Patrick must make a decision – return to college, or begin a romance with Shane that was detoured by the negative circumstances of growing up in the valley. Their final kiss says it all.