Jax sat on the tailgate of his rusted pickup, his thumbs dancing over the aluminum gimbals of his transmitter. In the dirt before him sat "The Nomad," a custom-built 1/10 scale trophy truck. It wasn't pretty. The polycarbonate body was scarred from tumble-turns and reinforced with gorilla tape, but underneath lived a 4S LiPo battery and a drivetrain shimmed to perfection.

Jax had grown up in the shadow of the old factories, watching the rich kids in the suburbs race their shiny, out-of-the-box rigs. Here at Skidrow, if you couldn't wrench it yourself, you didn't belong. The Gauntlet

Six cars lined up at the makeshift start line. A girl named Riley dropped a checkered flag, and the air exploded.

Jax looked out over the track, where the dust was finally starting to settle under the flickering lights. "Count on it."