While stopping at a gas station in Braselton, Texas, former racecar driver Brewster Baker gets locked inside the restroom. After climbing out the window, he realizes that someone has stripped his racecar of its engine and most major parts. Unable to locate the police, he sulks in a diner and seeks help from a flirtatious waitress. Just then, he notices a delivery truck speed past, leaving a dismantled sports car sitting in the diner parking lot. Brewster chases the thieves in his trailer until the escaped truck crashes into a river, exposing the six children inside. Brewster helps them to safety and dives into the water to retrieve the youngest boy, Little Harry Aikens. After revealing that they sold Brewster’s car parts, the children fix his broken trailer hitch, and the eldest girl, Heather “Breezy” Aikens, introduces her remaining siblings: Doc, Louis, Steven, and Swifty. Brewster returns them to the backwoods cabin home where they live alone, but corrupt County Sheriff “Big John” Stone arrives. Revealing himself as the mastermind behind the children’s black market theft, he chastises them for destroying the truck and arrests Brewster for failing to pay his bill at the diner. Later, Swifty sneaks into the police station and steals the deputy sheriff’s gun before forcing him to unlock Brewster from his cell. Breezy picks them up in Brewster’s trailer while the remaining children dismantle the Big John’s patrol car. After driving through the night, Breezy reveals that they have been illegally selling car parts for Big John ever since their parents died in an automobile accident, claiming that the sheriff threatened to separate them if they refused to comply. Brewster says goodbye to the Aikens in Shreveport, Louisiana, before entering a bar owned by his former girl friend, Lilah. When Brewster apologizes for leaving her, they kiss and return to his motel room to make love. Meanwhile, the Aikens children create a distraction by starting a fire in a dumpster while stripping other racer’s cars in the parking lot. In the morning, Brewster finds the children hoarding the stolen parts inside his trailer, and they convince him to drop them off at the nearby interstate. Unwilling to reveal his association by returning the parts to their owners, Brewster agrees to sell them at his friend’s automobile repair shop. When the children steal his trailer, Brewster is forced to hitchhike to the local racetrack. Once there, he finds the Aikens repairing his racecar with the stolen parts. Brewster places fourth in that afternoon’s race, using his prize money to repay his colleagues for their missing parts and giving the remainder to the children. Although he refuses to let them stay with him, the children reappear at the racetrack the next day and beg to help repair his vehicle until they find somewhere else to go. Brewster’s former chief mechanic-turned-racing rival, Terk Logan, laughs at the driver’s new pit crew, and Brewster explains that Terk sabotaged his career by rigging his car to crash during a race two years earlier. That night, Breezy seduces Terk in his trailer while her siblings dismantle his car. Upon discovering their crime, Brewster accuses Breezy of being irresponsible, and she runs away in response. After searching all night, he finds her on the roadside at dawn, and she admits that she feels selfish for desiring a normal teenage life away from her siblings. During that afternoon’s race at the Biloxi, Mississippi, speedway, Terk’s car malfunctions, prompting him to withdraw from the competition and allowing Brewster to place second. Assured that Brewster cheated, Terk attacks him and promises to seek revenge, but Brewster continues to win races throughout the Southern U.S. One day, Brewster finishes a race and discovers that a local sheriff has taken the Aikens children into custody. As he leaves for the police station, a representative from the Ford Motor Company offers to sponsor him in future races. Brewster retrieves the children by disguising himself in a police uniform and pretending to be Sheriff Big John, moments before the real Sheriff Big John arrives. Once Brewster accepts the Ford sponsorship, his racing improves and the Aikens encourage him to follow a strict exercise regimen. Days before another big race in Atlanta, Georgia, Brewster learns that he will be competing against Terk, but remains unconcerned. One night, the children attempt to use Brewster’s cash winnings to buy their dream house, but are prohibited because they are underage. At a local bar, Brewster runs into Lilah, who has come to support him in the race. Early the next morning, Terk’s crew team attack Brewster and leave him unconscious in the forest. He awakens sometime later and hitches a ride to the racetrack, while the children’s anxiety grows as the start time approaches. Brewster arrives moments before the race begins and falls into tight competition for the lead against Terk. When Brewster stops in the pit and finds his crew missing, Lilah informs him that Sheriff Big John took the children back to Texas. To eliminate them both from the race, Brewster intentionally crashes into Terk before driving his car out of the arena and stopping the sheriff. As television interviewers ask Big John to explain why he has arrested the Aikens children, the flustered officer is forced to admit that Brewster has taken good care of them. Later, Brewster and Lilah get married and purchase a large house to begin their life together with the children.