After a night of hearing his parents fight about the possibility of another mouth to feed, Gus a ten-year old boy, decides to cash out his piggy bank and take off in a stolen Ford Mustang. His plan is to collect all the MOTORAMA cards across the country, in order to claim the grand prize, which will set him up for a promising future. The cards are only available at specific, participating gas stations.
Stopping at a diner he is able to convince the patrons that he is an adult, and for the rest of the movie everyone he encounters treats him as an adult, despite him clearly being a child. At a gas station he indirectly causes an attendant to be hit by a truck, mostly due to the attendant’s own stupidity and carelessness.
Staying the night at a motel, Gus encounters the curious, squirrel obsessed owner, who kills any squirrels he catches with exhaust fumes. Leaving the next day and running low on money he decides to steal some gas. However an unstable couple catch and knock him out damaging his eye socket. Instead of allowing surgical repair they decline an operation. That night in the motel it is implied that the couple rape him off screen. The next morning Gus dresses and leaves, only to find on his a decrepit Motorama Billboard making him question his whole journey.
In low spirits and with no apparent way of finding more money or gas, he stops for food. Now wearing an eye patch over his lost eye, a biker identifies him as a pirate and challenges him to arm wrestle for money. Gus loses. After a dispute of cheating and revelations about his quest, the bikers humiliate him by branding him with a demeaning tattoo.
Stopped at a rest stop, still desperate for money, he gambles with a father over a game of horseshoes. The father then decides to take this as a chance to abandon his children, and he and his wife take off. The children look on aimlessly as their parents drive away.
His journey nears completion with just one letter remaining. He drives onward, through a dark and menacing industrial park, where people fight, burn crosses, and take drugs. On an empty, rain soaked highway he swerves to avoid a truck and drives his car off an unfinished bridge, damaging it so he can no longer drive.
Walking back along the road he encounters an older version of himself, driven crazy by the fact that he never found one last letter, the same one Gus is missing. Gus comes across a mentally handicapped gas station attendee and buys gas, only to receive just one card in return. Fortunately it turns out to be the final letter he needs. His hair now gray, and viewed by everyone in the world as an old man, he heads off to the company offices to claim his prize.
At the company headquarters, a representative explains over the phone in the lobby that collecting all the letters doesn't make him a prize winner, rather just eligible for the prize. Not giving up, he heads upstairs and tries to meet with the company executives, but only gets as far as the secretary. Everyone now sees him as the small child he is, and treats him as such. The secretary explains that nobody is supposed to win Motorama. She congratulates him on collecting the letter, but tells him that there will be no prize. In a fury he realizes too late he's been deceived. A security guard throws him out of the high skyscraper window.
He lands in a pool of water, and then emerges from the same river that he stopped at after the first diner. His car is good as new, and waiting for him on the dusty road. His health is also restored; his eye is back, his tattoo is gone. He throws away the metal leg extensions he made to enable him to drive the car and hitchhikes back towards home. En route he finds the attendee Phil from the first gas station has survived being hit by the truck, but is severely injured. Lacking other options, Gus decides to stay at the gas station and work there to aid Phil. He is now back to being viewed as an adult, despite still being a child.
In a final scene, Gus fills up the car of a gambler who claims to have just won a million dollars. He opens the trunk to show the cash to Gus. The gambler drives away, only to die from the same horrific accident Phil endured, hitting a truck head-on. Letting go of hopes of any financial success and his fantasy girl, Gus remains at the desolate gas station with Phil, staring into the middle distance, continuing to wait for some success down the road.
