Motorcycle racing across every discipline it had in 1971: dirt track, desert racing, motocross, ice racing, even a jump attempt on the beach. Director Bruce Brown follows three riders through a full season, professional flat-tracker Mert Lawwill chasing a national championship, off-road specialist Malcolm Smith working trials and enduros, and actor Steve McQueen riding as an amateur alongside them, mud and crashes included. The camera stays close to the machines and the falls, letting the racing itself carry the film rather than narration explaining what it means. Slow-motion crash sequences and wide shots of desert packs riding flat-out do the work that dialogue would otherwise have to do. The film treats motorcycling as something closer to surfing than to organized team sport, an individual pursuit measured against terrain and each other, and it helped push the sport into wider popularity in the years after its release.