The one-upmanship of middle-aged men, bragging to one another that "when I was a kid, I was so poor that..." will never happen to Joe, even though the stories he could tell would put them to shame. In this melodramatic youth story, Joe lives with his demented father in a shanty, and he has been unemployed for a very long time. Eventually he gets a new job and, along with it, a social life of sorts. He would like to make some headway with either of the cute girls at work, but every time he tries, he finds his co-worker Dazey has gotten there ahead of him. Dazey does introduce him to the big teen sport of the region, and the two are soon involved in a keen drag-racing rivalry.