
Alex is a guy trying to make up for lost time.
He wants to do something, be someone. At least in his son's eyes.
So, naturally, he decides to become a race car driver.
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It's easy. Turn his rusted-out '76 BMW 2002 sedan into a rally car, take some racing lessons, assemble a pit crew, get some sponsorships, and enter into a seven-day rally across Mexico. Also, don't die.
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Other rally drivers train for years and meticulously build their cars to spec.
Alex has five months.
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Other drivers' co-pilots pore over route notes,
memorizing the conditions of the roads, the degrees of each turn.
Alex's co-pilot is his teenage son, who just got his learner's permit.
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Obvious obstacles and logistics aside, family pressures also pose a challenge. Alex is trying to make up for time he lost when he didn't have parental custody, and desperately trying to pause the precious little time he has before his son is grown up. But the tightest grasp can't stop a kid from growing. And the fastest car can't outrun time.
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The car itself is a time capsule of their rocky past. When Mateo was a toddler, Alex would travel by city bus to see him. Told he needed a proper car if he wanted visitation, he purchased a '76 BMW that had no heat, a backseat that didn't accommodate a child-safety seat, an unfixed passenger seat that rolled on its tracks with every down or uphill slant. The car got him remarks like, "Why couldn't you just buy a Honda Civic like a normal person?" But Mateo loved it. He named it Marty after his and his dad's favorite movie character, Marty McFly. Their few hours together were spent driving around, pretending this was a race car, pretending it could take them anywhere.
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