The story begins when The Hot Wheels car business, owned by Dr. Peter Justice, is robbed and bombed; the most vital items that were stolen being some computer disks on the formula Velocity X (a formula for a racing super fuel that allows cars to travel twice their normal speed) and a prototype Hot Wheels car (that runs on uranium and can turn invisible for short periods of time). Peter's 17 year old son, Maxwell "Max" Justice (voiced by David Kaufman), insists on his dad's robot "Gearhead" that he should try to track down whoever stole the cars and attempt to retrieve them all (in the GBA version, however, the robot, "Gearhead" is the playable character). He is confronted with various "villains" on his quest, such as Conrad "Nitro" Byrne, Billy Bob "Backroads" Belcher, Fast Lane Friscatti, Simon "Slick" Deluca and Rupert Jacoby, all of whom work for the main antagonist of the game, Otto Von Diesel (Dr. Peter Justice's former associate on the Hot Wheels engineering team), who’s trying to get both the prototype car and Velocity X so he can go back in time and destroy the Justice family and thereby prevent any and all Hot Wheels cars from ever existing.
