Red Planet
The year is 2053. Mars has been industrialized by the Colossal Mining Corporation (CMC) - the ultimate capitalist megacorp. The CMC lures Earth's work-starved masses to Mars where they soon become prisoners of history's worst "company store." A model of corporate efficiency, Colossal keeps overhead low by paying its workers slave-labor wages while simultaneously charging them inordinate sums for food, housing and other necessities the self-named "slags" are unable to obtain from any other source.
Despite the CMC recruiters promises of fame and fortune, only a pathetically small percentage of workers manages to break even, let alone earn enough money to return to Earth.
For the rest, (the Sub-Zeros) there is only one means of escape: racing in the illegal hovercraft races staged by the notorious profiteer, Freeman Jack.
Each night, Jack invades CMC Command and locks off various segments of the complex to create a race course. Victory leads to freedom, anything less means death.
Your racing chariot leading to either glory or death is a Vector Thrust Vehicle (VTV) - a utilitarian hovercraft mining vehicle, usually stolen from one of the CMC supply hangars or cobbled together from the wreckage of the less fortunate before you. Hot-rodded for racing with the aid of booster rockets - of dubious design. Desperate times call for desperate engineering.