When Alan Tracy - in his Brains-designed racecar - returns to the motor racing circuit and triumphs, his rivals decide to remove the competition. They place Alan and Grandma Tracy on a bridge with a bomb and warn them: "Move - And You're Dead!" (Though not in those words! However, this line is echoed by the villain in "Attack of the Alligators").
- Actually Pretty Funny: When Tin Tin sees the result of Virgil's painting of Alan, she tries not to laugh.
- Artsy Beret: Virgil wears one while painting Alan's victory portrait.
- Badass in Distress: Having annoyed a racing duo, Alan and Grandma are abandoned on a bridge under the desert sun with a bomb on a timer. If they move too much or too fast, the bomb will go off early. Jeff does all he can to keep Alan from passing out due to heat exposure before the boys can get there to disarm the bomb trigger.
- Beware the Nice Ones: In this episode, we discover the second International Rescue's Berserk Button — in addition to trying to steal their secrets: attempting to murder one of their family members. They will hunt you down, and if they have to shoot you off the road, so be it.
- Big Brother Instinct: Both Scott and Virgil, but Scott especially.
- Car Porn: While the series as a whole is a love letter to vehicles, this one features actual racing cars. There is a lot of talk about how awesome Alan's new car is, and lots of shots of it howling through the desert.
- Casual Danger Dialogue:
- Alan Tracy is somewhat casual with his enemy who is threatening him with a gun, in a vain effort to keep his kidnappers noticing his attempt to reach his own gun.Alan: (Friendly) What do you want, Gomez?Gomez: Why, Tracy! What kind a tone is that to talk to a guy with a gun in his hand?Alan: You're wasting your time. I don't have the plans for the BR2. And even if I did, do you think I'd hand them over to you?
- Continued later, after Gomez has forced Alan and Grandma to climb high on a bridge, with a metal box.Grandma: What is that thing?Alan: Never mind.Gomez: You'd better explain to the old lady, else she might cause a whole heap of trouble.Grandma: Is it a bomb?Alan: Sort of.Gomez: Yeah, sort of. We've fixed the real bomb right under this roadway. But that other box is an extra present: if you make one move, and disturb the ultrasonic waves, then pow! The whole place blows up.
- Alan Tracy is somewhat casual with his enemy who is threatening him with a gun, in a vain effort to keep his kidnappers noticing his attempt to reach his own gun.
- Context-Sensitive Button: The parking garage at Parola Sands works in essence by lifting up the cars and placing them on shelves. While the operator has a wealth of levers available, he only seems to move the same one backwards and forwards to control all three degrees of freedom of his forklift.
- Contrived Coincidence: Alan's biggest rival (jealous enough to kill) just happens to be participating in the race where Alan makes his comeback to the sport.
- Cool Car: Alan's racecar, designed by Brains.
- Curse Cut Short: When Alan is told to take the ultrasonic detector to the top of the bridge.Alan: Why you dirty —Johnny: Shut up.
- Deadly Game: The car race that Alan participates in is notably far more dangerous than real-life races, what with racing on what looks like a desert track, cars crashing off the track and exploding, not to mention Alan's rival constantly trying to ram him off the road without apparent penalty or mention from the commentators (probably because they're on the explicitly stated, "area of the track that cannot be seen)."
- Expansion Pack Past: In this episode we learn that Alan was a professional racecar driver prior to joining International Rescue; a fact that has never been mentioned before and is never brought up again afterwards.
- He's Back!: After having been retired for some time due to his duties in IR, Alan decides to return to racecar driving in this epsiode, much to the dismay of his rivals.
- How We Got Here: The episode starts with Alan and Grandma already on the bridge. While Thunderbirds 1 and 2 are on their way to save them, Alan tells Jeff about how they ended up there; justified because Jeff is trying to keep Alan focused so he doesn't faint and fall off the bridge in the scorching sun.
- It's Personal: The entire episode revolves around International Rescue saving members of their own family, rather than a random stranger. Jeff is shown to take the entire situation very seriously, remaining in constant contact with his sons.
- Also shown with Scott. Whilst Virgil and Brains conduct the rescue, he goes after the villains responsible for his brother and grandmother's predicament. When he catches up to them, Scott fires bullets next to the car in order to try and get them to stop, without speaking to them beforehand as he would later do with the Hood during Martian Invasion. It is not hard to imagine why.
- Morton's Fork: The situation that Alan and Grandma are in, as the Thunderbirds quickly discover that even if Alan and Grandma stay completely still, the bomb's set to go off anyway at 13:00.
- Papa Wolf: Jeff. Throughout the entire episode, he keeps in constant contact with Alan, doing everything he can to keep his son going, despite the clear stress he himself is suffering. His comment to both Scott and Virgil at the start of the episode proves as much ...Jeff: No Time to Explain, launch Thunderbirds 1 and 2, Pod 1. I'll give you course and all details when you're airborne. And if you want to save your brother's life, move!
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: After rescuing Alan and Grandma (although unable to stop the bomb from going off and destroying the bridge), Scott then chases after Alan's rivals in Thunderbird 1 and actually opens fire on them, eventually causing their deaths when they struggle over the steering wheel and crash.
- Race Against the Clock: The rescue operation is certainly one of these.
- Road-Sign Reversal: The bridge Alan and Grandma get stranded on is not officially opened to traffic yet. Alan's rivals temporarily remove the roadsigns in order to lure the two onto the bridge and return them afterwards to keep other cars from reaching the bridge.
- Self-Disposing Villain: Gomez and Gillespie wind out killing themselves by struggling over Alan's car's steering wheel, causing them to crash the car off a cliff.
- Simple Score of Sadness: Sad guitar music is played during the scenes when Alan and Grandma are alone on the bridge, not used in any other episodes.
- Take a Third Option: During the rescue, Virgil and Brains cannot risk getting too close to the generator or searching for the bomb, due to time constraints. Using their equipment, they first neutralize the generator before Virgil goes in to rescue Alan and Grandma.
- Tearsof Fear: Tin Tin is seen crying a number of times throughout the episode, due to her worry for Alan.
- The Dog Bites Back: A non-lethal example. At the end of the episode, Virgil makes Alan pose for a portrait, which the latter does not approve of. When Scott and Virgil take the mickey, Alan presses a hidden button on their father's desk, sending his brothers into the lowermost levels of the base.
- The Tag: Virgil painting Alan's highly surreal victory portrait. This scene begins with Virgil telling Alan to keep still, echoing Alan's ordeal on the bridge. Tintin joins in the teasing, telling Alan to smile, as he can't represent motor racing with an angry expression. When Alan sees his portrait, and disposes of Scott and Virgil by pressing a button to make them disappear into the floor, Tintin says "who needs a painting, when you've got the real thing?".
- Too Dumb to Live: Gomez and Gillespie. When Scott comes after them, the former realizes that he wants them to stop the car and give up. Gillespie however, refuses to give up. Gomez doesn't appear to think about simply applying the brakes and the two men grapple with the steering wheel. The horrified Scott can only watch as the two men wind up driving off a cliff and plummeting to their deaths.
- Whilst the two men had no way of knowing that their victims were members of International Rescue, neither of them thought about taking away Alan and Grandma's accessories, just in case one of them had a way to call for help as Alan didnote .
