Velocity

Investigating a mysterious race car, Bumblebee gets involved with an illegal underground street racing circuit, which also captures the attention of the Decepticons.

Stats

 * Written by: Len Uhley
 * Directed by: Irineo Maramba, Christopher Berkeley, & Kenji Itoso
 * Original airdate: May 10, 2008

Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes
Fanzone: I've been after these guys for weeks. They're part of an underground racing circuit. Bulkhead: You mean they race in tunnels? Fanzone: Underground as in illegal. As in they race in the streets and don't care who gets hurt. Bulkhead: That's not what Sari told me. Optimus: What purpose does this street race serve? Fanzone: Eh, what else? They get a couple a' million pay-per-view customers for their pirate broadcasts, then it's "cha-ching cha-ching", big bucks.
 * Captain Fanzone introduces the Autobots to the seedy world of underground racing.

Bumblebee: Lighten up, Bulkhead. We're supposed to be the fun bots. Bulkhead: Yeah, but we still gotta set a good example. She looks up to us. Bumblebee: Hello, she looks up to everybody. Sari: HEY!
 * Bumblebee should be more sensitive about size issues.

"HA! I will crush all that stands in my way!"
 * Hothead Blitzwing, right before he is buried under the rubble of a bridge.

Random Blitzwing: Oh, isn't zat cute? They're twins! Icy Blitzwing: Readings indicate that one of them is carrying the AllSpark fragment. Hothead Blitzwing: I will destroy them both!
 * Whenever in doubt, Blitzwing's personalities can agree on one thingdestroy everything.

"Hey...you know that's comin' out of my paycheck."
 * —Captain Fanzone manages to see the down side of being saved before Blitzwing destroyed his car.

[referring to Bumblebee's vehicle mode] "How come your interior's so much cleaner than mine?" "Hmm, maybe because it's not on fire?"
 * —Sari zings Captain Fanzone.

Hothead Blitzwing: What is happening?! Why can't I control myself?! Random Blitzwing: Not zat I ever could! AHAHAHA! Sari: See? This is how Master Disaster fixed his races. By making the blue racer do whatever he wanted. Random Blitzwing: Oh, dizzy. Not liking the dizzy.
 * As Sari takes control, Hothead Blitzwing wants it back, while Random Blitzwing has accepted his insanity.

"Well, that's the trouble with bending the rules—cough—they usually snap right back in your face."
 * —Lessons in life from Captain Fanzone

Hothead Blitzwing: Never give up! Icy Blitzwing: Never surrender! Random Blitzwing: NEVER MIND!! [Blitzwing swerves off into a nearby building]
 * Blitzwing and the mysterious racer play a game of Chicken.

Continuity errors

 * Hothead Blitzwing demonstrates the ability to function in jet mode, instead of automatically switching to tank mode as he did in "Megatron Rising, Part 2". His ice missiles are replaced with conventional explosive ones. Maybe he learned his lesson?

Transformers references

 * Bumblebee's turbo boosters were first seen in "Nanosec".

Real-world references

 * The mysterious racer's vehicle mode bears more than just a passing resemblance to the Mach 5 from Speed Racer.
 * (Though it's probably coincidence that the 2008 live-action Speed Racer movie opened the same weekend this episode first aired.)


 * This episode borrows several plot and thematic elements from the popular street racing film The Fast and the Furious.


 * Blitzwing's "Never give up! Never surrender! NEVER MIND!" quote refers to the catchphrase from the Dreamworks film, Galaxy Quest.


 * Blitzwing haphazardly fires off multiple missiles in all directions in a style reminiscent of the Veritech Fighters from Super Dimension Fortress Macross.


 * In this episode, Blitzwing's cannons make the familiar "high tension cable twang" normally associated with laser cannons in the Star Wars films.


 * Also, Sari's Key makes the noise of a Zat gun from Stargate SG-1 when she enters Master Disaster's trailer, and again when she picks up the remote.

Miscellaneous trivia

 * Fanzone's car explodes. Again. At least we know where he gets the replacements.
 * The mysterious blue race car under Master Disaster's control matches the vehicle mode of Animated Blurr, as shown in an "upcoming products" presentation at BotCon 2008. Presumably it is Blurr . . . but as of this episode, its exact nature is unknown. It could be merely an AllSpark-enhanced unliving machine (like those in "The Elite Guard"), from which Blurr will someday take his Earth-mode (as Bumblebee did with Fanzone's car).  (If it is Blurr, then he either is or will be a member of the Elite Guard, according to the presentation mentioned above.)