The Incident

Ah, The Incident—the moment that changed Harley Dome forever. If you ask the Domers about it, you’ll get as many versions of the story as there are dunes in the desert. But this much is certain: it was 1989, and Harley Dome was alive, its heart pounding with the roar of engines, the thrill of competition, and the dust of the desert. Racers from every corner of the world had come to test their mettle on the wild, untamed trails that stretched from the town square to the horizon. The town was thriving, its cobblestone streets bustling with adrenaline-fueled energy.

It was a day like any other in Harley Dome, the air thick with dust and excitement as riders lined up for the annual Desert Fury Night Rally. The sun hung low in the sky, casting a golden light over the red cliffs. In the distance, the Secret Facility sat silent and still, its usual hum barely noticeable over the engines revving for the race.

Then, without warning, the ground beneath Harley Dome shifted—a deep, bone-rattling tremor that seemed to ripple through the very fabric of the earth. For a moment, time itself seemed to shudder. The racers looked at each other, their engines stalling as the sky above began to warp, the horizon twisting like the reflection in a funhouse mirror. The air grew heavy, almost oppressive, and a strange sound filled the valley—low, like the hum of a tuning fork, growing louder and louder until it seemed to vibrate through the bones of every person standing in the square.

And then it happened.

The air cracked open with a sound like thunder, but sharper, more electric. A blinding flash erupted from the direction of the Facility—a ball of light so intense it burned afterimages into the eyes of anyone unlucky enough to be looking its way. A shimmering wave, like heat rising off the desert, swept out from beyond the horizon, expanding rapidly, and before anyone could react, it enveloped the entire town in a strange, shimmering bubble.

Everything froze for a heartbeat—time itself seemed to stop. People later said they felt weightless for just a moment, as if the ground beneath their feet had forgotten how to hold them down.

Then gravity returned, but not as it had been before. When the bubble settled, it was as though the world outside had disappeared. The roads that once led out of town, winding through the canyons and desert plains, no longer went anywhere. Every path, every trail, every stretch of dirt road that led away from Harley Dome now curved back in on itself, looping endlessly. People tried to drive out, but no matter which direction they took, they always found themselves back where they started—right at the edge of town, looking back at the place they had tried to leave. Now we all know of the one exception, the legendary Finnish rally car driver Jussi Valtteri, but that is a tale for another fire.

And so, gravity itself had changed. On the east side of Harley Dome, the roads all sloped downhill, leading drivers to believe they were speeding away into the desert. But just when they thought they were free, they’d find themselves rolling back into the western side of town, as if the whole place were caught in some kind of twisted, invisible loop, which it was.

The people were trapped. Harley Dome was trapped. And no one, not a soul, could explain why.

Rumors spread like wildfire—that the Facility had tried to control gravity, that they had opened some kind of rift, that they had ripped a hole in the fabric of space-time and sealed the town inside it. But no one inside or outside the Facility truly knew what had gone wrong. We were all in it together.

Days passed, then weeks, and still the bubble held. The roads remained twisted, the horizon unreachable. The racers, once kings of the open desert, now raced in loops, trying to master the new reality of warped gravity. Some grew obsessed, convinced that if they could only drive fast enough or far enough, they could break free as Jussi Valtteri had. Others resigned themselves to their fate, understanding that the town was now their whole world. In fact, it is this philosophical distinction that would form the genesis of the rivalry between Racer and Freestyler crews in the coming years.

But it wasn’t just the roads and gravity that had changed. Strange things began to happen in the weeks that followed. People would see flickers of light in the corners of their eyes—ghostly trails of themselves, as though time itself had become ever so slightly crinkled. Objects left in one place would appear in another, as if the town’s very sense of space had become unmoored. Shadows in the desert moved when no one was around to cast them. But in time these effects diminished and now tend to peg the teller of such tales as an OG Domer.

The people of Harley Dome came to accept that The Incident was not just a disaster—it was a transformation. The Incident bound this cosmopolitan collection of racers and gearheads to Harley Dome, the strange new gravity, compressing everyone into what could only be called a gthriving community.

And so, life goes on under the bubble. The racers race, the Jumbotron flickers, and the town endures. But always, in the back of their minds, the people wonder—what is going on outside the bubble?