This a true story of two men of courage and conviction, Dr William Burton and Dr Robert Humphries. It begins in 1909 in Whiting, Indiana, the home of Dr Robert Humphries chief chemist of the standard oil company. Dr Humphries has decided he is going to resign after nine years of research and achieving nothing. Then Henry Ford announces he is going in to mass production of his motor car. There is only one thing that will hold back an automobile and that is fuel. Dr Robert Humphries is assigned the job of developing a method of increasing the gasoline yield from crude petroleum. Together with his boss Dr William Burton they persist in creating a process of Petroleum cracking.