After Hedy's co-applicant explodes, Hedy ignores the mess and yanks open the garage door. She urgently warns Carl and Donut that the tenth floor is a race floor where coming in last means death, and she stresses a critical rule for their two-person team: only one of them can touch the controls in a heat, because the same driver cannot drive twice in a row. As the door opens onto a dark paved starting area full of other teams, Carl tries to guess whether they need speed or armor, but Hedy says the vehicle is random and the first three races will all be on pavement.

A giant wheel of possible vehicles appears and spins while the countdown stalls. The loudspeaker suddenly broadcasts the voice of the unstable woman Carl and Donut recognize as the "kill, kill, kill" lady, who bitterly asks why the surviving crawlers did not take deals and says she wants to die. Zev then cuts in, sounding rushed, and announces that about 5,500 crawlers chose to continue while nearly 15,000 took deals. She relays the system AI's profane order to ignore chaos on other floors and says the tenth floor is called "Don't come in last," with seven heats that begin with groups of nine teams.

As the wheel slows, Zev explains the structure of the floor. The surviving crawlers have been split into teams of up to four, creating exactly 1,800 teams, and the AI has designed most of the tracks because the floor has more survivors than expected. Vehicles or creatures will be fully repaired between races as long as the team's garage attendant stays alive. Teams can earn upgrades after each heat, first place gets a much better reward, everyone receives one Golden upgrade after the fourth heat, and the audience chooses the upgrade for the team that finishes second to last.

The wheel finally stops on a boxy vehicle that turns out to be a Big Shot Chicken food truck. Carl immediately notices its liabilities: a flashy faux-1920s body, a giant plastic tommy gun on the roof, and a design that looks more decorative than roadworthy. The truck also reminds Carl of the Big Shot Chicken safe room where he and Donut were trapped earlier in the dungeon. Zev adds that teams may attack other vehicles but cannot steal them or use movement spells to bypass the race, and she starts to warn them not to wipe out too many teams before the announcement cuts off. With the timer still running, Hedy orders them inside, Carl takes the driver's seat to preserve the rotation rule, starts the engine, and prepares to launch their first heat.