You don't see the plots?
Okay, I'll spell out what was obvious to me.
Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry:
A race driver and his mechanic are desperate to make a mark in the circle track racing circuit but lack the money to build a competitive car, so they kidnap the wife and daughter of a grocery store manager and force him to give up the money from the safe.
Larry has what he thought was a one night stand with Mary. She ends up tagging along with Larry and Deke. She is known in the town and is what led to the police gathering information on the two guys. Yeah, the movie is a long car chase but it is based on the guys trying to get away with the cash to restart their racing careers.
Vanishing Point:
Kowalski is a war veteran that has led a troubled life. He is a former Police officer, then motorcycle racer who lost his girlfriend in a surfing accident. He used to be a respectable man but life has been hard on him. He is reduced to taking a job as a car delivery driver that resorts to amphetamines to stay awake to drive the long distances to deliver the cars.
In the opening, he arrives in a Black Monaco. His boss tries to get him to stay overnight to rest but Kowalski is determined to drive the next car to it's destination, a location that he explains in a deleted scene. I'll admit that the motivation for his persistence was vague in this movie.
Along the way, Kowalski encounters several people that test his resolve. A motorcycle cop tries to stop him for speeding. It is unknown why he didn't just take the ticket and keep on the same path but outrunning the cop set forth the chase.
In the deleted scenes that were actually left in the European release, it is explained that San Francisco is his home and he is desperate to get back. He picks up a hitch hiker that it believed to be an angel of death. She says that she likes him and has been following him for a long time.
He wakes up and isn't sure if he dreamt the whole thing, as the woman is gone. He then resumes the drive.
The final scene wasn't clear to me for many years but through many interpretations from many people, I've come to understand that Kowalski saw the light shining between the bulldozer blades as his version of heaven, a portal to peace and happiness.
