Word: speedways
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...reading Fussell that he can play the loudmouth and the egghead with equal relish. One of his models is George Orwell, who hid his social pedigree and erudition behind a blunt style that shook comfortable perceptions with irony and contradictions. When Fussell goes to the races at the Indianapolis Speedway, for example, he begins with the standard derisive sociology about the "middles" in the reserved seats and the black-leather set that gathers in the muddy infield known as the Snake Pit. But by the time he leaves, Fussell is a fan of what he sees as a dangerous ritual...
...week. It seemed everyone's Pan Am hero though, Anglo and Latin, was a lefthanded baseball pitcher born with one finger on his right hand. The University of Michigan's Jim Abbott, 19, carried the flag and led the U.S. team in the opening ceremonies at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where roller skaters would later go streaming like the Unsers. "I've never run across a feeling on a baseball field quite like that," said Abbott, who then took the mound against Nicaragua. "When you're out there, and the national anthem's playing, and you're holding your...
...across the asphalt track. A circus kind of calling, racing regularly summons more than one generation of the same family, though these are the only fathers and sons who have ever raced together at Indianapolis. In his christening two years ago, Al Jr., 23, brought a smile to the speedway during the closing laps by trying to block the path of Winner Tom Sneva on behalf of Runner-Up Al Sr. Last May, Mario welcomed Michael to the life with a short glance across the row they shared. "I don't have any first memory of my father, the race...
Worst of all, debate critics assert, the match-ups have turned into a game of gaffe exploitation. "Modern debates are the political version of the Indianapolis Speedway," charges Political Scientist Nelson Polsby of the University of California, Berkeley. "What we're all there for-the journalists, the political pundits, the public-is to see somebody crack up in flames." Trivial mistakes get blown out of all proportion. Harking back to some celebrated ones from past debates, Kansas Senator Robert Dole, the admitted loser of a TV match against Walter Mondale in 1976 when they were opposing candidates for Vice...
Perception is reality. It is the motto of pickpockets, but also the police. Los Angeles authorities discovered a few years ago that an empty police car parked alongside a speedway would serve just as well as a manned cruiser to slow down traffic. In fact, at least one Beverly Hills denizen has taken to keeping a fake patrol car in the driveway to deter thieves. Mere burglar alarms are obsolete today; the up-to-date suburban paranoiac installs timers in his house to turn lights off and on while he is away...