Events & Discoveries

Rallye at the Summit

There is a tradition of friendliness among the fraternity of sports car drivers that is a world apart from the snarling surliness of the run-of-the-highway motorist. Sports car drivers habitually wave to one another when they meet on the road; their silvery horns are invariably used to sound cheery greetings rather than threats, and they have even been known to pause politely at a green light while another driver makes a left turn.

Last week the French gave visiting Premier Nikita Khrushchev a brand-new sports car when he dropped in to visit the Renault factory in Normandy. We hope he uses it to drive to the summit in the happy tradition for which it was built.

Railbirds in Texas

It was 5:30 a.m. Saturday in Dallas and the sportsmen gathering in Union Terminal were mentally walking on tiptoes, as if afraid of waking the baby.

" Texas & Pacific Railway special to Hot Springs now ready for passengers on Track 10," boomed a loudspeaker. With that, 600 horseplayers, lifting their feet like zombies, moved into their 17-car train for a 371-mile run to a race track, a somnambulant credit to the perseverance of their breed.

Leaving Dallas at 5:45 a.m., they would ride seven hours to the Oak-lawn Park track in Arkansas, spend five hours there, ride seven more hours back again, getting home about 3 a.m.

It was a service the T&P offered three years ago, half tongue-in-cheek, only to find racing-starved Texans were railbirds in more ways than one.

"I'll bet we're up even before the horses," mumbled a passenger settling himself drowsily into his seat last week. The train rumbled on through Dallas suburbs and into farmland where, indeed, no horses seemed to be awake.

The sleeping towns rolled by: Eula, Elmo, Cobbs, Wills Point. Two coaches fitted with special counters began serving bacon and eggs. Hunch players, their winners already picked, got out boxes of dominoes and decks of cards.