It's a small town's summer race.  Perhaps it's a leg of a triathlon.  The participants hail from the town and surrounding county; the audience is largely made up of locals and participants' family members.  The men are perhaps brothers or friends.  The only fame the winner will earn is the front page of the local paper, but the competitors have been training all summer and spring for this day.  It holds a lot of weight for them because they put a lot into their community.  Everyone in the town knows each other; they play together; they attend or don't attend church together; they eat together; they take turns helping each other with chores; they work together.  The town and its goings on become of little significance to outsiders or anyone else in the state or world, but within the town, the town is the world.  This race is an expression of that town's spirit.  They strive like Olympians and will be praised as such.  And Sunday, after the race, they will all sit down at each other's dinner tables together, and Monday, they will all drive into work on the same road, and they will continue their lives.  The race is a symbolic celebration of the unity of the little area on the map that is their small town.
