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Prologue

Host Ira Glass talks to Cory Simmons and Dominique Mapp, who were driving home one night and were followed by a group of rowdy men in an SUV. The men tailed them for miles and then started firing a gun at them.

Act One: Cowboys And Indians, Part 1

Reporter Susan Burton tells the story of a high-speed chase in South Dakota. An incident at a high school basketball game escalated to the point where a group of Native American girls from one town found themselves being chased down the highway by a group of white boys from another town.

Act Two: Cowboys And Indians, Part 2

Susan Burton's story continues. She investigates the effect the high-speed chase had in the town where it happened—Miller, South Dakota, one of the top ten most racially homogeneous places in the country.

Prologue

Host Ira Glass talks with NPR's Car Talk hosts Tom and Ray Maggliozi and a former employee of theirs, Joe Richman. Ray once fixed Joe's beloved '72 Plymouth Valiant, a repair job which hastened it to its grave...but probably got Joe a girlfriend.

Act Four: Are You Ready?

Scott Carrier drove 2,000 miles across the country from his home in Salt Lake City to Chicago, talking with people about the coming war. If it's part of the American character to be profoundly skeptical, and another part to be boldly patriotic...Scott found both tendencies...often in the same person.

Act Four: Only One Thing Missing

In this Act, we argue that the epicenter of prom genius—the place where America's prom future is being born—is the town of Racine, Wisconsin. In Racine, they've added one ingredient to prom that takes it to a whole new level of intensity.

Act One: The Number 66 Bus

Linnel Peterson drives the Number 66 bus in Chicago, on Chicago Avenue. She grew up just blocks from the route, still lives near the route, and says it's strange whenever she drives her car on Chicago Avenue these days.

Act Four: Three More Bubbles

An '88 Grand Marquis that Senator Conrad Burns inherited from his mother; a New York taxicab whose driver, Jeff Perkins, tape-records his passengers to help pass the time; a 1980s-era BMW 5 series in which film producer Rob Levine had his first job as driver and assistant to movie producer Edgar Sherrick.

Act Five: 1991 Silver Toyota Camry

Ernest Castle and his best friend Clarence tool around the neighborhood where they grew up—the Chicago suburb of Hazelcrest—drinking and running into friends on a Sunday morning.

Act Six: Bubble Five

David Sedaris, author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, explains how the most important moments of your life can happen in a car...and you can miss them.

Prologue

Host Ira Glass talks with a guy who hit the road after his mother's death, hoping for some experience that would change him and shed light on what just happened. This never happens to him, or to most of us.