In recent years, a dramatic increase in the study of infrastructure has occurred in the social sciences and humanities, following upon foundational work in the physical sciences, architecture, planning, information science, [End Page 1] and engineering. This article, authored by a multidisciplinary group of scholars, probes the generative potential of infrastructure at this historical juncture. Accounting for the conceptual and material capacities of infrastructure, the article argues for the importance of paradox in understanding infrastructure. Thematically the article is organized around three key points that speak to the study of infrastructure: ruin, retrofit, and risk. The first paradox of infrastructure, ruin, suggests that even as infrastructure is generative, it degenerates. A second paradox is found in retrofit, an apparent ontological oxymoron that attempts to bridge temporality from the present to the future and yet ultimately reveals that infrastructural solidity, in material and symbolic terms, is more apparent than actual. Finally, a third paradox of infrastructure, risk, demonstrates that while a key purpose of infrastructure is to mitigate risk, it also involves new risks as it comes to fruition. The article concludes with a series of suggestions and provocations to view the study of infrastructure in more contingent and paradoxical forms.

sport and leisure activities to illuminate an array of broader topics. For example, they have mined accounts of ball games and horse races for insights into such vital aspects of society as segregation, gender relations, honor, and social class.' Although scholars have only begun to investigate automobile racing, an examination of this popular sport has the potential to reveal much about the region. Understanding racing's early years in the South requires first the correction of current widespread misconceptions, among scholars and the public alike, about its origins. This article chronicles the emergence of automobile racing in the South between 1903 and 1927 and establishes the new sport's importance as part of the larger processes of economic development, civic boosterism, cultural change, and regional interaction in the early years of the twentieth century. Many observers, both academic and popular, have mistaken ideas

By Randal L. Hall JKeminiscing, Floyd Allen's attorney recounted his client's actions in the courtroom in Carroll County, Virginia, on March 14, 1912: "[Floyd] hesitated a moment, and then he arose .... He looked to me like a man who was about to say something, and had hardly made up his mind what he was going to say, but as he got straight, he moved off to my left, I would say five or six feet, and he seemed to gain his speech, and he said something like this, T just tell you, I ain't a going.'"1 Floyd Allen (1856-1913), a prominent county merchant, farmer, and sometimes public official, faced a guilty verdict that morn ing for interfering with deputies performing their duties. Upon receiv ing a sentence of one year in prison, Allen announced his refusal to go with the sheriff when the officer moved to place him into custody. As Allen unbuttoned his sweater and fumbled beneath it, gunfire erupted. Floyd, his son Claude (1889-1913), his brother Sidna (1866-1941), and his nephews Friel Allen, Wesley Edwards, and perhaps Sidna Edwards pulled concealed pistols and exchanged fire with courtroom 1 Testimony of Judge David W. Bolen, transcript of Floyd Allen's first trial, p. 6. (The trial testimony began on May 2 and ended on May 11, 1912.) Copies are available in the Wythe County Circuit Court,

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