36

In this paper, the author analyses the way young men bond and gauge one another when they compete in a race of cars or two-wheelers. The stake in such contests is to enhance the reputation of the winner or of those who achieve some prowess. Thus young men build up a reputation bound up with the respect paid to them by their peers. The behaviour of drivers and their rhetoric are here apprehended through concepts in the sociology of technical objects: “arenas of technical skills” and “ethos of virtuosity” (in reference to the work of N. Dodier), hybrids and cyborgs (in reference to the work of B. Latour).