Thompson's depiction includes the events in Louisville, his hometown, in the days before and after the Derby, and Steadman captured the debauched atmosphere in his surreal drawings.
Thompson provided up-close views of activities in the Derby infield and the grandstand at Churchill Downs, and a running commentary on the drunkenness and lewdness of the crowd, which he states in the article as the only thing he was focusing on.
...This man had an impressive head chiseled from one piece of bone, and the top part was covered down to his eyes by a floppy-brimmed sun hat.
Damn near 6-foot-6 of solid bone and meat holding a beaten-up leather bag across his knee and a loaded cigarette holder between the arthritic fingers of his other hand.
In 1970, Bill Cardoso, editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, wrote to Thompson, whom he had met on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire presidential primaries.