In this letter Thompson attempts to justify the huge expenses associated with covering the Mint 400 motorcycle race in Las Vegas with his friend and attorney, Oscar Acosta.
There is no way to understand the public reaction to the sight of a Freak smashing a coconut with a hammer on the hood of a white Cadillac in a Safeway parking lot unless you actually do it ... and I tell you it's tense. They don't like it at all. It rips their nerve ends in a very extreme way.