Seven auto-racing freaks in their twenties, restless and resentful from an inability to alter their dead-end existence in a small town, look forward to the return of the local hero (a world champion driver). But his racing death, under highly suspect circumstances, changes their lives and separates them forever. Rewritten and updated in 2014, THE TIME TRIAL was first published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc in the collection PLAYS FROM THE NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL. This is what Joseph Papp said about the play: "In THE TIME TRIAL, Jack Gilhooley, another exceptional talent, presented us with a cultural experience quite different from that of the average civilized theatergoer. Yet the predicament of a gang of small town outcasts struck me as profoundly human. Speaking in a language as brutal and quick-witted as any New York street person's, they spend the day drinking and watching cars circle a race track. In many ways the play became a powerful account of lives going in circle; of drugs, sex, and 'speech' going nowhere. For these people, small town America has become a raw, bloody place with no way of fitting in or getting out; a kind of destructive maze containing nothing of lasting value. It's a mordant and unsparing work written without apology and, in an odd way, aimed directly at us."