lucky dog
n.— «Here’s how the lucky dog works: When a caution flag comes out, NASCAR awards the first driver not on the lead lap a free pass around the track, putting that driver at the back of the pack of all cars on the lead lap. Gordon, who fell three laps down in Sunday’s Advanced Auto Parts 500, used pit strategy to make up two of those laps, but needed the lucky dog to get himself back on the lead lap, where he worked his way through traffic and, eventually, into Victory Lane.» —“‘Lucky dog’ rule—friendly or fierce?” by Jay Hart Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) Apr. 14, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
We use the term Milky Way for that glowing arc across the sky. But how people picture it varies from culture to culture. In Sweden, that starry band goes by a name that means “Winter Street,” and in Hawaii, a term for the Milky Way...