(Carl Fogel) writes:

I hope that you enjoy my naive questions as much as I enjoy your
answers. Honest to God, they're racing fixed gear tandems around
tracks? I love it.

I have a vision of two tandems warily jockeying for position on a
banked wooden oval, doing semi-trackstands and eyeing each other
like gunfighters in a bad Western.

I suppose that it's not like this really, but please don't spoil my
fantasy.

No, that's actually about the size of it. Tandem sprinting is a sight
to behold, with a couple of 200+ lbs sprinters on board trying to rip
the thing into pieces. Think of it as a quarter-ton of rolling fun.
At the velodrome here in Blaine MN, when the Olympic trials were held
here, tandem sprinting was one of the events. Marty Nothstein and
Erin Hartwell won; there was a horrible accident in the final when
Bart Bell (IIRC) and his stoker crashed, veering off the track into
the infield. The fork collapsed and they hit the infield hard. Bell
suffered head injuries- I have not heard how his recuperation went.
Does anyone know?

You might enjoy the book No Brakes! about track racing.

Try a Google search for "tandem track sprinting" and see what turns
up.