In the movie Rebel Without a Cause from 1955, James Dean competing against Corey Allen in a life-threatening car race: They drive against a dive, and the last one to jump out is a coward, chicken.
The chicken race, or chickie run as it is called in the movie, quickly became a trope and was used by several moviemakers. Chicken race is also a term used to handle a conflict. The term is used for duels between two opposing poles, for example in politics, where the one who loses loses, but both lose more if no one folds.
In the composition Chicken Race by Daniel Berg, two violins are competing about who is the fastest. Let us hope that the Last Duel, in the end of the piece, does not get a deadly end…