I believe we sawed the guy off, even if we did lose two hundred.
Director Monte Hellman stated in a modern interview that the image represented the characters, who must keep moving or they will burn out.
For all their talk of bodily functions eating, sleeping, sex, death , the concept of birth is never broached; putting their competition on pause, the racers share a snack of hard-boiled eggs, a potent symbol of canceled fecundity.