My time: 20:57.
The theme is EXPONENTS. Several Across answers, as the highlighted one above, are two-part, with the second part above and just to the right of the first part, similar to where an exponent would be placed. It is then read as: RACE [to the] BOTTOM, WELCOME [to the] CLUB, PREACH [to the] CHOIR, CUTS [to the] CHASE, and so on.
A fair bit of material this Sunday I didn't know anything about, and several fills were done just by pure guesswork as to what sounded and looked like a word. WASATCH is a Utah mountain range and a state park. The star of Korean breakout film "Parasite" is CHOI Woo-shik. "____ Pro" was not enough of a clue to get me to MAC, and crossing it is the Indian state of ASSAM, "whose capital is Dispur" — not a Well-Known Fact, frankly. Also crossing it is "kingdom east of Babylonia" ELAM which I mistakenly thought was *ELOM.
"NYC's first subway line" is IRT, which has come up before.
"They might be caught in the rain" is CABS, a very New York-centric clue if there ever was one.
"The Lake ISLE of Innisfree" is a famous Yeats poem. It starts: "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree..."
Further stumbling blocks to a speedy solve were wrong answers. I had *THE L-WORD pegged for "Potentially risky thing to drop in a relationship" but it's really THE L-BOMB. I also put *HUCK where FINN needed to go, which gummed up the works a fair bit.
We've had Willem de Kooning, and now meet his wife, artist ELAINE de Kooning. I'm not sure I much care for either of them.
Well, here's to more ALACRITY and HASTE ("expedition" — crafty clue) in future Sundays.
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