Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Word for Word

Gentlemen, start her engine

By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published November 24, 2005

	[Times illustration: Rossie Newson]

NASCAR isn't just one of the biggest sports in the United States, it's one of the most prolific licensing agencies. Fans can shell out for official NASCAR jackets, official NASCAR jammies, even official NASCAR grape tomatoes.

But, until this month, there was no official NASCAR romance fiction. That oversight was corrected when the racing megacorporation signed a licensing deal with Harlequin Enterprises for NASCAR-themed romance novels, aimed at the sport's female fans.

Harlequin runs at the front of the pack of romance publishers; in 2004, it sold 130-million books.

The first NASCAR love story, In the Groove by romance vet Pamela Britton, will be published in January, in conjunction with the running of the Daytona 500.

In this excerpt from the first chapter of In the Groove, former schoolteacher Sarah Tingle (that's right, Tingle) is on her way to her new job as motor coach driver for star NASCAR driver Lance Cooper. She's having a long run of bad luck, and her car breaks down on a country road as she's on the way to meet her new boss.

- COLETTE BANCROFT, Times staff writer

Sarah Tingle - bus driver. She still couldn't believe it. And as she recalled the twenty, precious little faces she used to teach every day, Sarah felt like closing her eyes all over again. Instead she pushed on, shoving her curly red hair over one shoulder as determination set in.

Ten minutes later she was about to throw herself into the lake. She'd even made a deal with herself that if there wasn't a home around the next bend she'd do exactly that.

God must have tortured her long enough because right at the sharpest edge of the turn stood a mailbox, sunlight spotlighting the thing like a biblical tablet. She ground to a halt, feeling almost giddy upon recognizing the address. Two brick pillars stood to the right, an elaborate wrought iron gate between them.

A gate with the cutout of a black race car in the middle of it.

She'd arrived. Finally.

She walked forward a few more steps - well, limped, actually; her big toe had a blister on it - so excited that she didn't look left or right as she stepped into the road, just blithely assumed no one was coming (because, really, no one had in the forty-five minutes she'd been walking).

Tires cried out in protest, their screech loud and long. Sarah looked left just in time to see the front end of a silver car coming toward her. She leapt. The car kept coming. She went airborne, then landed, rolling up the hood of a car.

It took a moment to realize she'd come to a stop.

She opened her eyes. Her head - still attached to her body, miraculously enough - had come to rest against something hard and cool. A windshield, she realized. Her cheek and the front of her body pressed against the glass.

Oh, great.

She was now a human bug. How appropriate.

Lance Cooper saw cleavage - that was it - a large valley of flesh where moments before there had only been open road.

What the - ?

- Word for Word is an occasional feature excerpting passages of interest from books, magazines, Web sites and other sources. The text may be edited for space but the original spelling, grammar and punctuation are unchanged.

[Last modified November 22, 2005, 13:16:03]