From “In The Groove”, a NASCAR-licensed Harlequin romance novel set to be released during January’s Daytona 500:

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 - ?

The above excerpt from the St. Pete Times says that “In The Groove” was going to be the first title to be produced as part of the NASCAR-Harlequin partnership. However, a glide through Harlequin’s library yielded already-published “Dangerous Curves”, written by Pamela Britton — who’s also writing “Groove”. The starting flag has already dropped, apparently.

And I thought last year’s NASCAR Ballet represented a loss of focus for stock-car racing…