Avoidable Contact: Daytona's Checkered Flag

**5 Days Until Avoidable Contact Launches!**
**Read an excerpt of the book, and posts about the research backstory, the first 10 hours,
and my sleep research**

The 24 Hours of Daytona 2013 wasn't a good race for The Racer's Group. For about three seconds, I wondered if I was a bad luck charm for them, and then I remembered ... that's just racing. And perhaps being there to experience disappointment on disappointment on disappointment was appropriate to remind me that I write happy endings, and they sure don't always happen on the track.

That's why I make sure Kate has successes in my books, but she doesn't do everything perfectly behind the wheel every time, and she doesn't take pole and win all the time. Because that's certainly not realistic!

But good race for the team or not, I was there with them the whole time, and I learned a ton. The final two posts from that year:

• To the end.
• Over, over, over.

As research does, it all helped. Going into it (research/races), I never quite know what to expect (see my sleep research post). But I know I'll get plenty of information, and I'll be able to do something with it.

Which is what happened after the 2013 race. I came home, wrote a bunch, did a lot more research by email and video, and then decided to return in 2014 to make sure I had the details right—especially of the brand-new series and the brand-new Corvette. Two posts from this year:

• What I learned at Daytona (2014).
• My favorite Daytona things (photos from 2014).

And there you have it, my on-site, at-race research. Of course, there are bunches of friends, sources, and stories that didn't make the blog posts or the book. But maybe they'll turn up in the future!

Next week, Avoidable Contact!

Avoidable Contact: My Sleep Research

**8 Days Until Avoidable Contact Launches!**
**Read an excerpt of the book, and read posts about the research backstory and first 10 hours**

In the end, I couldn't stay awake all night at the 24 Hours of Daytona. But I thought I could manage if I slept three hours—which was a compromise between as little as I could get away with and as much as I thought would allow me to be functional. And it worked! Therefore, that's how much Kate sleeps in the book.

As a sidenote, when I conceived my brilliant idea of starting the book with the green flag and ending with the checkers, I didn't consider one basic fact that would really mess up my schedule: writing in first person means lost time when Kate can't think about solving the mystery. Driving time and sleeping time weren't sleuthing time! That's when I got a little creative with the book's timeline and my fictional race's yellow flags.

On a different note, one of the wonderful aspects of research—whether it's history, modern technology, physical locations, or races—is when the writer stumbles across a great story or activity that they can include in their books. For me the best moment of my trip to the Daytona 24 was standing on the spotter's platform, high above the track, at 2 a.m. The view was incredible. I had other opportunities to talk with one of the spotters (Dr. Chris Murray, a chiropractor in his real life) before the race, after the race, and again at the 2014 race, and thanks to his information, I gave Kate's spotters a great story to tell in the depths of the night. (So thanks, Dr. Chris! That's him on the right in the photo above. On the left is Bob Dickinson, TRG's COO.)

The morning of a 24-hour race is an incredible time. The teams are past the halfway point, but they're exhausted. The dawn and daylight bring a sense of renewed energy, and there's a sense that if we've made it this far, we'll make it all the way. The worst is over. Two blog posts took me through the night and the next morning:

• Spotting, Sleeping, and Fog.
• Silver Linings.

I'll finish out the race with the last posts....

Avoidable Contact: Racing Into The Night

**12 Days Until Avoidable Contact Launches!**
**Read an excerpt of the book, and read the first post about the research behind it**

Something I knew I had to do, if I was going to write about a 24-hour race, was to convey just how long the race goes on. I mean, 24 hours is a long time to do anything continuously, and I expected that, to the teams, it could feel like an eternity. I wanted readers to feel something of that experience, and so I wanted the race to span the entire book I was writing. In the end, I cheated a little, and the total elapsed time in Avoidable Contact is in the 25-26 hour range. But I think readers will still get the idea!

One of the research experiences I wanted was to sit in the pits for hours on end, just as the crew does. Drivers come and go, and I knew that's what Kate would be doing. But I also wanted to understand what went on to keep the car running the whole time. And so, at the 2013 race, I sat in the pits for hours, listening to the radio transmissions between driver, spotter, and crew chiefs.

At five and then nine hours in, it already felt like we'd been doing this forever! See the posts:

• Five hours down.
• Midnight snacks.

I had one other important research task to accomplish in the depths of night during the Daytona 24: see how little sleep I could get away with! Many people don't sleep at all, or grab catnaps all day and night. I didn't think I'd be able to manage that ... and sure enough, I couldn't! I snuck away in the wee hours of the morning for some shut eye (but not a lot). That's the next post. 

I'll leave you with the panorama from the top of the spotter's stand at 2 a.m. An incredible sight!

The next posts take us into morning of the second day....

Avoidable Contact: The Backstory

Avoidable Contact, the third Kate Reilly Racing Mystery, launches in two short weeks! Have you read the first-chapter excerpt I've posted?!

As a lead-up to that day, I thought I'd revisit the experiences I had doing research for the book—namely, what I learned while I embedded with a race team for the 24 Hours of Daytona 2013.

At the end of 2012, I'd started writing Avoidable Contact, only it didn't have that title yet. It was a story I'd plotted out and set at the 24-hour race, but I wasn't yet comfortable with the idea of writing it ... because I knew I needed an insider's look at the event. That's when I contacted my good friends at The Racer's Group, who I know from my first year involved in racing, and asked for a favor.

Kevin Buckler, the team owner, and Bob Dickinson, my former marketing/communications contact at the ALMS and current TRG COO, came through for me. "Sure," they said. "Happy to have you embed with the team. Come on out!" They hooked me up with a credential, and I prepared to take a lot of notes (and plug their team whenever possible!).

I wrote eight blog posts that weekend, and took dozens and dozens of pages of notes. I'll spare you the notes, but I'm reprising the blog entries (they're all short) to give you a flavor of the research experience that went into my new book. Here are the first two:

• The race start.
• The first hours.

And here are two panoramas, one looking back at the pits from the front straight and the other looking at the front straight and the stands, all during pre-race ceremonies ... my experience there was peaceful and sunny, unlike Kate's!

More posts and tidbits to come soon....

Avoidable Contact: The Cover Reveal!

The cover for Kate's third adventure is here! And it's gorgeous! How's this for evoking the mood of the 24 Hours of Daytona?

And to whet your appetites, here's the summary:

Racecar driver Kate Reilly is suited up and ready for the start of the legendary 24 Hours of Daytona. But what’s ahead will test her will and nerve more than any other endurance race.

Even before the green flag waves over Daytona International Speedway, Kate receives word her boyfriend Stuart is fighting for his life after a hit-and-run earlier in the day. Still reeling from that news, Kate must absorb other shocks in the race’s opening hours, including an on-track accident with tragic consequences and an eyewitness who claims Stuart was run down deliberately by someone from the race paddock.

Alternating stints behind the wheel of her Corvette racecar with stretches of quizzing colleagues and searching for clues, Kate taps every possible source—friend, foe, and family—to find out who’s after Stuart and why. As the race clock counts down to zero hour, Kate must come to terms with her own fears about the past and decide who she’s willing to trust. Only then can she identify who’s willing to kill to keep a secret buried—and stop them before they lash out again. 

_________________

Avoidable Contact will be released in August 2014. Pre-order on Amazon or Barnes & Noble (I know it's got the old title, we'll fix it).

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

You can have your Super Bowl and Pro Bowl … racing season is about to begin!

Admitting you have a problem is the first step, right? Hello, my name is Tammy, and I’m a racing addict. Why that should be the case, I haven’t the faintest idea. But I really love racing.

What I like the most is sportscar racing, particularly the endurance races. Because those races feature three to five drivers sharing a single car and driving around a track for as much as 24 hours. The car has to turn on and off every hour or so while it’s fueled (usually), but otherwise, it has to run the entire time. Fast. At the limit of its capabilities. And one of the drivers has to be in there the whole time. Focusing on driving fast. At the limit of his (or her) capabilities. Honestly, I think it’s a freaking miracle that cars and humans are still functioning at all at the end of that.

So while football fanatics are watching their all-star game this weekend, I’ll be watching one of my own. The 24 Hours of Daytona isn’t really an all-star race, but almost all the stars are going to be there, because it’s a race that everyone wants to win. Teams from every corner of the racing world (OK, except Formula 1) field entries and Grand-Am series regulars recruit extra drivers—so you’ll see NASCAR stars sharing cars with Indy champions and sportscar legends, as well as pro-am or “gentlemen” drivers. You’ll even catch a glimpse of McDreamy himself, who runs a team in the series.

Next Saturday to Sunday (the 29^th to 30^th), noon to noon, you know where I’ll be for the 14 hours of coverage that SPEED promises. I’ll be glued to the team drama, the mechanical failures, the tired drivers, the crew sleeping in the pits at 5 a.m., and the final triumph of two teams (one in each class). Plus I’ll be ignoring the disgusted looks my husband gives me by about Sunday morning at 10 a.m.

I can quit anytime. Really.