Extras — The Story Beyond the Story | Press and Reviews | Other Erik E. Esckilsen novels
Published by Houghton Mifflin/Walter Lorraine Books
The Outside Groove
Excerpt:
Five more laps, gaining a foot or so every trip around the oval, and I had this kid. We came out of turn four on lap thirty-two and into the straightaway, and I just glided on over accross car 03′s front end, feeling him lift as I ripped the inside up the frontstretch.
In turn one again, now running with no one besides me, I pushed Theo to see how he was holding up. His tires still gripped tightly, and he was still responsive to the steering. Then I thought about how I was holding up. Although I was soaked with sweat, the adrenaline rushing through my body wasn’t messing with my stomach the way it had at the start of the race. I felt pretty good — no, better than good.
I was genuinely having fun.
Description:
Casey LaPlante wanted nothing to do with racecar driving. What was so impressive about making a bunch of left turns, one after another? But from what she had seen as the sister of Fliverton’s newest stock-car hero, Wade “the Blade” LaPlante, her whole town was interested in little else. Next to her brother, she felt invisible. Even her parents seemed to ignore her athletic victories and academic successes. With so much of her family’s income being poured into Wade’s racing career, she wasn’t even sure her parents would help pay her college tuition.
So one late-April evening, Casey decides to get behind the wheel and claim a little of the attention she had been denied. After all, how hard could racecar driving be? But as the first female driver at Demon’s Run racetrack, she finds getting up to speed more challenging than she’d expected. Casey soon discovers there’s more to stock-car racing than driving around in circles, and more to winning than being first to cross the finish line. Action and suspense run high as Casey navigates some tight corners, on and off the track, showing everyone — especially herself — just what she’s made of.