A warm Love Bytes welcome to author A.F Henley visiting our blog for the Road Trip Blog Tour!

There is a guestpost an excerpt and a giveaway!

 

Welcome A.F ! 🙂

 

A Giveaway and Blog Tour for my newest release… Road Trip

 

Phoenix International Race Track

 

For race fans, there’s nothing quite like a track experience. The fans are intense, the drinking is liberal, and the money that passes hands from parking, to entry, to food and products is somewhat mind-blowing. People travel miles to follow their favorite drivers in their favorite style—drag, oval, dirt—and many of them have the T-shirts, glasses, artwork, calendars, and miniatures to prove it.

 

Personally, I’m more of a drag race fan than anything else. I like to see cool cars ram their pedals to the metal (as the saying goes) then go as fast as hell, and either win, or lose. Race done. Everybody grab a drink, and let’s get on to the next set of cars. There’s something to be said for the stamina of drivers that can go for hours upon hours, but I’d be lying if I said they manage to keep my interest for long.

 

Boyd is an all-inclusive fan when it comes to racing. He likes snowmobiles and muscle cars as much as he enjoys drag racing and motorcross. He’s a NASCAR fan. And I took particular pleasure in including this style of racing in my book for all the wrong reasons. See, even in today’s culture of growing acceptance there’s a bit of a homophobic tinge to the racing circuit. While drivers and supporters are getting more vocal and insistent on the idea that LGBT exists within the industry and people that don’t like should get used to it and get over it, fines are still being imposed on the use of homophobic slurs and outright intolerance. The idea of Boyd wandering around the race track with Oliver hanging on to him, giving those who don’t approve one of his ‘patented New York glares’ makes me all kinds of happy.

 

But enough of my own personal agendas. Let’s find out what makes Phoenix International Race Track so cool. Here are a few fun facts I picked up about the race track the two boys visit:

 

• PIR opened as a home for open-wheel racing in 1964; the first NASCAR races weren’t run there until 1988.
• The late Alan Kulwicki won the inaugural race at Phoenix, and immediately did the first “Polish Victory Lap,” a lap in which he runs the track clockwise.
• PIR didn’t even have a tunnel to the infield until 2003, meaning if you were late to the race and wanted to get to the infield, you had to move fast. Real fast.
• It’s actually location in Avondale, Arizona.
• The IRL left the track in 2005, a major blow to the open-wheel-oriented PIR, but dozens of smaller races are run and commercials filmed at the raceway each year.
• It’s what’s referred to as an “oval” track, and is (now) 1.0 mile round.
• PIR has hosted the IndyCar Series, CART, USAC and the Rolex Sports Car Series.
• The raceway is currently owned and operated by International Speedway Corporation.
• Kevin Harvick owns the title of “Most Cup Wins” (since 1975), his current total is 6.
• Tony Stewart owns the Sprint Cup record at the race with an average speed of 118.132mph, while Jeff Burton owns the Nationwide record at 115.145 mph.
• The track is built around the Estrella Mountains outside of Avondale, AZ. Because of the terrain and the incorporation of a road course and drag strip, designers had to build a “dogleg” into the backstretch. The original road course was 2 miles in length and ran both inside and outside of the main oval track.
• The hillsides adjacent to the track offer a unique vantage point to watch races from. “Monument Hill”, located alongside turns 3 and 4, is a favorite among race fans because of the unique view and lower ticket prices. At the top of this hill lies a USGS bench marker known as Gila and Salt River Meridian, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Long before PIR existed, this spot was the original land survey point for all of what later became the state of Arizona.
• A reconfiguration project was completed in August 2011, and on August 29–30, five drivers tested the new track, describing the new dogleg and backstretch as a “rollercoaster”, due to various dips and rises of the new elevations.
• The Hillside also contains the boundaries for the Gila River Indian Community, and the community apparently used to sell food and drink to race fans too tired (or whatever) to hike all the way back down the hill for concessions.
• In a 2007 survey of drivers, Phoenix tied with Atlanta for the second-favorite course on the circuit with 12 percent of the first-place votes.
• Scenes from the immortal movie Taxi starring Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah were filmed here.

And for those of you who have ever wondered what it would be like to travel the track, I found this interesting video on YouTube. Of course, as always, this video is not mine and is only included for information purposes. Leave your love for the creator if you enjoy it. http://youtu.be/yxe1zHbINl8

Hope you’ve enjoyed your stay at the track, and don’t forget to pick yourself up a commemorative T-shirt on your way out. 😉

 

Until next time!

 

Blurb & Cover

 

For as long as Boyd can remember, he’s been pushing pins into a map. Carson City, Las Vegas, Albuquerque—all places he wants to see, for a dozen different reasons that wouldn’t mean a thing to anyone else. When he finally gets a chance to purchase the ’69 Road Runner of his dreams, at a price that even he can manage, Boyd jumps at the opportunity.

 

Oliver seems like just another kid with a broken dream when their paths cross in Vegas. Against Boyd’s better judgment, he offers to let Oliver hitch along for the ride when Oliver confides the need to get out and get gone.

 

But it’s not long before Boyd realizes Oliver’s reasons for running are more complicated—and more dangerous—than Oliver let on. But Boyd doesn’t like people who play hardball, and he definitely doesn’t like people messing with a man who’s managed to light a fuse that Boyd forgot he had.

 

Gay Contemporary Romance

Copyright © 2015 by A.F. Henley

Published by Less Than Three Press

 

Please note: Novel contains some explicit content.

 

Purchase Link:

Less Than Three Press

Amazon

 

It was just another day—just another twenty-four hour period between all the rest of them. Sure, thirty-five years prior, Boyd’s mother had been forcing out a nine-pound, some-odd-ounces mound of entirely unimpressed infant from the depths of her lady parts, but Boyd figured that was an event that should win her more kudos than it should him. As far as celebrating his birthday went, Boyd’s big plan was the acquisition of a bottle of Jim Beam, followed by the slow-but-steady process of sipping himself into an alcohol-induced stupor.

 

It hadn’t taken long for thirty-five to catch up to him, and it was one of those birthdays where three and a half decades hit like seven. His back ached from sprawling on cold concrete for too many hours. His finger joints burned from years of gripping air tools and turning wrenches. He was bitter and disillusioned, tired and worn out, and doing his best not to lament over the possibility that life truly was as good as it was going to get.

 

Until he saw the email.

 

The auto trader website had promised the best deals in the country delivered directly to one’s inbox, free of charge. Simply enter some personal info, vehicle preferences, and wait. Boyd had been a member for almost four years, but it had got to the point where most of the ‘awesome’ notifications were marked and deleted before they were even read. This one had pictures, though, and even if it would take his ancient computer several minutes to chug them into existence, opening it would mean Boyd could live vicariously with somebody else’s chromed baby for a few moments.

 

The car was a beauty. The body was mint, the engine supposedly ran like a clock, and it was drive-away ready. So when he saw the price, Boyd almost ignored it. A typo, he assumed. Someone forgot a one. An asking price of six-point-two was unheard of. He even went so far as to close and delete the email, to shut down his computer, locate his keys, and head for the front door before he reconsidered. Because, what if…?

 

What if finally…?

 

 

On behalf of the tour, please join the giveaway by taking part in the Rafflecopter below. The prize consists of a Vintage ‘Chrome’ and Leather Road Runner Key Fob (can you say awesome Father’s Day Gift?), a $20 gift certificate to the Less Than Three Press book market (free books!), and a signed, print copy of Road Trip (when available). Click through for terms and conditions, further details, and your chance to win! See all the details here: https://afhenley.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/road-trip-blog-tour-and-giveaway/

 

** Please note that this giveaway is being offered tour-wide and there will be one winner awarded for the entire event.

 

ENTER RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY HERE:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

Bio & Avatar & Links

 

Henley was born with a full-blown passion for run-on sentences, a zealous indulgence in all words descriptive, and the endearing tendency to overuse punctuation. Since the early years Henley has been an enthusiastic writer, from the first few I-love-my-dog stories to the current leap into erotica.

 

A self-professed Google genius, Henley lives for the hours spent digging through the Internet for ‘research purposes’ which, more often than not, lead seven thousand miles away from first intentions but bring Henley to new discoveries and ideas that, once seeded, tend to flourish.

 

Henley has been proudly working with LT3 since 2012, and has been writing like mad ever since—an indentured servant to the belief that romance and true love can mend the most broken soul. Even when presented in prose.

 

Find more here:

Website: http://afhenley.com/

Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/A.-F.-Henley/e/B00FIODWSK/

Publisher’s Page: http://www.lessthanthreepress.com/author-a-f-henley/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AFHenley

Twitter: http://twitter.com/AFHenley

 

Check out Amber her release day review on Road Trip ,here !