I assured my daughter, Izzy, that there would be a book inspired by her since her brother drove the inspiration behind Emmanuel in The Perfect Kiss. She pulled out all the stops in giving me inspiration on June 30, 2023.

Her brother picked up a cold with all the dreary, rainy weather New England has endured the month of June. Then of course a week before giving me the inspiration, she had a fever one night and then after some meds, the next morning she was free of any fever, but just didn’t feel like doing much of anything, including drinking and eating. She rested for the entire week to make sure she was healthy because she didn’t want to miss her beloved event.

June 30, 2023, we went to New England Drag way for the Street Outlaws event. I admit, only my husband and daughter watch it on TV. My son wants to, but Discovery doesn’t bleep out all the words I don’t want my children saying, so I’m still waiting to make sure he can avoid the use of that language like my daughter can. I’m there to help with the kids and honestly, I think my family brings me to do things they are too nervous to do.

Anyway, after waiting for two hours to get in the gate with our VIP pass, we finally made it to meet our first driver [my son refers to them as ‘characters’ and that just cracks me up, as it illustrates the inspiration I got for Emmanuel’s love of stuffed animals]. The sun glared down on us, finally, after a month of wishing we had the sun. There were about eight people ahead of us and Izzy said she didn’t feel good and wanted to go sit with her grandmother in the stands. When her dad started to walk away with her, she reached for my arm to steady herself. My stomach dropped as I watched her walk away with him. “She’s walking like she’s drunk.” They had to stop for a car to go by, she grabbed her dad around the waist and then she went down.

“Isabella!” I dropped everything in my hands and ran to her. Her eyes were open staring straight up at the sky, but she was gone. I shook her shoulders and her eyes blinked, making her jolt up. Then way too much talking entered my brain at once.

“Get up slowly.”

“Don’t get up.”

“Here I have water for her.”

“No, they said don’t give her water.”

Most of that came from other bystanders like my family and so greatly appreciated.

Then, one of the drivers, Kayla Morton, and so many people from her team were at my daughter’s side with cooling headphones and ice cold water bottles. The driver, “Axman” stationed next to Kayla, had team members out helping too. Both Kayla and Axman had their fans wait, so they could check on her. That warmed my heart.

This was only my second year at the event and while the sport itself is exciting when I’m there, I am more drawn to individual drivers because of who they are. Kayla seems to be the princess who delivers for my family. The first year, she got Boosted (her boyfriend, husband???) to sign his die cast for my husband. This may not seem like a big deal, but it was. Boosted is the announcer, so there isn’t a way to get to him. She told my husband to come back in two hours and she’d have it signed…she delivered. While that wasn’t as dire as how she helped my family this time, it speaks to what a great human being she is.

I am forever grateful to the bystanders, Axman, and Kayla Morton and their crews for putting my daughter’s well being above everything else. Axman has joined my short list of Street Outlaw racers that I “love” and my reasons have nothing to do with their racing, but their humanity.

As you can imagine, readers, this isn’t the end of this story and the precise details will all be revealed soon. The morning after the race, I wrote the prologue and chapter one to my newly inspired story. Granted my daughter turned into a twenty-eight-year old, Kayla will morph into my daughter’s best friend, and Axman transformed into a thirty-two year old single street racer. The tentative title: Racing into Love. My daughter gets to choose the name of her inspired character, but I also told her the next time she wanted to inspire me, make sure it wasn’t something that would scare me half to death. 😬