Those Gorgeous Superstars of Sport by Joanne Hill

I've noticed a lot of writers have got, frankly, a bit of a thing for sportsmen and it hit me that it would be entirely remiss if I did not - as the lone Kiwi here - take a moment to talk about New Zealand's national rugby team, the All Blacks.

The All Blacks are "it"  in New Zealand. We do have a national soccer team, a rugby league team, a cricket team and more - but our rugby team, the All Blacks, is 'it.' As a teenage girl you might dream of marrying an All Black; as a mother, of raising a son to play for them. As a romance writer, well, it's all perfect fodder for the creative mind.

In August last year the Romance Writers of New Zealand conference was held in Wellington and it just so happened that the hotel we were staying at on that exact weekend, our usual conference weekend, was the hotel the All Blacks - the whole team - were also staying at for a big game.  It just does not get any better than that.  Sadly the organising committee will, I suggest, never, ever, in the history of writers' conferences, be able to top that again. We even got media coverage because - let's face it - romance writers and All Blacks... That's a pretty provocative headline.

The best night was after our Awards Dinner when hundreds of fans congregated in the lobby bar to await the return of our winning team after their match against the Australians. The lobby was heaving with men and women waiting for the team, the air thick with excitement, and when the team arrived back, triumphant but exhausted, even though they didn't hang aroundthe lobby area it was a moment. A glorious moment.

Over the weekend many of my fellow conference-goers shared tales of All Black encounters - some were downright shameless.  One ran up to her favorite player and told him she loved him. Another one saw her favorite, Ma'a Nonu, and trailed after him calling his name.  I gather she sounded like a sheep as she tried to get his attention with "Ma'a, Ma'a." I think she may have told him she loved him, too, and he may have obliged with a hug. Yet another tried to get into her room with her swipe card when the door suddenly opened and standing there - so she claims -  shirtless, with six pack abs, was Dan Carter, one of our All Black superstars. She was on the wrong floor.

Back in 2011 New Zealand hosted the Rugby World Cup and for weeks we were abuzz with excitement. The ABs (as we call them) won, and there were a host of photos of the team holding the trophy, our glorious captain Ritchie McCaw, the relief of a sports mad country, the parades afterwards. But of all the photos, there was one that gripped the nation in an entirely different way.  It was of superstar player Sonny Bill Williams on the field. He'd ripped his shirt during a game and because of the hi-tech nature of the fabric, had to have help to remove it. The team doctor Deb Robinson obliged as men and women across New Zealand - across the world - could only gaze in wonder at the amazing physique of six-foot-three Sonny Bill and in envy at Dr Deb Robinson. (Here's a link to an article and a video - the video might not work in your part of the world but never fear - scroll down and you'll see the pic!)
So... (Clears throat) What is it about these men, our sporting heroes? What is it that sends women and - let's face it - men, grown-up heterosexual men into acting like school kids when they're around them? And just who are your current sporting heroes? Do share.

Joanne Hill is a New Zealander who never married an All Black and, even more disturbingly, discovered her children had no desire to play rugby.
Her latest book, a romantic comedy called Dating Daisy is part of a boxed set with six fellow Kiwi authors called "Second Chances"and will be released July 1 exclusive to the iBooks Store for just .99c

NASCAR for the Uninitiated by Aileen Fish

In recent months, a young Reddit fan happened to mention how well a driver named Josh Wise was doing for his under-sponsored single-car team owned by Phil Parsons Pacing. As he and other forum members got to talking, the question of “What if…” arose. The next thing they knew, they’d collected enough Dogecoin donations, the peer-to-peer currency created for Internet use, to sponsor Josh Wise for a race.

They didn’t stop there. Voting opened for the annual All-Star race opened, and they went to work voting Josh Wise into the race. Apparently, he won by a landslide, which is pretty major considering the usual fan favorites of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Danica Patrick were on the ballot.

All this Internet activity has brought new fans to NASCAR, so you or one of your loved ones might have begun watching races recently. You might not be feeling you understand all the rules, which is okay, because the rules change each year in small ways, leaving a lot of us scratching our heads or calling into radio shows to get answers. You probably recognize the basics: a field of up to 43 drivers competes on oval tracks or road courses to win the race. Unlike European auto racing, we only celebrate one winner, not the podium of three. In NASCAR terms, second place is “first loser”.

NASCAR has three major levels, plus a handful of regional ones, but most of the time if you hear someone talking about a race or a driver, they are referring to one in the Sprint Cup series, sponsored by Sprint. The second tier is currently the Nationwide Series, but sponsor Nationwide Insurance is stepping back next year, so we’ll be fumbling over the name for many months. Then there is my personal favorite – the Camping World Truck Series. Yes, that’s right, they race pickup trucks! How cool is that? Okay, I imagine it’s more cool to country-at-heart gals like me who think trucks are best. Given that these races are only televised on sports channels like SPEED and FoxSports1, it’s obviously not the fan favorite. But the racing is just as wild and dirty, the finishes often just as close as the upper tiers.

{Kenny Wallace gets fuel & tires at Gateway, 2006.}

Having three levels that often race on a single weekend leads to what they call “the sweep”. A single driver winning in all series on a weekend is said to have swept the weekend. You can sweep a two-race weekend, also, but it’s obviously not as hard to do. Kyle Busch has swept the most three-race weekends, having done so at nine different tracks.

In a similar vein, you have “the Double”, which refers to racing in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, North Carolina on Memorial Day weekend. Since this involves racing an open-wheel Indycar and a stock car, not many drivers have been able to pull this off. A few drivers in recent years who came to NASCAR after driving open wheel cars, Tony Stewart, Robby Gordon and John Andretti, gave it a shot, and this year Kurt Busch, who’s never raced in Indycar prior to the 500, did remarkably well for a rookie. The combined races cover 1100 miles, although crashes and engine failure have meant that only Tony Stewart has completed all 1100 miles on a single day.

You might have heard discussions of the Chase. A few years back, NASCAR bosses decided they needed a playoff system similar to ball and stick-and-ball sports, to build fan excitement at the end of the season. They developed a system where driver’s points would be adjusted for the final ten races in the season, giving only the top group a chance to possibly win the championship cup. This number has changed each year, causing fan confusion.

The current Chase will have sixteen drivers eligible to win the cup. Once the Chase begins, all drivers continue to race, but those sixteen will be regrouped in point standings, having two-thousand points plus five points for each win during the season. After the third race in the Chase, only twelve drivers are still eligible. After the sixth, it drops to eight drivers, then four are eligible in the final race for the Sprint Cup Championship.

That’s what’s new: four drivers go into the final race with a chance to win the championship. In past years, there has been either a sweep, where one driver was guaranteed to take the cup by entering the race, or one or two other drivers might have had a shot at it. This year, the highest finishing driver of those top four will win the championship.

There’s one more term you might hear during a race, the lucky dog. That’s the nickname for the first driver not on the lead lap at the time a caution flag is waved. That driver is given a lap back, or allowed to circle the field under the yellow flag and either be back on the lead lap or be one fewer lap down. Originally, drivers who were off pace would race each other to get to the line first to be allowed to earn that lap back. This led to some near-misses when they approached a crashed car or the safety crew attending to a crash. Now, the car positions are frozen when the caution comes out, and positions are determined by the transponders around the track, going to the last marked spot for each car. The driver who was the last to have been lapped, or re-lapped if he’s more than one car down, gets his lap back.

You might have noticed I said “he” gets his lap back. That’s the editorial he, as I’m sure you’re aware there are women racing in NASCAR these days. Danica Patrick is the only one with a fulltime ride in the Cup series at the moment, but Johanna Long, Maryeve Dufault, and Jennifer Jo Cobb are regulars in the Nationwide and Camping World series this year. For the record, Jennifer Jo currently is the highest ranked in points across female drivers in the three series, being thirteenth in the trucks.

There is so much more to say, but this is too long as it is. The best way to learn more is to go to NASCAR.com and look around. The forums there will have a lot of answers. To stay on top of news, follow your favorite drivers on Twitter, or search #NASCAR. You can also follow the reporters and TV commentators, or fans like Alyssa Milano or the Orange Cone. Yes, that poor orange cone that marked the entrance to pit lane has its own Twitter account! And he’s really pretty funny. If you don’t care for watching racing but feel the need to support your guy, following someone like the Cone will make the race a lot more fun.

Do you enjoy watching auto racing, or have a significant other who does? Who’s your driver to root for? Have you attended a race in person? Having a driver to root for, or having experienced the excitement of an in-person race makes it all that much more fun.

Aileen Fish, author of The Bridgethorpe Brides series and the Small Town Sweethearts series, is an avid quilter and auto racing fan who finds there aren't enough hours in a day/week/lifetime to stay up with her "to do" list. There is always another quilt or story begging to steal away attention from the others. When she has a spare moment she enjoys spending time with her two daughters and their families, and her fairy princess granddaughter. Stay up to date with book releases at her website http://aileenfish.com or on Facebook. Her latest release, Chasing Lord Mystery, is available at the main ebook sites.