It's a story about Roni, a grease monkey girl and master mechanic living in the fast-paced, male-dominated world of stock car racing, and the desperate driver she positions to become a stock car champion. Inspired by the real-life ownership of an oil change shop - and with the help of his brother, composer and lyricist Brent Rogers - writer and lyricist Klay Rogers drew upon his love of musical theatre to tell this story about the amusing customers and crew of the Oil Change shop.

The show saw its first light under the working title Oil Change, a Musical Comedy in June 2010 during a four-day intensive workshop in New York City. Later that summer the same show was presented as a workshop with costumes and limited blocking for an audience of 125 interested viewers in Plano, Texas.

From there, Klay and Brent took all of the feedback from post-show discussions and questionnaires received that year and began to rewrite the musical, removing some songs and characters, adding new songs, and putting more focus on the relationship between mechanic Roni and racer Johnny Ray Ratchet.

In 2012, the musical was accepted into the Fertile Ground Festival in Portland, Oregon, where limited choreography was added along with a five-piece live band. The 20-day workshop included two weeks of rehearsals before the first week's performances, then five days of rewriting in which another song and related character was cut. A new song was also written before three final performances the following weekend at a different festival venue. Lively discussion and over 300 new questionnaires were received, becoming the basis for additional changes.

The Rogers brothers recently recorded an audio version of the full show (dialogue, songs and sound effects) for the purpose of promotions and a possible animated feature. That recording was finished in 2018, just before Race Cars and Romance was accepted as the National Headliner for the Fringe Festival in St. Louis. 

About the Authors
Book writer and lyricist Klay Rogers is a certified public accountant living in Garland, Texas where he is active in the Dallas theater scene as a patron, volunteer and philanthropist.

Composer and lyricist Brent Rogers lives in Lake Oswego, Oregon just outside of Portland where he works as a musician, producer and audio engineer.