People ask me all the time: What’s it like moving from editing magazines to being on shows? Others wonder what I really do here. So I’ll tell you. First, some context. I was hired at HOT ROD in 1991 and then edited a few magazines at the company before coming back to HRM in 2001 and running it for a dozen years. Years in print media, about 25.
These days, I host four shows: Roadkill and Engine Masters on both MotorTrendOnDemand.com and the Motor Trend channel of YouTube, and Roadkill Garage and Roadkill Extra (a daily show) as exclusives to MTOD. I’m the executive producer of stuff like HOT ROD Garage and Put Up or Shut Up, which just means I throw my opinion around. My title insinuates that I oversee our aftermarket-based magazines and websites, but the truth is I’m hardly involved anymore—yet I’m deep into events, social media, and marketing.
But how does it feel? I love my job, and I’m more challenged than ever to learn new things as media shifts in new directions. It’s strange to be on camera because our shows get millions of views, so I get recognized in the strangest places. I always appreciate fans, but I have no drive to be famous. I just want to make cool gearhead shows that are real, not bogus. I’m humbled and motivated by fans who tell me they got into cars because of watching our stuff, or we helped them through a deployment, or a father was finally able to connect with his son over one of our project cars. It’s the best reason to do what I do.
If you’ve seen Roadkill, you know that we hack together sketchy cars for stupid fun. I fear that has tainted my reputation in the industry, as people think we do nothing but junk. I’ll wholeheartedly admit that I can’t maintain a painted car and that’s why I like beaters, but I also like everything to be functional and mechanically clean and technically savvy. That’s not evident when we’re patching garbage together on a real deadline for video, so I’m super happy to do the Engine Masters show, which is about hardcore engine dyno testing. I geek out over engines.
In video, it bugs me that I’m not in hands-on control of the whole process. At the mag, I could stay up all night and rewrite everything or even lay out a page if I had to. In video, I know nothing of the tech that our directors, camera ops, and editors deal with. I am grateful to them every time for making me look good, because it’s them who really gave me this career shift.
But I also don’t want to let go of print. I put a lot of heart in this magazine, and I have awe for the staffers and hot rodders who set the groundwork for the industry and hobby that HOT ROD supports today. My editorial column may always be weeks past deadline, but it still means a lot to me. HOT ROD still seems like home.
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