Theres an old adage that claims: Any press is good press. The other day I rushed home with the December issue of Musclecar Enthusiast you know, the issue thats got coverage of the 05 Pure Stock Drags. Its finally here! I was eager. Hungrily waiting to pour over the photos, write-ups, details, buzz and what have you that makes for good ink. Now..., I was at the event. So I know about the rain-out. I know about the implementation of Plan B no 2 outta 3 shoot outs. I also know that I still had just an awful lot of fun with the usual cast of characters that were there. Truthfully, along with the cool cars, I have a personal fondness for this annual 72 hours of acting like youre still in high-school. Ive said it before, theres simply nothing going on in the hobby anywhere thats better than the September Pure Stock Drags. Its the only true excitement in sea of dull, parking lot sittin, number crunching, trailer queen carrying, California dust brushin panzy car owner events on the calendar. (Yeah..., that was hard work puttin together). It is flat-out the most fun you can have with your Musclecar. So..., with the utmost respect to the writer and ME, where was any of that sensationalism in this write-up? I appreciate there were no 2 outta 3 races on Saturday; but there were plenty of races! The article mentioned grudge matches forming all day long care to report on some!? I have to believe that people who care to read about P/S racing want to hear about the racing, not just whether some ultra rare optioned car showed up. Now, I did like the fastest of each brand concept (sidebar). But that was done before in MCR with details about each cars owner and the cars state of tune. Good reading. Most anyone will tell you the best articles to read are the original road test articles from magazines back in the day. Why? Because they wrote about performance, tuning tricks, and the like that put you right in the drivers seat. These write-ups need to capture more of that. Anyone catch the recent Hemmings article on F.A.S.T.? Theyve got a good show thats getting good calibre ink. Read about the cars... and the guys who drive 'em! The personalities. The juice. For P/S in the meantime... any press is good press, I guess. But I feel like I just ordered steak... and got neither the meat nor the sizzle.
I Second,er, I mean Third that!!!! As mentioned, with all due respect, coverage just plain sucked! Sorry, I can't sugar coat it either. Musclecar Enthusiast can have whoever they want report to the event to snap the picture's, but when it comes to the write up on the event they NEED/MUST have Tom Shaw put his creative spin on the pairing's. Until that happen's, coverage will never be as good as when Tom was writing about the Shootout's with a small picture of the car's paired up like back in Musclecar Review :Smarty:
"Its the only true excitement in sea of dull, parking lot sittin, number crunching, trailer queen carrying, California dust brushin panzy car owner events on the calendar" Wow I love that! Are you gonna copywright that?? "For P/S in the meantime... any press is good press, I guess" I would agree
Yeah, it was pretty disappointing coverage. Last year Tom wrote the individual shootout coverage for the Vettes in Corvette Enthusiast, and it was much better than what ME did this year. $10 says the fact that other races are getting advertizer sponsorship has a lot to do with this.
i know this is going to sound like sour grapes (or gripes you choose) but i was looking forward to get my name in a magazine with my times.i think past coverage was better.would have been great to have a big write up about stefina's marauder beating up on a car that could fit in his trunk.i had the best time ever imaginable at the races and it was worth every penny spent and i know i don't need a magazine article to remember but after reading it i wondered if i was at a different event than they were. :sleep: ed
I agree that the coverage was less than sterling. I agree (as a member of Team Stefina) that coverage on the big Merc should have been shown wiping up on that Roush Mustang. Many may not realize, but the boots putting the spurs to that pony was low qualifier JJ (no lousy magazine test driver). I miss not being able to point out to my buddies my low qualifing time and how I killed (or was killed) at the lights. I was trying to mull over in my mind what caused the lack of coverage. You had both Steve and Tom Shaw clicking away for a day and a half, you had a half day of searching out quality cars for special shoots, special interest, you had some beautiful cars out there waiting for side bars. In my minds eye, the only thing that could have caused the poor write up was maybe too short a time between the event and the copy going to press. Yes, the drama of the shoot out was not there, but you also had the largest car count that one of these events has ever had! And to be quite honest, the mini write up of every shoot out that Tom Shaw did was one of the main reasons that I had to make it to this event. Maybe, if they had spent an extra month in getting a great story put together, we would not be flaming M. E. To me it makes perfect sense, wait till Janurary/ February issue so that you can fan the flame for all of us while our cars are in a deep freeze! :Comp:
Don't shoot the messenger... It was my understanding that in years past the Pure Stock coverage consisted of whatever Bob/Dan submitted...MCR/MCE simply provided an alloted amount of space and a photographer... -------------------------- Hillbilly Racing Team "Expert fishermen are master baiters..."
I apologize if I was too harsh, but I feel that a great disservice was done with the coverage of the event this year. But like rdl said, it is still the greatest thing going on in the Musclecar hobby!
I was also disappointed in the coverage. But hey -- we still had 130 cars ! NO other event out there can compete with that. :TU:
o No: Still have not got my issue :spank: Now I hear some of ya are getting the January issue. o No: Must be another conspieracy against me! Coverage years ago never used to come out till the March issue, but Dan/Bob supplied 99% of those articles for the mag. Peter
I think the sled dogs got onto a scent..... Yep, got the January issue yesterday...... It had some sort of letter attached directing me to not discuss the magazine or it's contents with Pete Simpson, any of his friends or relatives....... :laugh:
Pete, They have been reading all of the articles about you in HMM and have decided that you are no longer worthy of ME! :spank: How was bean harvest and how deep is the snow? :TU:
But Since we had to go the Plan#2 due to the weather for the first time ever, I am also discouraged but we did have fun! and that's what it's all about. And in '06 whatever Dan and Bob wanna do, even if it's different, we'll be there, you can bet on some awesome Buicks, and then some, of course!
P.S. Okay, with the passage of time I thought I might have a second look at the article. You know cooler heads... sober second thought... and all that. For cryin' out loud, there's a freakin' photo of a customized cooler in an article about drag racing! :rant: Arrrrgh! :rant: On a separate note, I read Mark Weymouth's letter in Hemmings. :TU:
Might be careful biting the *only* hand that's feeding us... The way I see it, the main thing missing this year was coverage of the non-existant shootouts...add to that no official qualifying numbers, and the actual *meat & potatoes* of the event was gone...basically what we had was a one day Pure Stock test-n-tune. But, there was a LOT of detailed "sidebar" info this issue...a page dedicated to the Corvettes, a page dedicated to several "rarities and oddities", as well as the entire saga of the W-30 pogo event. Who cares if each participant didn't get his/her name listed as in years past...that shouldn't be why we do this anyway. But the same author of this year's article did the previous 2 years articles, which we all went ga-ga over...so don't blame the author, blame the rain... -------------------------- Hillbilly Racing Team "Sleeves are for sissies..."
That is why I like being friends with you, Rob! Cooler heads and time to think have made me realize that if no one covers the event, that new people will not be exposed to this very unique event. It is not all about the racing, it is seeing people do all that they can to make these 'show cars' roll down the track. :beer :bglasses:
Speaking of Coverage: anyone else hear that the NSCA races are going to be covered by ESPN this year ???
.... over stated? I didn't mean to imply that I needed to see print on my car per se. Perhaps Shaw's coverage of the past has simply set the bench mark too high. Let me then couch my critique in a more constructive way. At the end of the day, these events are about the people as much as the theme that brings them together. P/S participants are a unique cut. In my humble opinion, what they do warrants coverage that exceeds that of a typical cruise 'n park. Guys, I heed your remarks; 'nuff said for me.
