Now, to be fair, I've never been thrown off a skyscraper while on fire, but for three and half years I was the editor of Sport Compact Car. So, I'm well aware of the toll it can take on the body, not to mention the pain and agony it can cause your family. It's not pretty. At the end of my tenure I was gaunt, discolored, and no longer able to digest green, leafy vegetables. I had also developed an uncontrollable desire to own a Datsun 510 (With a rotary!?).
I was in sorry shape. Because I worked all the time trying the bring you sons of bitches a great magazine, I had been married four times to gold digging import models, fathered six illegitimate children with three others and was up to my neck in blown up project cars. Did Project Ford Focus SVT ever get back on the road?
Now don't get me wrong. Being the editor of SCC had its good days. I remember one. It was in mid August 2002. A bunch of us were out testing some shit-boxes at California Speedway. It was like 198 degrees in the shade and all three cars refused to run. It was probably Dave Coleman's fault (although he would never admit it), but it was too long ago for me to be sure.
I think Jared Holstein was there. If he was, he probably broke one of the cars, locked the keys in another and spent the rest of the day on his cell phone dancing across the boiling blacktop.
Anyway, Josh Jacquot and I were definitely there. I'm sure of it. I remember because that morning we had one of our knock out, drag out screaming matches where I fire him for insubordination only to rehire him a few hours later.
We had just kissed and made up and were trying to salvage what was left of the day when a stink so rancid hit me in the face like a Joba Chamberlain fast ball. Nearly knocked me off my feet. I looked over at Josh who was also visibly dazed. Smelled like a dead body, wrapped in old fish that had been sitting out in the sun; for a month; in a landfill.
Which was close. Across the parking lot a guy was pumping the California Speedway port-a-pottys, which were full from the recent NASCAR event. It was his job. He was at work. Dressed in a Hazmat suit. Pumping shit.
Suddenly being the editor of Sport Compact Car seemed pretty good.
True story. Ask Jacquot. The rest of it is complete bullshit. I loved being the editor of Sport Compact Car. Nearly every minute of it. And to completely cop out, my favorite part was the people. Coleman, Jacquot and Holstein. Oh we fought. But we had fun too, lots of it. And if you ask me, we produced one hell of a car magazine.
-Scott Oldham
December 2001 - March 2005
Hindsight, they say, is always 20/20. Looking back it's easy to see what I should have done in any given situation. Problem is, as the editor, you're regularly required to make decisions before all the critical information is available. It's a thankless pain in the ass which usually comes back to haunt your product. And if Murphy has his way, it's bound to be mess. So, I should have known better early in 2005 when, finally, after years of procrastinating, I put Battle of the Project Cars on our schedule for the July issue.
Battle of the Project Cars-an idea the SCC staff cooked up probably five years earlier-had been set on the back-burner, delayed, put off and generally ignored as a too-difficult-to-pull-off story, which was sure to create problems. The fast cars were in a constant state of disarray, the right track was never available, or the editors were wearing dresses-you name it, there was always an excuse not to do it. But, it was my turn at the helm, and by God, I was going to get it done.
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