{"id":2921,"date":"2015-05-29T20:19:17","date_gmt":"2015-05-30T00:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jackbaruth.com\/?p=2921"},"modified":"2015-05-29T20:19:43","modified_gmt":"2015-05-30T00:19:43","slug":"guest-post-persistence-and-the-pursuit-of-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jackbaruth.com\/?p=2921","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Persistence and the Pursuit of Excellence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_6407\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It is 2 pm on the outskirts of Akron, Ohio. My airport shuttle leaves the hotel in Cincinnati at 5 pm. The GPS in this little blue Honda Fit is indicating a total driving time of 4:04, and it doesn’t know about the twenty-mile detour I spotted coming the other way. Also, on the drive here, I spotted no fewer than twelve separate speed traps.<\/p>\n

Well, this should be interesting.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6500\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Many years ago, I was sitting at a table at one of the first press events I ever attended, when somebody leaned over and said in an undertone, \u201cI understand you also know a guy with a green Audi.\u201d That was Brian, and there quickly followed a brief and humourous discussion of all the vagaries, pitfalls, and otherworldliness of this business.<\/p>\n

At some point in the evening, Brian shook his head and said, \u201cYou’ll never beat him, of course.\u201d That, too, was interesting. I’m not sure this gig is really a competition, but there are most certainly rivalries and jostling for position \u2013 who’s the better driver, who’s the better writer, who’s the better storyteller?<\/p>\n

Add in the internet’s one-touch ego-stroking and there’s another question to be asked: who gets the clicks, the views, the responses, the eyeballs? To be honest, it’s something I am aware of, but not worried about. Sure, you need to reach, develop, and serve your audience, but it’s far better to produce something you’re proud of than pandering. Write, don’t produce content; or at least do more of the former than the latter.<\/p>\n

But anyway, back to the idea of a hierarchy in this business. Here I am, entirely freelance, cracking open a copy of Road & Track and seeing Sam Smith wheeling a Porsche 962 at Indy, or hot-footing a vintage Alpina 2002 around Laguna during the Monterey Historics. How do I compete with that? Is it delusion to try?<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5753\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I once wrote a tribute piece to Roland Ratzenberger, who died the day before Senna did. Ratzenberger was sort of a mid-pack driver at best, and you have to wonder what he thought, getting into his car to run against Senna, Schumacher, Hill, Mansell. Obviously it would be a thrill to compete at the highest level of the sport you’ve chosen, but did he really think he had a chance of getting on the podium? Perhaps not \u2013 but perhaps he was gonna give it a shot anyway.<\/p>\n

I have a battered Mac Air, a Canon T3 with an 18-55 kit lens, the luck of the Irish, and persistence. It’s the latter that’s brought me to the middle of Ohio, a nutty side-trip tacked on to a regular press event for the launch of the Pilot. A late flight, a free day \u2013 I could sit in the hotel, write up the review and process a few pictures. Or, I could drive six hundred miles there and back to go find something special.<\/p>\n

In this case, it’s a small collection of very strange machines that I came across when I found and drove a single-owner original Honda Coupe 7, certainly the only one in North America. The hotter version, the Coupe 9, is here alongside stuff like a 914 pickup truck conversion and a Mazda Cosmo, and a V12 Lincoln, and a Porsche tractor and you-name-it<\/em>. Great story still in the publishing queue \u2013 I drove a 1970s Toyota Crown custom wagon, popped the hood on a Nash-powered Davis Divan, and joked with the owner about one-upping Jay Leno.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6464\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then, sweating all the way back across the interstates, trying to gain back that lost hour. Arrived at 5:03 pm. The shuttle was already gone. Damnit! What was that about the luck of the Irish again?<\/p>\n

All the way across Ohio, I was listening to Matt Farah’s Smoking Tire podcast. It’s a great show: they have a real clubhouse feel to it, interesting guests, and Matt’s an immensely likeable guy on tape. Somewhere along the line, he drops a line, something that was repeated to him by a successful fabricator or tuning shop owner. \u201cOur business plan,\u201d he says, \u201cIs doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every morning, I get up at five am and fire up the blank screen and the blinking cursor. I’m going to feed this monster something good today: Jack Lord’s ’74 Mercury Marquis; a mint-green Lagonda; Kjelle Qvale’s personal Jensen Interceptor. Every single one of those is going to take months of emails and phone calls, dead ends and long silences. Every single interesting thing I uncover to write about will take immense persistence.<\/p>\n

But when I get to the end of my year, I’ll look back with a certain amount of pride. Maybe I didn’t win the race for clicks or uncover the story of the year, but I found and wrote about things that others didn’t. Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, I came eleventh at the Aida circuit once or twice. I reached some readers.<\/p>\n

Six hundred miles of Ohio in a Fit for one goofy story? No problem. You either sit back and wait for the invites, or you go out and create something unique. Go do things.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6619\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, I took my daughter to the annual All-British Field Meet at the Van Dusen gardens in Vancouver, BC. There was plenty to look at, I shook hands with a few people I’ve met, have interviewed, have been lucky enough to maybe capture some part of their story. A friend with an Esprit Turbo I’d driven introduced me to a buddy of his. \u201cMcAleer?\u201d the man said, \u201cOh, the writer?\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s a title to be earned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

@brendan_mcaleer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is 2 pm on the outskirts of Akron, Ohio. My airport shuttle leaves the hotel in Cincinnati at 5 pm. The GPS in this little blue Honda Fit is indicating a total driving time of 4:04, and it doesn’t know about the twenty-mile detour I spotted coming the other way. 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