I'm the guy who found Ryan Jensen's car and as far as I know, he is not related to Rick Jensen and knowing the editor is not a requirement for getting your car into any magazine, although being on their radar never hurts. I've been doing freelance work for GMHTP for about eight years now and there's nothing I enjoy more than finding a Buick, SyTy or any car other than an LS1 F-body, that I think GMHTP might be interested in. Unfortunately, it just doesn't happen that often.
For a while, I was very active on a lot of different boards, trying to find the best niche cars and get them into magazines. I met a lot of nice folks and found a lot of cool cars, but I didn't particularly care for the handful of drama queens wanting to pick Internet fights, so I walked away. I still look for the underdogs, but I only occasionally lurk on a message board, after a vehicle runs in a magazine.
I found Ryan's car at a stop in Minnesota on the Hot Rod Power Tour last year. I sat at the entrance to the venue and watched as many cars come in as I could and when one caught my eye, that I thought would work for a particular magazine, I'd try to track them down and learn more about the car.
That process is repeated at almost every car show and track I go to and while I don't get out as often as I'd like, I'm at car events of various kinds quite often throughout the year. The tough part for me in finding a car for a magazine, is that so many of the clean, good-looking cars don't go very fast (if they go at all) and so many of the owners of fast cars have all their resources tied up in performance modifications, ignoring the condition of any part of the car that doesn't make them go faster. The magazines seem to prefer cars that have the best of both worlds.
The magazines don't pay guys like me to go to these events, unless I'm there to cover the event for the magazine. They pay me to photograph (and/or) write stories on specific cars. I was on Power Tour on my own nickel, for my own enjoyment, with my 10-year old son. I was hoping to catch up with a Third Gen Camaro from Iowa, that I'd wanted to shoot since I saw him in Joliet the year before, but he wasn't able to get his car running. I did wind up shooting a Mustang for MM&FF that same day though, which also helped offset the cost of the trip.
Unfortunately, Buicks are a relatively small minority in the car world and that is reflected in editorial coverage (and advertising revenue). Most of the editors I've met at various magazines seem to be genuine car guys and many of their bosses seem to be as well. At the end of the day, they're all trying to make a living and if there was a living to be made publishing a Buick magazine, someone would be doing it.
Some people here seem to be pleased to see Rick Jensen moving on. I remember the same sentiment when Johnny Hunkins went to PHR. Hunkins was the driving force behind that all-Buick issue that Buick people still talk about and now sell for $50 on ebay. He was also the guy who hand-picked a Buick owner as his associate editor and eventual successor. Rick was (and still is) a big fan of Buicks and gave them as much coverage as he could. I'm sure the new editor will do the same.
I know some folks are interested in how Ryan's car is making the times that he claims. I'm not a Buick guy and don't really know the nuances of the different turbos and what that translates into for times. All I know is that when I saw his car, it was very clean and looked like it had a fair amount of work done on it. One of the first questions I always ask are related to performance. When he told me what he ran, I put a call in to Rick Jensen, to see if he was interested in featuring it. I'm pretty sure Ryan and/or his friends are active on this board. They might be able to better explain how he was able to achieve those numbers.
Thanks for reading and maybe I'll see some of you next summer!
Jim
