Thirty-Three And A Third Revolutions

THIRTY-THREE AND A THIRD REVOLUTIONS

IGNITION

LEANINGS

DIALING IT BACK A BIT, RELUCTANTLY

PETER EGAN

Chances are, if you're old enough to understand the title of this column and its reference to vinyl albums (which I see have made a comeback among audiophiles), you may also have been around when I got hired by this magazine. That would be in the first week of January in 1980. Yes, more than 33 years ago. And the idea that led me here actually took root a little before that.

In the late ’70s, I was working as a mechanic at a place called Foreign Car Specialists in Madison, Wisconsin. Nearly all of us at the shop had graduated from the nearby University of Wisconsin with degrees for which there was little (i.e., no) demand at the moment. Journalism, in my case. And nearly all of us liked sports cars better than our chosen disciplines, anyway. We were a shop full of racers, working on customers’ cars during the day and our own race cars at night. The owner of the place, Chris Beebe, raced a Lotus Super Seven and was a national contender in the SCCA.

But there was also a strong motorcycle contingent in the shop. Chris and I both owned Norton Commandos and Honda 400FS, and I was increasingly being drawn into motorcycle roadracing. In 1977,1 sold my fun but finicky Lola Formula Ford and started racing the bulletproof 400F in WERA Box Stock events.

One day, while riding in a Chevy van to a race at Grattan, Michigan, I had an interesting conversation with my fellow racer, Howard Sprengle. I confessed that I still hoped to get back into journalism someday but hadn’t had much luck. I’d written two books and numerous articles and short stories, only to have them rejected, returned with a dull thud on my doorstep. I told Howard, “I seem to be destined to go through this life without getting one word published by anybody.”

He said, “Instead of inventing fictional characters, why don’t you write about something you’re actually interested in. Like motorcycles. That’s what Phil Schilling did, and now he’s working for Cycle magazine. He was working here in Madison as an editor at a book company, and then he wrote a nice color story about Daytona Speed Week and sent it to Cycle. They liked it so much they hired him.”

I stared wondrously into space, struck by the possibilities. Write about something I was interested in? What a concept! And, until that moment, it had never occurred to me that a would-be writer from the Midwest could possibly get a job with a magazine in California. I thought you’d have to know somebody.

So, I sat at my Olivetti portable typewriter for three months of evenings and weekends, working on a touring story about a trip Barb and I had just taken on our Norton Commando. Seems we were riding out to visit relatives in Idaho when the bike swallowed an exhaust valve near Missoula, Montana, and we had to ship the Norton home in a Bekins moving van and make the rest of the trip by train and bus. I wrote the story of this trip over and over again until even I liked reading it. This was apparently another concept that had never occurred to me before.

When I’d finally “perfected” the story, I sent it to the former Road Rider magazine because they published more touring stories than anyone else. And they rejected it. Another thud on the doorstep. I tossed the manuscript into a bottom desk drawer and decided to give up.

But then, over beers one night several weeks later, my friend Lee Heggelund said, “Aren’t there any other motorcycle magazines?”

“Sure,” I said, in my best hang-dog tone. “There’s Cycle World and Cycle, but they’re big-time glossy magazines, and they don’t publish many touring stories. Cycle World does once in a while.”

“Why don’t you send the story to them?

BY THE NUMBERS

311 NUMBER OF LEANINGS COLUMNS IVE WRITTEN SO FAR

000, 000, $6,000 AMOUNT I COULD HAVE SAVED FOR RETIREMENT WITHOUT MOTORCYCLE RESTORATION PROJECTS

$127 ACTUAL AMOUNT IN MY CHECKING ACCOUNT

You’ve already got it written. What can you lose?”

What, indeed? So, I shipped the story to Cycle World. And it came to pass that Associate Editor Tony Swan liked it and recommended it to Editor Allan Girdler, who also liked it and sent me a nice letter saying they were accepting the story—and would like to look at anything else I wrote.

That Friday evening, when I came home from work and opened the letter, we had friends over for Mexican food. I read the letter aloud and then we drank margaritas until all the tequila in Madison was gone, just before the sun came up.

I did four more touring stories for CW, and then Allan asked me to fly out to California for a job interview just before Christmas in 1979. Miraculously, he hired me, and I asked when I should start.

“I suppose you need to go home first,” he said.

“Well, Christmas Eve is the day after tomorrow, and Ed kind of like to be home with Barb.”

“Can you leave early on Christmas Day?”

“Yes, I can.”

So I flew home, left Barb to sell our little cottage in Madison and with the help of my friend John Oakey, drove our rusted-out 1968 Volkswagen Beetle through several blizzards to Newport Beach, California. I started work the first week in January of 1980, just before my 33rd birthday and have been here ever since, as either a full-time staffer or a contributor, while also working for Road & Track, which used to be our sister publication in the same office building.

Other than meeting Barb, opening that letter from Cycle World is the best thing that ever happened to me. The staff has always been like family, and Eve been privileged to work for four great editors and good friends: Allan Girdler, Paul Dean, David Edwards and Mark Hoyer. Production Editors

Dee Winegardner and Robyn Davis are two of the finest and nicest people Eve ever worked with. It’s been the best of times, with no worst of times at all, ever.

But now I’m almost 66, and I’ve been meeting three or four copy deadlines a month for fully half of those years. I’ve also had a few minor setbacks in health recently (plus a healthy level of the usual laziness), so it’s only natural for me to dial it back a bit and spend less time sitting in front of the computer screen.

While that means you won’t see my column every month, I’ll still stay connected to CW, writing the occasional Leanings and contributing stories from time to time. In fact, Editor-in-Chief Hoyer and I are already cooking up a long road trip of an epic nature for an autumn comparison test, and I’m looking forward to it. Got the maps all over my desk. Which is always my favorite view of the possible future.

"UNTIL THAT MOMENT, IT HAD NEVER OCCURRED TO ME THAT A WOULD-BE WRITER FROM THE MIDWEST COULD POSSIBLY CETAJOB WITH A MAGAZINE IN CALIFORNIA."