That was also about the time the Choi boys came along and did the first Battle of the Imports in Palmdale. We went out there and got behind them to a degree; coverage, as you know, exposure. We built Frank's ads and that really got things going.
After a few of those races I dragged my friend, Mike Thermos from NOS, out and said you have to see what the hell we're doing. This was actually at Sacramento Raceway.
He said you keep doing this shit, it's going to die real soon because nobody is going to pay to go out a see bracket racing. Because that's pretty much what it was back then. So we came back and between NOS, Turbonetics, Garrett Turbo, us at Turbo magazine and GReddy we all kicked in $500 each and created the Quick Class. The idea was to attract the best street racers, move to a heads-up tree and elevate the quality of the cars.
The big thing was at the first couple of events we passed out cash at the track. That helped get the word out across the country. The Internet was just warming up; Al Gore had just invented it I think, and word spread fast. Pretty soon Quick 8s and Quick 16s were popping up all over the country, which really moved all the guys into heads-up racing. It happened really fast and while I would like to think I did more, all I really did was take an idea Mike Thermos gave me on how they run the Pro Mods, tweaked it to work for imports and called some friends to put the money up.
Fondest Memories
Looking back at my old 300, I had a single turbo 1985 300 ZX and that car we did a lot of shit to it, put a lot of horsepower through it and really never had any big problems with it. We blew the intercooler hoses off it a couple times when the nitrous kept flowing after the throttle plate closed. All in all, that thing did exactly what we told people it did in the magazine. It ran really good for a long time. I saw it four years after I sold it and it was still running hard and it had a lot of miles on it.
Disappointments Along The WayOne of the things that really hurt me was magazine distribution; it's really tough. I don't recall exactly what year it was but we used to send 12,000 copies to Australia and sell 35 to 40 percent of those. But then the value of the dollar changed dramatically. I was reaching out for a settlement check that I thought was going to be somewhere around $40 to $45,000 and it was zero. I said what the hell is going on here. They said, well, you have overdrafts in Australia. Your last four issues.
The thing that pissed me off is that you have to know what is going on all around the world today, you know the world is very small. When this happened we didn't have the computers we have now. The copies just stopped selling in Australia. We went from selling 40 percent to 5 to 6 percent. The cover price went to $8.95 when we were selling the magazine for like $2.95 USD. When the cover price jumped that much it just killed the sale on it and it took another issue to get everything stopped.
So we basically had six issues where most all of the copies that went to Australia were shredded and that was a back breaker. That hurt, it hurt.
The most disappointing part was I also thought Australia would be a really good market for the magazine. They had the real JDM cars, the passions and the ability. How right I was.
Where Do you See The Scene Going In The Future?I've given up on that. I predicted some of the stuff but nowhere near where it has gone today. It will march on.
I think that drag racing is down a little bit but I don't think drifting is going to fill in for it. We'll see. To me it's still a bit new-fangled but it's fun if you've never done it. You know the tire companies have to love it.
I think the street market will continue to be the backbone of the market, as long as there is dinosaur oil left, there will be street performance. The racing side of it-I just don't know.
What Have You Been Up To Since You Cashed In?
I just got back from another cruise and I am still thinking about doing a cruise ship magazine. Every magazine I have been involved in the start-up of was because I was an enthusiast first. You want to talk about serious horsepower? Think about pushing 116,000 tons through the water at 22 to 23 knots. There is some serious technology in a cruise ship.
Whether or not we do a magazine, I have been doing a good job of researching it out for the last couple years. So if anyone out there sees a cruise ship magazine that looks like Turbo buy it. I will be needing the money.
I couldn't walk away from the industry. At Turbo we built ads for a lot of our customers. When the magazine was sold, this aspect of the business was not part of the deal so I kept that part of the process going.
KTC Media Group (King Tec Communications, Inc.) is a cutting-edge advertising, PR company. We handle entire accounts from concept to production, we produce catalogs, ads and even TV spots for a wide range of customers. The current roster includes ACT, AEM, GReddy, Konig Wheels and Yokohama to name a few.