Inside The Hub

For more than two decades all I’ve focused on has been content creation and brand management of automotive performance media. Right out of college I took on the role as Associate Editor of Car Craft Magazine. Shortly thereafter, I made the move to Chevy High Performance. Wait, did I just say a Bow Tie brand? I did, but at that time, you went where you were needed, especially for growth potential within the organization. For that chapter of my career, I was everything from a Technical Editor to Executive Editor, eventually taking over the lead chair.

In 2014, I became the Content Director over the Mustang360 network, which included overseeing Mustang Monthly and taking on the role as Editor-in-Chief of Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords. It was a natural transition for me. While I had been on the Chevy front for all that time, I was still building and playing with a variety of Mustangs in the background. My personal favorite was a six-second Fox-body on stock suspension with 275 radials. These days, I’m playing with a S197 that puts down 961 to the wheels, a supercharged New Edge, and in the process of building another stock suspension-based Fox-body.

Today I’m proud to say that I’m part of the Wheel Hub family with a new Blue Oval brand extension through Mustang Hub. While we will be heavily focused on the late-model segment, I’m excited to say that we will also showcase vintage Mustangs and other Ford variants when it makes sense. Mustang Hub will feature the hottest real-world rides, and you can expect to see lifestyle pieces, guest editorials, event coverage, along with a wide range of hard-hitting technical content. Whether you’re into Fox, SN95, New Edge, S197, or S550 Mustangs, we’ve got you covered.

If there’s one car that set me down the path of untreatable horsepower addiction, it’s the 5.0L Mustang. My dad wasn’t into cars and I didn’t have an uncle that took me to the dragstrip, either. What I did have was the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time. Growing up in rural Georgia in the late-‘80s, my elementary school sat right next door to the local high school. Back in those days, kids walked home from school all by themselves without adult supervision and no one thought twice about it. Thank goodness for that.  

  The year was 1988. I was in second grade. I’ll never forget hearing the sweet sound of those 5.0L Mustangs firing up in the high school parking, echoing through the thick Georgia pine trees as my friends and I traversed home. I’d hear them get closer and closer, one WOT powershift after then next, until they pulled alongside us, dropped the hammer and watched us scatter in sheer terror as the baritone wail of their Flowmasters faded off into the distance. It was awesome.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was experiencing, but I knew I liked it. Ever since then I’ve been chasing that same visceral thrill, and that quest has taken me to some very interesting places, both literally and figuratively. While the older generation grew up reading Hot Rod and Car Craft, I grew up devouring the pages of Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords and GM High Tech Performance. As a kid many years shy of a driver’s license that had no up-close access to the machines I craved, the parts installs, dyno tests and dragstrip thrashes in the pages of these magazines were the next best thing.

  Sometime during high school, I learned how to write. To this day, I have a love/hate relationship with the creative process one must endure to have any hope of writing beyond an elementary school level. According to my high school teachers, it was something I excelled at, and for some strange reason, I loved the challenge. Around that same time, I decided that the only thing more fun than building a project car and hitting the dragstrip would be building a project car, hitting the dragstrip and then writing stories about it.

  While earning a journalism degree from Cal State Fullerton, my first real project car was a 1995 Camaro Z28. The car I really wanted—the one I dreamed of since high school like millions of other people—was a five-speed LX 5.0L notch, but they weren’t any easier to find back then as they are now. Making do with a Bowtie wasn’t my first choice, but in stroked 383ci trim it managed mid-11s on motor as a full-weight daily driver. That’s borderline comical by today’s standards, but respectable in the late-‘90s. The old F-body never had enough clutch or rearend to handle the 300hp hit of nitrous plumbed into the intake manifold, so my dream of running 9s in a street car had to get put on hold.

  After graduating college in 2003, I begged my way into an internship at Hot Rod Magazine, which turned into an Associate Editor position six weeks later. It was during this time that I met Henry De Los Santos, who was cutting his teeth as a junior staffer at Car Craft. Henry and I, along with John McGann (current Hot Rod editor) and Ed Zinke (now Business Development Director at Power Automedia) formed the early morning crew. Too foolish to know any better, we showed up to work at 6 a.m. to beat the miserable L.A. traffic. At that insane hour, we were the only ones in the office, which inevitably led to profuse bench racing sessions, which always seemed to revolve around Mustangs.

  My daily driver at the time was a 1992 LX 5.0L hatch. I hated the granny-approved AOD trans and 2.73:1 gears, but the 20 mpg it knocked down on the freeway was very much appreciated on my daily 120-mile roundtrip commute. I tried to like it, but still, the car I really wanted was a five-speed LX 5.0L notch. I had to have one, but couldn’t find one, so I parted ways with the hatch. The guy I sold it to showed up with a stack of Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords back-issues, as he enthusiastically flipped through copies while sharing his plans for global Fox-body domination. It was awesome.

  Not long after that in 2005, the Gulf Coast humidity came calling and I headed out to Texas to pursue a career in freelancing. Over the next 12 years, I reveled in the opportunity to work for all the magazines I grew up reading, but with the independence and autonomy that comes with working outside the system. More fun, less politics. Landing my first Hot Rod cover shot was cool but seeing my byline in MM&FF for the first time was surreal. It was awesome.  

During this time, I finally found that elusive five-speed LX 5.0L notch. The gentleman I bought it from had just moved from Florida, couldn’t get the car to pass smog, didn’t want to deal with the emissions headaches and agreed to unload it for $3,000. In hindsight, it would have been much smarter for me to leave it alone and sell it for four times that price just a few years later, but no one’s ever accused me of being smart. Before long, the Fox had a 10-point cage, a lightweight K-member, a beefed up drag four-link and an 800hp big-block Ford. Although the combination was never fully optimized, it managed to run consistent 9.80s at 141 mph like a bracket car. It was awesome.

It took 10 years to do it, but my dream of building a 9-second street car and owning an LX notch had finally materialized. With my second child on the way, now would have been a good time to park the car and go on sabbatical, but no one’s ever accused me of being smart. I had visions of running 7s and competing on Drag Week. Before long, I built a new long-block, scored a set of 88mm turbos off a retried Outlaw 10.5 car, and stuffed the engine bay and interior with miles of stainless and aluminum piping.

  Not long after that, the realities of raising two young kids while trying to build a race car prevailed, and the poor neglected notch has been in a state of stagnation ever since. That’s isn’t so awesome. With those plans on hold indefinitely, I get my racing jollies these days in a 125cc CRG Road Rebel shifter kart and have my sights set on a 175cc Iame engine swap. Drag racing always stays in your blood but pulling 3 g’s with 49 horsepower on tap in a 200-pound race machine is a tremendously satisfying substitute.   

  While all these Mustang shenanigans were going on, I stayed in close contact with Henry, providing freelance contributions for the magazines he oversaw. It was all in good fun, but as my writing and photography skills began to plateau I sought the next big challenge. In 2017, I teamed up with photographer extraordinaire, Robert McGaffin, and graphic artist extraordinaire, Rodney Hutcherson, to launch Wheel Hub Magazine. Despite the odds and the stiff competition, Wheel Hub has carved out a tremendously loyal following that grows steadily by the day. People don’t just like Wheel Hub. They love it, they tell all their friends about it and beg us to print more than four copies per year.

  It was only a matter of time until we applied the same core tenets that made Wheel Hub so successful—premium print quality, premium paper, premium presentation and (most importantly) premium content—to a different segment of the industry. After several long conversations with Henry, Mustang Hub Magazine was born. I don’t know many people that have dedicated their lives to the automotive publishing industry with as much dignity, loyalty and professionalism as Henry, and I’m thrilled to have him aboard. In addition to Mustangs, much of our banter working the early shift nearly 20 years ago revolved around how we’d go about conceiving the ultimate car magazine if we ever had the opportunity to do so. I’m proud to say we’ve done exactly that with Wheel Hub, and I look forward to sharing that experience with Henry as we transform Mustang Hub from concept to reality.

I often tell people that popping the trans brake at 5,000 rpm and pulling 1.2x-second 60-foot times is a rush that everyone should experience. It’s a lot of fun, I’ll admit, but it turns out that if you walk down the path of entrepreneurship there are moments in business that are just as exhilarating. Closing deals and building a product from scratch is immensely more satisfying when you’re doing it for yourself, not a bunch of corporate hacks who can’t tell the difference between great content and click-bait.

As we embark upon this journey, we kindly ask for your support. Rest assured, you won’t merely be lining the pockets of some suit and tie. You’ll be supporting two Mustang lovers just like you who just want to go racing. Please join us for the ride. It’s going to be awesome.