It’s been 21 years since I last had a job. I’ve been on plenty of jobs, probably a thousand or more, but a job with a boss, holiday pay and pension contributions? That all ended in 2000. And it ended because I was by then the editor of Motor Sport magazine, which was as far as a man like me could ever go or, indeed, ever want to go in the world of salaried motoring journalism.
Giving it up was without question the most difficult decision of my professional life, but I knew I’d not be able to provide for my already growing family on what I was paid and I’d already done the job for nearly four years and was terrified of going stale. I’d seen it happen to other editors and it wasn’t pretty. What I loved most – and miss most – about the job and what still seems a near impossible privilege, was thinking of a story I wanted to read and just getting someone to write it for me. To be able to do so again was one of the reasons I agreed to help Dan found The Intercooler.
For instance, one day I realised I’d never read a really good appreciation of that exceptional American driver Mark Donohue. His autobiography – The Unfair Advantage – is one of the greatest racing books ever published and it was a tragedy that, like his buddy Peter Revson, he didn’t live long enough to see how popular it would become. But who would write such a story for me?
