Actually, we've been running about two car features per issue for a while now. If the Turbo Buick guys had their way, a TB would be one of those two, same with the SyTy people and the B-body owners, while other readers complain if we go one issue without an LS1-powered F-body. At the end of the day, half the people may love an issue and half may hate it, regardless of what we print.

John, what 13-second F-body feature are you referring to? I don't remember any F-body feature car running that slow in recent issues, unless you are referring to our Bolt-On Shootout from last year. The scope of the magazine is broad and we know not all of our readers can afford high dollar build-ups and others may have no interest in doing anything on a track that doesn't involve turns, so we do end up covering a wide range of cars. Some people complain about feature cars not being fast enough (12.03 Plano Sept. '02), while others complain about cars being too fast (6.91 Tweaked Sept. '00), while still others wish we would devote more coverage to cars that are built for road racing and autocross.

Your reference to "big advertisers" leads me to believe you have some sort of an agenda relating to Cartek and the fact they don't currently advertise in our magazine but do support the CCC. The reality is, we have declined requests from some of our biggest advertisers who sponsored other events for the same reasons I stated in the previous post. We don't have the editorial space to cover every group's event or series, even if takes place in our own backyard, especially events that appeal to a limited number of readers.

If any of the folks from the Corvette-specific publications are reading this thread, they are more than welcome to explain how they go about choosing events for their magazines.

 

Jim, do you ever talk to Johnny H.?????????

 

The problems we "vette" guys face with other vette publications are 1. they must cater to 50yrs of corvettes. 2. We dont need to know correct paint dots, clinder head #'s for a 250hp 327. 3. some of us actually like to drive our vettes every now and then. Look, The point I'm trying to make is this, I bought my car because of the tech involved in the car. Corvette is GM's tech flagship. I just want a magazine that will tell me how to exploit that technology and what I can do to make it "Better, Faster, Stronger"

As I stated earlyer I'll still sucribe to GMHP because of the excellent coverage of EFI engines (3.8 turbo,L-98, LT1and LS-1) but there is only so much f-body mods you can cover (and there not building F-bod's anymore). In the future the mag may have to cover vette mods as well as the other great GM EFI engines and cars ( Like the 3.8 super, 4200 I-6, the GTO.......) right now its just a EFI F-body mag. (I do love the interviews with GM's top brass).

 

I just had another thought, what about a "from the trenches" artical? The reason I Love this forum is because I get to hear from guys like Phil tobin, Chris bennet, John Panuzzo we even have a guy here named "Rougevette" who has a buick 6 in his car (there you go, 2 birds with one stone). have them submit an artical about their cars. (they certainly know how to go fast) I'd also like to hear from the buick and f-bod clan. :chevy

 

Is my car on the cover? Or on the cover of another publication that just came out? Raceway Park or GM High Tech ???
Some guys have been telling me.... :confused:

If it is me, someone please save me a copy.
Ellis

 

John, I will answer your question, even though you don't seem interested in answering mine. I do talk to Johnny on a regular basis and just returned from a trip during which I was basically with the man 24/7 for almost two weeks straight. I don't know what coversations, if any, he had with you regarding your event, but I have been with him on numerous occasions when he was asked about coverage of other events ranging from local club meetings to national gatherings of J-bodies. The reasons cited during those converations are the same as those I have already posted in this thread.

Have you tried contacting Speed, Style & Sound Magazine (www.speedstylesound.com) regarding coverage? They recently commited to covering the Midwest F-Body Association's Road America event. Perhaps they would be interested in covering the Great Lakes Corvette Challenge?



[Modified by Jim@GMHTP, 12:47 AM 1/31/2003]

 

Jim,
I have been a loyal suscriber to GMHTP for 4 years. I generally like the magazine although as an ECS Challenge racer, the coverage of our event disappoints me. That being said, I have never seen GMHTP survey their readers to determine which cars they own. While I assume most readers have F-bodies, ( if you don't, that's a whole other issue given the majority of your coverage is F-body) GMHTP might be surpised how many readers are vette owners. Vettes are pretty reasonable when purchased used and I think many people graduate to a Vette after owning a f-body in earlier life.

I would like to see what your readership looks like.

Thanks,

 

I done with this thread, sorry for any feathers I may have ruffled.

 

Glenn, did you see the online engine poll Hot Rod Magazine tried to do on their website? The results were far from scientific or accurate, with lots of bogus voting from several specific groups. There's a thread in this very section that illustrates how these forms of measurement can be manipulated.

We don't poll our readers asking specifically which cars they own and drive, but we do pay attention to several factors that give us a strong indication. One would be our reader mail. I write our reader's rides section, known as "Street Heat" and just finished up 30 cars for that section, none of which were Corvettes. Just because a Corvette owner doesn't feel like sending us a letter doesn't mean we don't think any of them read our magazine, but we do look at other factors, including the kinds of cars that show up at the events we cover, especially our own event. Several members of this board have attended those events, so we know you're out there and we try to match our overall Vette coverage with a level we think is appropriate.

I've been a member of this board for a few years now and while I do see Car & Driver and Motortrend mentioned on a regular basis in various sections here, GMHTP is rarely the topic of conversation. That is certainly not the case on F-body-dominated boards like CamaroZ28.com and LS1.com.

We also keep a close eye on our circulation numbers and even though issues with F-bodies on the cover have a better track record, they were only on four out of seven covers last year (two Vette covers and one SSR cover rounded out the year).

As a side note, the Grape of Wrath project car could have been a C4 instead. When Hunkins was shopping, he looked at several Vettes, but the prices were still slightly north of his range.

 

Hi Jim,we met at LG Motorsports back in April. I own the Navy blue Corvette in the Street Heat section of your March issue. Thanks for asking me to put my car and info in GMH-Tech.I have met a number of Racers and readers that read my article.I had my Transmission rebuilt shortly after we met,I have broken my old best ETs.The 1-2shift was slipping on the 11.56 pass,New times and mph in Sig. [IMG][/IMG] :steering:

 

Jim,
An online poll clearly wouldn't work. What I was thinking was putting the survey on your subsciption renewal form. Although that would only take into account subscriptions, I believe that is what advertiser's focus on anyway when making media buy decisions based on my limited knowledge of the business. In addition, GMHTP is difficult to find in stores so I don't believe you would be missing a significant numbr of readers. It would probably take a couple years of doing this to get a reasonably accurate count due to subscriptions coming due at various times. Just my .02.

 

99 NBM coupe A4, MTI S2 heads,B1 cam,Ls1 edit,Tpis Headers,SY 4000
conv,Mti pulley,Vortex ram air,Ls6 intake,LGM 5pt roll bar,172 thermo,275/40/17 Bfg & Nitto Drags,Corsa Indy Pro,3.42 gear. Best 1/4mi # 11.25@ 120.20mph, 60ft ;1.58, Best 1/8mi #7.16, Mph 1/8 @98.41

So I lied, I'm back.

LittleBouBlu99 great job on getting in the GMHT but here is the point I'm trying to make. Sure you have a nice car but it no different than the 100s of other out there, even those that run the Corvette Challlenge series across the country. So what made your car so different that you were selected to be featured in the mag?????

The answer is easy, I copied your forum sig and post it and guess what????

You have stuff by MTI,TPIS AND LGM all listed in your sig and these companies are all advertisers in GMHT. I bet without even reading your article there is major mention of these companies and you can find the same pattern in every feature that is written in every issue. I understand this is business and GMHT must protect the advertisers that are paying the bills but this all started by GMHT coming here and raising the hopes on many Corvette Racers by thinking they could send in a letter and get to be in the MAG but unless your tuner is listed on the "ADVERTISER INDEX" page in any GMHT I seriously doubt that will ever happen.

It not about the quality of your car or your mechanial accomplishments but about the mags protecting who pays their bill.

So Please don't be mislead.

John Mackey
National Director Corvette Challenge

 

John, before you continue posting lies and untruths about our magazine, I would appreciate it if you first responded to my question about the alleged 13.0 car we featured. Please list the specific issue and page number.

The fact of the matter is, I ran into Cedric at LG Motorsports and encouraged him to send a letter into our Street Heat section, just as I do with countless other enthusiasts I run into. I even made a point of encouraging him to do so, because so few Corvette owners do send letters to Street Heat. Ask Scott Settlemire, the assistant brand manager for Camaro and Corvette if I didn't hand out business cards to every single person I met in Houston on Superbowl Sunday, encouraging them to do the same thing. I didn't pre-screen them or anyone else to ensure they had products on their cars from our advertisers and I never do. As long as they are fuel-injected, GM vehicles and the pictures aren't totally screwed up, we'll run them. Ask the SyTy people, who hate our guts because of our lack of SyTy coverage, if I didn't go to their message board and ask them to do the very same thing.

Read this thread on the Turbo Buick board and see if I mentioned anywhere that we were only looking for cars with parts or work performed by our advertisers: http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/sho...eferrerid=3929 . Same with this thread at the Impala forum http://www.impalassforum.com/cgi-bin...c&f=1&t=002707

If you look in the advertiser index of Cedric's issue, you will not notice the names of Corsa, TNT, GMMG, ASP, Katech, Wilwood, NX, Borla, Jacobs, Eibach and Harwood, but you will find all of them mentioned in the same section as Cedric's car, even though many of their competitors did advertise in that issue. I also go out of my way to mention message boards the owners frequent, as I did with Corvette Forum in Cedric's story. You are partly correct John, it's not necessarily about the quality of your car or your mechanical accomplishments. If you look in our November 2002 Street Heat, you'll find two totally stock Grand Nationals, a stock SS and a stock V6 Camaro that runs 15s. Guess what John, if you sent us a letter and a nice non-digital picture of your car, we'd run it too and we'd even mention Cartek if they did any work on it. Come to think of it John, aren't you mentioned on page 8 in our current issue? How did that happen if your car isn't an "advertiser car?"

Just so everyone understands John's situation, he runs an event that is exclusive to Corvette owners and has limited appeal to our readership. He has a sponsor for his event that does not advertise in our magazine. Even though GMHTP currently only covers events open to all GM make and models and has declined to cover races sponsored in part or entirely by our advertisers including MTI, Thunder Racing, LS1 Speed and countless others, according to John, the only reason we won't cover the CCC is because his event sponsor is not one of our advertisers. As John continues to post lies and false accusations about our magazine, it is becoming clear he is not looking out for the interests of the Corvette community as a whole but only his own interests and those that relate to his event.

 

Jim, thanks for setting me straight. I can tell by the passion in your writting you still believe the magazine business is on the level, and that great.
As for the 13. f-body, let use the 12.6 in March 2003 on page 15, it average.
And yes that is me on page 8 along with other Corvette racers that had a very good SLP Day. I just to bad that a reader (Rob Petrie) had to write to the mag to get the race results in.
Just for info Cartek is no longer our title sponsor of the Corvette Challenge and you can tell Johnny Hunkins that I tried to take his good advice that if I wanted coverage of the CC series in GMHT I need to get one of your sponsor as my title sponsor because none of my current sponsors could afford the cost of enough advertizing to even get one page of race event coverage but I guess thing according to your above post has changed and none of those restrictions exsist any longer. Boy thats super and I'll be looking foward to your fair and unbias reporting.

ps, and Jim please, this forum is the series and the corvette community I'm sure they will all be watching for great thing from GMHT in the future.
And one other thing incase you didn't know GM killed the F-body. ;)

 

But the Vette magazines are just as bad. Bunch of waxers.

 

Jim@GMHTP,

Just for what it is worth, I am a C4 owner who races every week during our season. I am a tech nut. *I* subscribe to your magazine, and I only became aware of it's exisitence through this forum.

RACE ON!!!

 

I read GM Hi Tech when I can find it. The only reason I haven't subscribed yet is because I currently subscribe to many other magazines.

Since the Corvette Forum was created, there hasn't been a need for me to keep up with the vette, so my current car related magazine list is as follows:

Mopar Muscle(High Performance Mopar),Four Wheeler, Hot Rod(best damn magazine out there been a subscriber since 1975),Stock Car racing Magazine and most recently Corvette Magazine.

Magazines I buy on the newstand are Car Craft,GM Hi Tech,Sport Truck and a few various specialty magazines(like Hot Rod's "Build a Stroker Issue").

My problem with magazines in general are as follows:

Yes magazines need advertisers to stay in business, I can live with that, this forum is run the same way. I won't get into specifics, but changes may be made.

It is generally known that those who have unique cars aren't featured(like say the AMX). The F-body, more specifically the Camaro has been teh American icon for Hot Rods along with the Chevelle. Since the Chevelle no longer exists, the Camaro takes the spotlight.
Every non specific magazine features more Camaro's than any other car.
I don't have a real problem with that except that they should mix up teh generations a little.

Companies like Primedia,EMAP(I don't even know who owns who anymore)have too many similar publications. How many Mustang magazines are there that are owned by the same publisher? Too many.

In this case we aren't asking for coverage of any of our cars(although it would be nice) or their owners(did I mention, my bone stock LT1 went 12.99 in teh 1/4?). We are just asking for some coverage of our event, teh history of it and teh creation of other series based on ours. That's one incredible story that deserves to be heard.

Now it doesn't have to be GM Hi Tech, it could be Hot Rod, Car Craft, Popular Hot Rodding etc. I'd rather not see it in Vette or Corvette Fever(I won't get into why I boycott those magazines).

The fact is we have an editor of a magazine who is close to us and we can't get but a few lines in a different feature story.

I'm tired and I'm rambling and maybe I'm not making any sense, but does anybody know which sponsor has been paying for this event the last three years(and the upcoming 4th year) and not recieving anything in return(except for a few gifts).

Yes there is a sponsor out there who takes his very hard earned money, is not related to the automotive business in any way, and helps pay for teh series to exist. Why would such a person do that? Because that person is a dedicated racer who loves what he does and gets satisfaction by seeing others what he is a part of.

If this person decided not to support the series, would the series die? No way, so why does this person do it. See above for the answer again.

If that isn't deserving of a few paragraphs than I don't know what is.

So anybody want to take a gander who that sponsor is?

 

It probably would have been better for this thread to die young but it didn't :)

Jim.... car magizines... magizines in general & the goings on described by Mackey have been going on forever (or least since the first issue of Hot Rod)& I don't think those what he said was really meant as a direct assult on You,GMHTP or it's credibility, nor is it any exception... just a statement of facts. No not EVERY car covered will always be loaded w/ advertisers products but disproportionate amount will. Then take a look @ tech articles in general.... in a variety of publications, not just yours. What percentage of featured parts do you believe were PAID for by the mags, or owners of the cars & how many parts were "donated" for feature stories & wind up on a writers or editors personal vehicle? & please no "canned anwers" from the press office...:D In fact theres no real need to answer, just think about it & ask JH about it too next time you two are on the road somewhere getting to know each other. It's nothing new so why try to cover it up ? I think just about everybody who reads magizines undestands this already & for the most part accepts it too. ( National Enquirer & The Globe excepted of course) :D

Incidentially, before you go describing "John's situation" you should get some background info & you will realize he has done as much or more to get people involved in car/racing hobbies than GMHTP has... He has been doing it almost as long as you or I have been alive, with and without the assistance of national automotive publications.... monthly ones even ! :) sorry if I sound harsh... but I didn't really like the "character assination" tone in parts of your last post. In his post immediatly following your last one, Mackey told you what Hunkins said to him.... you can dispute it, disbelieve it, or just plain refuse to acknowledge it ever happened, but none of that will change reality.

How can you outright call HIM a liar & deny advertising has influence on content in the same post ?


:cheers:

Joe

 

As a ECSCC racer I think the points brought out by the Vette guys are valid. I have bought and read your mag when there was a story that related to my car but those times were few and far between. Maybe what we"The Vette Guys" should do is run in your races and mop up the competition to leave no doubt what brand is the quickest and what racers are the best. Oh wait, didn't we already do that? BTW I no longer suscribe to the Vette Mags either. John, maybe you should become the editor of our own magazine! How about "Vette Racer" or "Fast Glass". Put me down for 1 subscription!

 

I have to agree with both John's for a local magizine, the coverage of the local cars and tracks is weak at best. We get over a hundred cars at our CC and no coverage. Over the years I've won the slick tire bracket twice in there event with my Vette, and once with my LS-1 Camaro. I must have missed an issue or two, but I've never seen anything written or have been told that there was an artical about mine or anybody's vette wins in that magizine.


[Modified by QuickBlack85, 11:32 PM 2/1/2003]