Daily Podcast: Car & Driver Vet Brock Yates To Write for TTAC
Longtime followers of this website know that this is not the first time we've announced that automotive journalist Brock Yates is set to join the TTAC team. Back in the paleolithic era, we cut a deal with the former Car & Driver scribe to pen a weekly column on our readers' behalf. The arrangement went south when we couldn't put enough cash on the proverbial barrel. Now that TTAC is a bigger site– we broke our 500k uniques per month cherry today– I have more confidence that Brock's participation can take us to that place where we can recoup his fee. In other words, we can afford to roll the Yates-shaped dice. Now the last time Brock was TTAC-bound, some of you wondered– OK, sneered at the prospect. There is a school of thought that says Mr. Yates is too Old School for web 2.0land. After speaking with Brock on potential topics for his regular column, I can assure you he's just as full of piss, shit and vinegar as he was back in the day. And he's not a Lutzian recidivist dreaming of big-bore V8s. That said, I have no idea what's going to come from Yates' fevered imagination. I told him TTAC wants 800 words per week on whatever floats his boat. No holds barred. Kick some ass. This he promised to do. Fingers crossed. But at the very least Mr. Yates arrival should help this website's regular writers get some more of the recognition– and readership– they deserve.
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I'm probably too young to have read his stuff, but judging from the comments, he appears to be a polarizing figure. Great. Consensus is for weenies.
Polarizing? Sure. But toward the end at C & D also maddeningly erratic. When's he good, he's very good. For example, Sunday Driver is still must reading, and if you haven't seen a copy, it's worth finding. When he's mailing it in, well, I have a lot of faith in his current editors.
OK, well, a quick and important update: Mr. Yates has decided that he would like his column to run as is, without editing. I have decided to honor this request. I do so with the hope expressed clearly above: that Mr. Yate's participation here will draw in some new readers, who will enjoy the full spectrum of TTAC's talent. I also trust that the feedback that TTAC's Best and Brightest provide Mr. Yates will help shape the content of the writer's future work for this site.
Great to see Brock is on board. It WILL be fun to see what he has to say. Always entertaining.