T.O. Punks The Journosaurs

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Hey! Remember that movie Drop Zone, with Wesley Snipes? No? Well, there’s a character in the movie who won’t speak to someone until he’s jumped out of a plane with them. After all, his reasoning presumably goes, you can’t know what someone’s made of until you skydive with them. Luckily, he ends up doing a very daring jump with Wesley Snipes and therefore he can talk to Wesley Snipes from then on.

I felt the same way about Jalopnik’s Travis Okulski. Until he and I drove the inaugural AER enduro, I didn’t know or care much about him. Over the course of two days, I saw his character as a racer: fast, careful, intelligent, conservative when necessary. I grew to really like him. Which is just one of the reasons I’m so pleased to read his latest editorial on The Site That Reports On Cars Almost As Often As They Raise Awareness On Gender And Race Issues.


For a few years now, there’s been a kind-of-secret Facebook group called “Automotive Industry”. When I was on Facebook — I’m not at the moment, due to some complaints from two “motorcycle industry professionals” that I was being too mean to them — I would occasionally read the group just to stay in touch with the more barnacle-encrusted veterans of the endless buffet out there. Trust me, it would confirm anyone’s worst stereotypes of autojournos. There’s endless whining about free cars and luxury hotels and having to walk between concourses. One moment that stands out in my memory was when a fellow who used to write for TTAC (okay, it was Lieberman, stop twisting my arm) complained that one of his first-class flights to Europe was ruined by some condensation that dripped on him from the air-conditioning equipment overhead. He was told, with much commiseration, that this is a common occurrence on certain 747 upper decks. When I read that, I thought “Thank G-d that I always fly Southwest ‘Wanna Get Away’, and therefore will always be safe from condensation, even if the planes occasionally develop holes in the fuselage.”

Still, it was worth reading, if only for the time that one of the members posted a rather bizarre manifesto about bringing real strength and length and girth to the business only to retract it afterwards and blame the whole episode on the fact that he’d recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor. You can’t make this stuff up.

Since leaving Facebook, I hadn’t thought much about “Automotive Industry”, but now Travis has blown the lid off the thing.

Trust me, it gets even better after that.

While it would be tempting to point out that I’ve been beating this drum at TTAC and elsewhere for years, the truth is that I’m glad to see readers informed about the conditions and perks that inform the content they receive. It’s also important for me to keep thinking and writing about it. Since making the move to Road&Track, I’ve had the chance to experience a variety of things that simply aren’t available to online journalists, like, you know, renting an entire racetrack for a whole day for my personal use. Some “perks” are easy to justify: we couldn’t have written an article on comparing the McLaren 650S to the McLaren World Challenge GT car without, you know, driving both of those totally fucking awesome cars around a private racetrack. Others are tougher: some time ago I was at a press event and I ordered a rather extensive room service setup for two lady friends of mine at a hotel in Las Vegas. When I got home and looked at my credit card statements I realized that the bill hadn’t gone on the Amex that I gave the hotel but rather to the manufacturer’s overall tab, per the standing instructions for that event.

In my perfect world, cars would be delivered in competitive-set groups to Mid-Ohio and I’d personally test them back-to-back under controlled conditions before stopping by Wendy’s on the way home and sleeping in my own bed. Turns out that it’s actually cheaper for manufacturers to hold press events than to bring me cars at Mid-Ohio. Until that changes, we’ll continue to do our best to provide the most impartiality and integrity possible, even under conditions of mind-numbing luxury. We will not, however, demand free souvenirs. That’s for the folks at Autoblog to do.

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • Domestic Hearse Domestic Hearse on Dec 15, 2014

    Hotel. Las Vegas. Two lady friends. Extensive room service. For God's sake, man. How many times must I remind? Pics or it didn't happen!

  • Mullholland Mullholland on Dec 15, 2014

    Nice read Jack. I only have one question: Were you ever able to get that Vegas room service SNAFU sorted out?

  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉
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