Drag Illustrated Issue 110, June 2016 | Page 10

LETTER from the EDITOR T omorrow morning we will send to print the 110th issue of Drag Illustrated and – per usual – my column is the last piece of the puzzle. Believe it or not, I try hard to get ahead of schedule with my monthly thoughts, comments and concerns, but it’s been something that has felt impossibly difficult since, well, issue number-two or so. Nearly 11 years into this project, I can safely say that the easiest issue we’ve done was that very first one. That first issue was the product of years and years of thoughts and ideas and, honestly, we couldn’t possibly fit them all in there, so we already had most of issue number-two as well. From that third issue until now, however, we’ve started from scratch every month and it can be a challenge. Part of the problem is that I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to one-up whatever we produced last month. I remember an interview I did with championship chassis builder Rick Jones many, many years ago, and while talking about what it takes to win the IHRA Pro Stock world championship, he told me, “We’ve never been the type to ‘lay one up’, and you can’t be if you want to be the best in the world.” I’m not exactly sure why that’s stuck with me like it has, but every time I think about settling, I remember those words. Truth be told, this burning feeling in my belly to make sure that every issue we send to the printer is better than the last is probably amongst my biggest Achilles’ heel in life and business. While I often joke that at times I feel “creatively bankrupt” as we try to churn out one issue after another, it’s sometimes hard to narrow my focus enough to string together 1,000-words worth of opinionated editorial that is somewhat cohesive. I run into every month kicking around a dozen or so ideas for this month’s column and, generally, by the time I’m finished I usually have written three or four times as many words as could possibly be used in the space provided. Part of it is simply the process – some ideas and topics take more time to flesh out than others. But it is also because it’s my process. I’m a high-energy guy – excitable, enthusiastic, and dangerously curious. I’ll get an idea – a big one, what I think is a great one – then I’ll expound on it, get 500 other ideas and sub-ideas, proceed to complete and total overwhelm, then to details and nit-picking before arrive at the realization that I’m getting nothing accomplished. Right about that time I tend to zero-in and knock it out. It feels a little bit like I’m going a long way to make a point, but what I’m trying to say is that more important than a great idea or a big dream is the willingness to simply do the work. Ideas are the easy part. Everyone has ideas. It’s in the execution that the men are separated from the boys, and it’s something that I try to remind myself of regularly. Why? Because execution is costly and hard; ideas are free and easy, baby. Not that every issue of Drag Illustrated needs to somehow become a self-help program, but I think all of us – people, racers, crew members, businessmen and women – can use a reminder from time to time that you have to embrace the grind. I’m sure it wasn’t always easy for guys like Greg Anderson and Jason Line to show up at the shop every day 10 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com Wesley R. Buck Editor-in-Chief wes@dragillustrated.com Scott Dorman Publisher 615.478.5275 scott@dragillustrated.com Will Mandell Senior Sales Executive 615.426.0465 will@dragillustrated.com JT Hudson Account Representative 660.341.0063 jt@dragillustrated.com Mike Carpenter Design & Production Director 704.737.2299 mike@dragillustrated.com Ian Tocher Senior Editor 404.375.4895 ian@dragillustrated.com Van Abernethy Senior Staff Writer & Field Subscription Sales 828.302.0356 van@dragillustrated.com Nate Van Wagnen Web Editor & Staff Writer 440.986.1480 nate@dragillustrated.com Bret Kepner Historian/Statistician bret@dragillustrated.com and work, especially the last few years when they were getting their teeth kicked down their throat by a young lady from Texas named Erica EndersStevens, but I can guaran-freaking-tee you that is the only reason they currently find themselves on a historic win streak in NHRA Pro Stock with the rest of the field scared to even look their direction. And it’s rarely the super fun type of work that pays dividends – it’s the work that sucks that gets results. So, as a reminder to myself, perhaps more so than anything else, remember to kill any and all excuses that keep you from doing the work. Put in the necessary time and results will follow – regardless of what you’re trying to accomplish. Our cover star this month, Jeff Verdi, as you will read later in this issue, was consistently unsatisfied with his reaction times, so he bought a practice tree, did the work, and won The Million. I’ll close with a great quote from a filmmaker that I admire, Casey Neistat. He said, recently, “At every single inflection point in my life, doing the work has always been the thing, has always been the catalyst that has taken me from where I am to where I wanted to be.” Work hard & race easy, Wesley R. Buck Editor-in-Chief wes@dragillustrated.com Andrea Wilson Controller 660.349.0847 andrea@dragillustrated.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Ainsley Jacobs, Bobby Bennett, Tommy D’Aprile, Lisa Collier, Gordon Columbine, Rob King PHOTO DEPARTMENT: John Fore III (Senior Staff Photographer), Paul Grant (Senior Photographer), Roger Richards, Ian Tocher, Van Abernethy, Mark J. Rebilas, Joe McHugh, Chris Graves, James Sisk, Jason Dunn, Ron Lewis, Gary Nastase, Jason Sharp ADVERTISING SALES: 615.478.5275 SUBSCRIPTIONS & CUSTOMER SERVICE: 660.988.2313 customerservice@dragillustrated.com DRAG ILLUSTRATED MEDIA, LLC 902 Kings Road, Kirksville, MO 63501 P: 660.988.2313 F: 660.665.1636 www.dragillustrated.com Copyright © 2016 by Drag Illustrated Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Drag Illustrated is a registered trademark of Drag Illustrated Media, LLC. Printed and mailed by Publication Printers in Denver, CO. All statements, including product claims, are those of the person or organization making the statement or claim. The publisher does not adopt any such statement or claims as its own, and any such statement or claim does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publisher. Issue 110