Thank You: Our One-Year Anniversary
Reflections on twelve months that exceeded my wildest expectations.
A weekly newsletter by Ryan K. ZumMallen | @zoomy575m
Happy Race Day, especially to the person who built this elaborate diorama of a Prius crashing into a 7-Eleven.
One year ago I launched Race Day here on Substack as a place to celebrate, appreciate and document the weekly changing tides and trends in car culture. Especially the weird, wild and wonderful. Well, it’s certainly been that and more.
Over the course of the last year, this newsletter set out to clearly illustrate and establish one key message:
Do Millennials like cars?
In fact, Millennials are changing the way we talk and think about cars.
The types of cars they like are as diverse and multi-dimensional as they are.
They are more welcoming and accepting different types of cars, people and ideas.
They are creating dynamic new car events that move away from the traditional static display.
They will show up for automotive events and motorsports.
They are deeply involved and influenced by the surrounding pop culture, social media and video games. Even book clubs!
They are more likely to modify their vehicles and will pay handsomely to do it.
They are especially into ‘80s and ‘90s cars for the exact reasons that others despise them.
They value character and feedback over price and speed.
This mission began with my book, “Slow Car Fast” still available at CarraraBooks.com, which I hoped would settle once and for all that a new dawn in car culture is already here. I wanted Race Day to be a live, running addendum.
In particular, I’m so proud of our Ask A Millennial! segment. I think it proved the incredibly wide spectrum of people, tastes and ideas across today’s enthusiasts. The average age of AAM! guests was just 24.4 years — 73 percent were under 30!
And I’m especially happy that 27 percent of our AAM! guests were women. But I can do better. And there is still room to grow on acceptance in the car community, as we heard from one transgender AAM! guest.
On a personal note, this newsletter has been a constant for me during a lot of turmoil. I announced my book, got laid off, published the book, threw several live events, earned coverage in Autoweek and Automobile, got a dream job, sold the book out and whethered a pandemic.
I made so many incredible connections along the way. And got so many incredible letters from readers! And inspired one person to move across the country to chase his dream job??? Yeesh! This year was quite a decade.
So believe me when I say I am overwhelmingly grateful to you. For trying out this experiment with me, subscribing, opening, sharing, clicking — whatever it is you did!
I think Race Day accomplished its mission and I’m ecstatic that I get to keep it going. It means so much that you came along for the ride.
Here’s to another year!
Culture
Amazed at this sociopolitical breakdown of common people’s cars.
Fantastic story from Brendan McAleer, one of my favorite writers today, on the Vancouver woman using a pristine first-gen 1977 Honda Civic as her daily driver.
This week, in images that make me laugh uncontrollably:
Details about the upcoming F1 2020 game continue to trickle out. The latest is that you can play as drivers such as Antoine Hubert, tragically killed in 2019.
Let it be known that the new car culture equivalent of FMK is Buy/Drive/Burn.
Mickey Thompson was a legend, example no. 5-million:
A university student wrote her dissertation on “Fiat 500 Twitter,” which is the UK equivalent of being “basic.” Here’s an article on the phenomenon and the author.
My biggest takeaway from the “Last Dance” documentary on Michael Jordan was his effortless cool on the court. That also translated to his exquisite ‘90s rides.
Once again, I am here, asking you, why the hell didn’t anyone tell me this car existed? This tweet sent me down a Nissan Stagea 260RS wormhole:
The newest Hot Wheels collection taps into a very specific car culture trend — off-roading anything and everything.
An important essay from transgender racer, and Le Mans podium finisher, Charlie Martin on the road to achieving their dreams. It’s on page 51 at this link, but here’s the important part:
"If you've never struggled to feel represented in your sport or career... you'll never fully know how it feels to be the outsider."
Sign of the times as car meets reopen:
Video Reel
Congressmember Katie Porter proudly drives a Toyota Sienna — calling it a “collector’s item” — and sparked a furious debate on the feminist site Jezebel about the Sienna vs. the Chrysler Pacifica.
While sim racing, F1 driver Charles LeClerc forgot his girlfriend was coming over. She had to buy a subscrition and leave a comment to get inside:
In case you needed proof that Jerry Seinfeld likes Porsches.
My former colleague Dan Edmunds has a new YouTube channel where he takes new cars apart and explains their suspensions, bit by bit. Check it out! Dan is incredibly smart. My favorites are the Gladiator videos.
YouTube master Ken Block brought two racing champions out one of his most iconic shoot locations to mess around in the dirt. It’s a quarantine elixir:
Drones aren’t the answer to everything but they are friggin’ perfect for donuts.
LeClerc, the Ferrari driver mentioned above, is driving a 986-hp SF90 Stradale in a remake of the underground classic car video “C'était un Rendezvous.” The new one will be called “Le Grand Rendez-vous.” It’s… kind of an odd pairing. The charm of that video (here) is driving the absolute crap out of a car at speeds no mortal would dare — it’s still insane to watch 44 years later. In a Stradale, that kind of effort goes from dangerous to suicidal. I’ll reserve judgement, but I’m not exactly optimistic.
Race Results
Speedways and stadiums across the country, but mainly in the south, began to reopen with spectators. Health practices were not exactly up to the highest code.
This is not the way to come back. Here’s hoping we’ll do better going forward. I don’t care if you don’t agree with me — Kyle Busch does.
IndyCar is also working on a comeback and F1 got the green light to race at Silverstone. This all feels very fast, especially with so many traveling in to compete. Fingers crossed.
Meanwhile in absolutely terrible news, McLaren laid off a full quarter of its staff. Twelve-hundred people.
Perfect illustration of 1) how competitive sim racing has gotten and 2) how lucrative sim racing has gotten.
Speaking of sim racing, it feels like we’ve gotten in a little over our heads here. Audi will reportedly drop its Formula E driver Daniel Abt for putting a ringer in his seat during a virtual charity event. Isn’t that a bit much?
Sim racing got another big name to try their hand at it over the weekend: Mario Andretti.
Ask A Millennial! @2JWay, 22
On Sunday I searched for Toyota Soarers with a manual transmission, but they’re too rare. On Monday I went for a drive and stopped cold. There was a Soarer, or Lexus SC300 as they were called here, as the owner swapped a manual into it in the driveway. It was destiny. The young owner preferred not to share his name and picture, but here is an edited version of our conversation:
I really just drive to work, but I love driving by the beach. Nice breeze, good view, cool enough not to use A/C.
I’m currently swapping a manual transmission into it right now, and plan to boost it later. I just loved the chassis after having an LS400. The day you saw me I just got the cylinder and pedal in — I’m doing the rest hopefully this weekend.
I didn’t know anything about cars. Honestly it’s more worth it to invest in knowing cars than paying a shop to do it. That was motivation for me to learn everything myself.
Auction Block
Online auctions are everywhere. RM Sotheby’s has been holding its Driving Into Summer event all week, filled with lots aimed at young collectors like us. Sign up for their entertaining newsletter to keep up!
This Weekend
Radwood is holding its next #VRadwood virtual car show this Saturday from 9-5 PST on Instagram, YouTube and Twitch. Special guests, DJs, judges and prizes.
And Finally…
On our one-year anniversary, it’s fitting to end with a list of the 10 coolest cars from the ‘90s. Articles like this represent how truly automotive media has bought into the idea of these vehicles as classics. Long may they reign.
Drive hard and be safe.
Want your event included? Shoot me a note with subject line “Race Day” at ryan@carrarabooks.com.
Don’t forget to follow Carrara Media on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and visit our store to order your copy of Slow Car Fast in paperback or eBook.