If you're an Open Wheel reader, you're no doubt confused right now. I don't blame you. Open Wheel has been rolled into Stock Car Racing. So, instead of a freestanding magazine, OW will now be a section within SCR each month and your subscription will be switched over to a subscription to SCR.
If you're a Stock Car Racing reader, rest assured that nothing has been removed from SCR to make room for this new section devoted to open wheel racing. They've added on extra pages for this section, so for you folks it is simply a bonus. While OW has long been the bible of sprint car and midget racing, it has also featured Silver Bullets, Indy cars, and a variety of other "open wheel" types of racing, and we'll continue to do so here. We hope you'll enjoy keeping up with how the other half lives.
Open Wheel was first introduced to the racing world back in 1980, as a spinoff of Stock Car Racing. Intended to be a one-shot, the magazine's overwhelming popularity caught even its publishers by surprise, and it grew from there. Throughout its time at Lopez Publishing, General Media, emap Petersen Publishing, and emapUSA, OW brought the world of non-fendered racing to life for 209 issues over some 22 years.
While I could probably spin some great line of hype, attempting to tell why this is a great new situation for OW readers, I've never lied to our readers and I'm not about to start now. It's like this: It all started when emapUSA, a British company hell-bent on taking on the US, bought all the magazine titles owned by Petersen Publishing. It overpayed for the deal by about a billion (yes, a billion) dollars, and as a result many of the titles received very little financial support over the past few years. This especially hurt the niche market titles like OW, and most of our resources were gradually cut. By the time emap had finally bailed, and our newest owners, Primedia, had come in to buy the magazines, our financial reports looked like crap. It would have been pretty tough for an exec at this company to push for us to go forward based on our numbers. I wish they had, but I fully understand their position.
However, they did understand the importance of Open Wheel to its readers and to the entire open wheel community. So, they allotted us what amounts to a fairly good-sized magazine within a magazine here in SCR. I guess the silver lining is that sprint cars, midgets, Indy cars, and other forms of open wheel racing will now be exposed to a whole new audience, as part of the racing magazine with the highest circulation in the nation, SCR. As you will see, this section will look and feel like OW ... just smaller.
We will continue to bring you profiles, hard-hitting issue-oriented pieces, and tech, all centered around what some of us consider to be the fastest, wildest forms of auto racing on the planet.
So, what's in this for you stock car fans? Well, you've no doubt heard the buzz as sprint car and midget organizations have been experiencing a growth in popularity. You may have even caught a night or two of the World of Outlaws as they've raced at the new dirt tracks across the street from some of the NASCAR big tracks. I know I see plenty of Winston Cup drivers out taking in the winged sprints. In addition, you may want to keep an eye on some of the racers you'll see profiled in these pages. Great drivers like Kenny Schrader, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Jason Leffler, the late Kenny Irwin, and so many others have all brought their sprint car and midget talents to the stock car world. And, there's far more to Indy car racing than the Indy 500. And lastly, remember that this is a free bonus section for all of you that were already SCR subscribers.
So, here we are. If you were an Open Wheel subscriber and have questions or concerns regarding your subscription, feel free to e-mail openwheel@palmcoastd.com. As for the editorial content, be sure and drop a line to the address in the front of the magazine and let us know what you think.