We hope Simon LeBon's mysterious “treasure in the dark” wasn't a turbocharger....
WELCOME TO AUTOWEEK
Not just a collection of Twitterati, Autoweek is a fortnightly magazine and daily online news source dedicated to car and racing news and features. You can also find us on Facebook, YouTube and the iPad. As you check out our various outlets, here are some faces to put with the names you’ll see:
Rory Carroll is a graduate of Michigan State University, a concours d’elegance and vintage-racing veteran and a past winner of the Index of Effluency Trophy at the 24 Hours of LeMons.
Senior online editor, west coast, Davey G. Johnson grew up with his attention split between American muscle and European sophistication. His boyhood bedroom walls featured the period-correct obligatory Countach poster, as well as shots of Don
Graham Kozak drove a 1951 Packard 200 sedan in high school because he wanted something that would be easy to find in a parking lot. His fleet has since expanded to include a Jeep Grand Wagoneer and an old Honda motorcycle.
Mike Larson didn’t grow up watching Formula 1 races or the Daytona 500. In fact, until he joined Autoweek as an associate motorsports editor in 2012, the former University of Michigan football beat writer possessed a pretty limited knowledge of racing. However, since working at Autoweek he’s rode shotgun with Tony Stewart around Dover International Speedway and thrashed around the Circuit of the Americas with Mario Andretti. A veteran of the newspaper industry, Larson has covered sports for six different publications. When he’s not in the office or at a race track, he enjoys reading, traveling and spending time with his wife and son.
Associate editor Jake Lingeman has been with Autoweek since 2006. He can tear down a dual-overhead-cam four-cylinder engine and rebuild it, and he loves his 1963 Pontiac Star Chief.
Dutch Mandel, Autoweek’s editorial director, has been with the company for 26 years. He grew up with exotic cars in the garage and is the automotive consultant on the Pixar movie Cars 2.
Motorsports editor and lifelong racing enthusiast Mac Morrison test-drives and writes about new cars and travels to top-level international racing events. He cites the Porsche 911 and the Ferrari 458 Italia as his favorite cars.
Road test editor Natalie Neff has been with Autoweek for 11 years and oversees all new-car reviews and testing. She has tested cars across glaciers in Iceland and through the jungles of Belize.
Mike Pryson covered auto racing for the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot and M-Live Media Group from 1991 until joining Autoweek as online motorsports editor In 2012. He has won several Michigan Associated Press and national Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) awards for his auto racing coverage, and in 2000 the Michigan Auto Racing Fans Club named him Michigan Motorsports Writer of the Year. He follows all sports and considers bacon an essential food group.
Associate Editor Jay Ramey knows just about everyone with a classic car on the east coast, and enjoys finding oddball imports throughout New England. Jay has driven cars on three continents, and attends more than three dozen car events every summer, where he occasionally takes a photo or two.
Editor Wes Raynal has been with Automotive News and Autoweek for most of the past 30 years. His dream garage would hold a 1960s Ford Mustang convertible, a late-’60s Porsche 911 and a Chevrolet Tahoe.
Associate editor Blake Z. Rong graduated from Syracuse University with degrees in writing and American History, and has been writing about strange, bizarre cars and eBay finds of dubious desirability since college. He drives a Mazda Miata which he will shamelessly recommend to anyone, even those with kids and large dogs, of which he has neither.
Having grown up in a General Motors family in Flint, Mich., executive creative director Ken Ross has been around the auto industry his entire life. He came to Crain Communications to work for Autoweek sister publication Automotive News as a graphic designer in 1997 and then moved to Autoweek in 2000. He has traveled for photo shoots, driven the Mercedes-Benz SLS through the Black Forest in Germany and attended the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, but he says his favorite part of the job is meeting car designers, such as former Ford designer and “Andy Warhol of automobiles” Camilo Pardo. “They do what I do,” Ken says. “We speak the same language.” Ken would like a 1964 Mustang and a Jaguar E-type to call his own.
Digital editor Andrew Stoy is an ex-mechanic and dealership grunt who has spent the past 15 years writing about cars in print, online and for advertising and PR firms.
After college, senior editor Mark Vaughn moved to Europe to edit car magazine Auto. He interviewed with Autoweek at the Frankfurt motor show in 1989 and has been with us ever since.
Associate editor Jon Wong has been with Autoweek since 2005 and was a subscriber for years prior. Jon cites the Nürburgring 24-hour endurance race in Germany as the coolest event he’s ever attended.
