I am sure most of us have a dream job that we would like to be doing. Heck, some of you most likely already do! Well, for me, it would have to be something to do with cars, and writing the Pylon Press for the last year and a half has been a lot of fun; finding out about people and their interests is fascinating! So, for me, I would think that reviewing and writing about cars and automotive events would be great! Well, meet Greg Rubenstein, who has had that gig! Lucky guy ...
Greg grew up in Eugene, Oregon. His family was never really into cars, he says, "though my mother did buy a new Fiat Spider in 1978 that I got to drive to High School." That was the beginning of Greg's automotive enthusiasm, though "it didn't handle well with its skinny 155/80 tires, it revved freely and sounded good."
Greg and his friends started doing weekly "sport drives" which consisted of "a few guys driving their modded sports cars ('69 Fiat 124 SportCoupe and various X1/9s, Honda Prelude, Datsun 510 and my '79 RX-7) around the back country roads of Lane County, Oregon." They all attended the annual Emerald Empire Sport Car Club's Ice Breaker autocross, and a few ventured out to do the Larrison Rock Hill Climb. "I tried that once and loved it, but I thought it so dangerous I might as well go road racing, which I did in my street modified '81 RX-7." That lasted a couple of years, doing events with the ICSCC (International Conference of Sports Car Clubs), "which was much more user friendly at the time than participating with the northwest's local SCCA chapter."
After graduating college from the University of Oregon Greg knew he wanted to work in professional motorsport and went back to school, choosing the journalism master's program at Colorado University because he loved Boulder, and it was close to the SCCA's national headquarters at the time. "I figured I could get an internship there." In the early '90s he wanted to get "more serious" about road racing, so with the help of a friend who was handy with body work and welding, he constructed a GT-3 class RX-7 from the ground up, "complete with one-of-a-kind metal fender flares". "That car was sweet, easy to drive and relatively inexpensive to race," he remembers.
In 1992, Greg managed to get that internship with SCCA Pro Racing, and kept that job in 1993. After graduating and working one race as the PR guy for a Trans-Am Series race team, Greg was hired as Pro Racing's PR manager for the remainder of the 1994 season. By 1998, SCCA Pro Racing had formed the United States Road Racing Championship (USRRC), "a debacle if there ever was one" but it got him promoted to Pro Racing PR Director, adding a staff of two and getting to be in charge of the media for the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona!
"That event was a lot of fun," he says, "though more work than you can imagine, piled on top of getting ready for Pro Racing's four other races in that series at the time; Trans-Am, World Challenge, Formula 2000 and Spec Racer Ford. Besides working every Pro Racing event from the 1994-1999 seasons, Greg was "on loan" to Club Racing for the National Championship Runoffs all those years. "as I also help out Nick Craw and Club Racing with their press duties."
Greg says that his all-time favorite car-guy time was "driving the Nürburgring Nordschleife on the day of my 40th birthday," although "getting to drive the entire Porsche sports car lineup, from Boxster to GT3, in one day, at Barber Motorsports Park wasn't too bad, either." Oh yeah, where can we sign up? Ah, the perks of being an automotive journalist. And, "since most people want to know, I don't have one favorite car from all the years of reviewing, but I do have favorites by category." His favorite all-time sports car - Dodge Viper (911 Turbo 2nd); Luxury GT - Jaguar XK8R, Sedan - Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG, Coupe - Audi TT ('08+), Inexpensive Sport Compact - Subaru WRX ('09), and of course '04 WRX STi (not so inexpensive), "Fake Truck" - Chevrolet SSR, Real Truck - Nissan Titan, Big SUV - Cadillac Escalade, Smaller SUV - Infiniti EX35, Crossover - Toyota Venza. Oh, and the "car I can't have," a Volvo D60 T5 (on loan during a trip to Germany and France - 40+ diesel mpg and 145+ mph top speed on the Autobahn!).
Eventually, he says he just "burned out," and quit between the '99 and '00 seasons, but kept working as contract PR for the first five events of 2000. Meanwhile, the dot-com bubble hadn't yet burst, and Larry Edsall, former editor-in-chief of AutoWeek magazine, asked Greg to join him in Phoenix to be Motorsports Editor for a new enthusiast website, iZoom.com. Greg jumped at the chance, "and for 10 months we all lived the dot-com dream." But that all came crashing down and they had to close up shop; another victim of cash-flow and the dot-com crash. To this day, though, Larry and Greg have kept iZoom.com going by writing car reviews; "reason enough for the auto manufacturers to keep us on their approved journalist list for press fleet loans." Greg also currently writes a monthly automotive column for North Valley Magazine.
Since 2001, Greg's been working at the West Star Talk Radio Network, where he is now director of operations. They syndicate radio shows, the most famous of which is The Kim Komando Show (aired locally Saturday's from 10am-noon on KFYI 550 AM). Kim and her husband, Phoenix' top morning talk guy Barry Young, built the company themselves and Greg says his work is never dull!
In the fall of 1993, Greg received a car on press loan that he'd heard about but hadn't really paid much attention to - Subaru's then hot new WRX STi. "It was love at first drive," he says, "and I drove the snot out of that loaner, and seeing how well it survived that test, he ordered one in November and took delivery in January 2004. (For more on this test, see http://www.izoom.com/auto.aspx?article=2004wrx_sti.htm) He promptly racked up the 1,000 break-in miles, and did his first autocross (since 1988) at the April 3, 2004 PIR event. He also started going back to the track, attending a NASA track day at PIR in May '04, and "about a dozen more over the last five years." He is also happy to note that "thanks to all those press cars, my STi only has about 34,000 miles, but it's modified enough to land me in the Street Modified class." While he admits that the car is under-prepared for the class, "it's too much fun to drive on the street as it sits so I'm willing to take the PAX hit for daily driving fun."
Greg tried "and liked" autocrossing on race tires, but has happily settled into street tires in Street Modified in the ST1 class. "I've pretty much given up doing trackdays in the STi, as the car's reached a performance level where consumables are eaten too quickly." He says that "the last time I tracked it I ran through a set of $500 race pads in back-to-back track days, plus I feel it's too hard on a car that also has to serve as my occasional daily driver."
Over the years, Greg has accumulated quite a few trophies, finishing first in ST1 in three series, first in Open-Combined Street Prepared once, "including a 987 and 979 PAX back when I was dabbling with Hoosier race tires," a third in ST1 four times, third in SM Open once and finished second in his Novice series. He says he would enjoy becoming more involved with the AZ Region Solo club, but "with the birth of my first child last October" (congratulations to Greg and wife Rachel!), doesn't seem to have a lot of free time. Eventually, he would like to participate in a divisional or National Tour event, or maybe even the Solo Nationals, but until then he is always showing up early for setup and "doing what I can."
Besides autocrossing, Greg is an avid snowboarder who's never been on skis (except for cross-country). He started boarding in 1984, and says, "my first snowboard even had skags (bottom fins like a surf board)." Other than that, he loves spending time with "my beautiful wife, Rachel, and our terrific son Isaac," and tinkering on his car when he gets the chance.