There’s no point in trying to reinvent the wheel.
We’ve always run a very simple system at Speedhunters, and it’s worked just fine for over 10 years now. We’ve had our ups and downs for sure, but there’s always been a drive to try and improve where we can. We don’t always get it right, but you need to fail sometimes to learn and evolve.
If you remember last month’s editorial, I wrote about the difficulties of finding a balance between quality and quantity. To produce a story of reasonable quality takes time, which is something that’s at odds with today’s audience wanting their content faster and with more regularity. It’s a careful tightrope walk, especially if you really do want to retain your integrity.
Take the How Group B Can Save Us All story which we published last week. It took quite a few evenings to research, three days to shoot, one day in post production and a solid nine hours to write once all the assets were in place. That’s just one story, so as you can imagine, it’s not feasible to try and repeat that every day of the month.
In saying that, I think we may have finally found that balance as last month we published the largest amount of stories in a single month on Speedhunters than we have done previously in years. Not by a small margin either, but an increase of over 50% when compared to the previous month. It’s this momentum which we intend to carry into June and beyond, and I have full confidence in the Speedhunters team to do just that.
I’m properly proud of them and their commitment these last few months.
We’re also going to continue to diversify a little bit too. Dino will be taking the reigns for our first ever official bike story on Speedhunters, which features quite a neat segue from four wheels to two. It’s been a long time coming.
We’ll also finish our look into Donk culture, where Keiron witnessed some pretty unusual happenings. It’s an area of car culture that is often derided or just plain ignored, so it’s been interesting to finally cover it in some level of detail. It does make me wonder what other areas we might be missing…
June is looking intense from an event point of view too. While Dino and Matthew still have a significant amount of content to get through from their recent trip to Melbourne, there’s lots to come from the Northern Hemisphere as summer seems to have finally arrived. From Formula Drift New Jersey this weekend to Players Classic at Goodwood in a few weeks’ time, I’ve no doubt that we can expect another month crammed with content.
So while we might not be reinventing the wheel, there’s still ways we can improve it. From all of us at Speedhunters, thank you for reading, and see you in the comments section.
Paddy McGrath
Instagram: pmcgphotos
Twitter: pmcgphotos
paddy@speedhunters.com
OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS
awesome stuff, keep it coming!
thank you for sharing ^ ^ and just WOW
i've been reading speedhunters everyday opening the site more than 20 times a day checking for new stories and even reading the past once like literally the really really past once. and this past month of May you have out done the Best. two thumbs up speedhunters.
dont forget GoldRush in boston and various other areas.
I may be an outcast with this opinion, but I feel that the amount you currently post is perfect, and more posts would take away from what is so special about Speedhunters (as you said, the quality of your content is extremely high). As a regular reader for several years now, I enjoy getting up to date with the new content every morning over my cup of coffee. I originally started reading Speedhunters as a replacement to Jalopnik, where I felt they started posting a lot of less-than-quality content, and it became too much to sort through to find what did interest me. I hope you don't start posting more than a few articles a day- what I can easily manage to stay on top of with my limited reading time.
Yeh I prefer to keep checking the site and find no new articles for a couple of hours/days and then find a good quality submissions than try to keep up with a big bunch of "empty" articles. Must be QualityHunters always, quantity comes later with the currently bigger crew and the IAMSPEEDHUNTER (which is covering some very nice cultures).
I'll join in with this sentiment, and add that to me the idea that EVERYTHING out there should not be celebrated and if so, be separated from more mainstream stuff as was the case in the past where the Stance sites handle stance, the drift sites handle drift, and Donks are...wherever donks are.
I have lost interest in the spastic presentation of things that do not interest me in the least, even when included with the few things that do interest me, and hope/wish that Speedhunters would go back to quality over quantity.
While I respect your opinion, DCaffarel, it might be worth remembering that Speedhunters is not just for you.
The very thing that makes Speedhunters special is that we cover - all - things. This means that we're going to report on stuff you like as much as stuff you don't like. To purposely exclude an area of car culture would go against the main reason we exist.
And I respect your opinion and efforts as well, Paddy.
I do understand your thoughts, but of course one's choices for entertainment is always a personal thing and therefore does become a opinionated venture unless looking for new territory to learn about or investigate. More Donks, EV's, and Stance do not interest me at all, and therefore will limit my future time with Speedhunters should said content become more the norm, as has recently been the case. I see this as more of a feedback comment as as always you guys do great work and have a plan, and I assume you want to know how some of your current readers are reacting to the current path you are on...
Thanks for the considered reply, and I absolutely take what you're saying on-board. A lot of the 'unusual' stuff is rare and I don't think it will become regular because it's exactly that: rare. It's just nice to be able to mix things up a little and we enjoy trying to bring you things that you might not expect to see when you load the site up or to try and bring the cars that no one else will touch.
The variety at Speedhunters IS top-notch and I appreciate that, I guess I just prefer the variety more in the style of your Group B rally post and all of the various car meets where many different vehicles are displayed and without a set "theme" or semi-stated challenge to it all.
I'll never stop coming here because there are few worthy rivals to what you do, I just hope I can keep enjoying it as much as I usually do...and did today with Ichi and his Z!
Keep up the good work guys. Always interesting cars and great photography. My favourite car site right now.
for a small operation u guys are top notch...that being said i am glad u guys are going to start covering two wheel speed... i was going to start bitching about lack there off
Bikes! Yeah!
Do it, man!
Great to see you expanding the diversity in your articles. There are so many types of car culture out there that you haven't touched, from desert racers, swamp buggies, rock bouncers, to rat rods, and more I don't even know exist. I always check your site for the new, amazing, outlandish, and inspiring aspects of car culture. Keep up the high quality content.
Dino touched the end bit of sand racers when he visited UAE. All we have to do is encouraging him to make another longer trip out there.
that second pic, did someone actually make that roadster formula one creation??!!! If so where's the pics!
It's coming later this month...
Long live the Speed Hunters.
And a HUGE "Thank You" to Speedhunters as well for keeping their fingers on the pulse of tuning for me over the past number of years. Its the only site I know of that has consistently great, well written and shot, fully relevant content. You guys are the masters of your craft... and I get to reap the benefits of your labor. Thank You