Wolf’s Word: Two Years Down, DRAGZINE Continues To Build Momentum

In February of 2010, Power Automedia flipped the switch on the very online magazine that you’re reading, marking the fourth such title from the still very new publishing company and the first to take on the new blog-style format that would soon be adopted by all past and future publications. Each of the three previous titles – StangTV, StreetMuscleMag, and LSXTV – featured daily drag racing content specific to their particular markets, but the introduction of Dragzine was a new venture to incorporate all of that drag racing content into a magazine catered to the straight-line racing world.

Here at powerTV, we’re a very drag racing-driven staff of editorial, video, creative, and administrative personnel. Among us are former drag racing series promoters and current and/or former drag racers, and while other companies are hosting office-wide outings with coffee and truffles in the lobby, we take our extracurricular activities to area Southern California dragstrips. It’s just how we roll.

Drag racing is perhaps the one genre of motorsport that truly embodies what the car hobby is all about. The very essence of being a gearhead is the pursuit of making a vehicle quicker and faster, and that’s drag racing in a nutshell. So, while a reader perusing the web might be a Corvette or street rod enthusiast first and foremost, two cars lined with a straight stretch of pavement ahead squealing the tires and jamming gears is part of the very fiber of their being. Anyone with an interest in the automobile has some degree of attraction to drag racing, and the same just cannot be said for stock car or open wheel racing. As such, from the very Editors writing the content to the millions of readers ingesting it, we’re all drag racers or drag racing fans.

On The Move

Drag racing is perhaps the one genre of motorsport that truly embodies what the car hobby is all about.

It’s been a heck of a ride in just these short two-plus years. Dragzine began virtually from scratch with nothing more than a press release and a launch date, and in that time, it’s gone from an unknown name in the industry and the drag racing community at large to a well-recognized one. Our readership has been on a steady rise since day one, and we’ve quickly grown a social media following that tops all other drag racing publications combined – both accomplishments that we take great pride in. On the other side of the coin, we’ve also made our mistakes, been called out on our mistakes, and learned from said mistakes to improve our product for the better as we move forward. We’ve also taken account of readership data and the highly valuable feedback that those readers provide to focus this digital magazine on the content that the people want to see.

Our mission with this magazine from the word go has been to both inform, educate, and entertain everyone from the hardcore veteran racer down to the enthusiast putting a car together in his shed on every aspect of the drag racing landscape. We didn’t strive to focus only on the machines, only on the personalities, or only on the big leagues of drag racing, but rather to encompass every corner of this great sport and anything associated with it. As you’ve no doubt seen with our lineup of project vehicles and in-depth tech articles, we’re a very mechanically-minded bunch here, but that’s only one element of what this little corner of the web is all about.

Despite the existence of modern technology meant to make our lives simpler and our tasks easier, we live in a world today in which human beings have less disposable time (and shorter attention spans) in their daily schedules than ever before, and that presents a unique challenge in engaging readers in the short amount of time they have to browse a magazine such as this and keep them coming back for more. The days of car guys (and gals) taking the time to read magazines cover-to-cover are quickly fading – those trips to the mailbox each month to grab the latest printed issue replaced by on-the-go browsing on tablets, smartphones, and other mobile devices.

Along with news, features and other content that readers are flocking to the internet for more and more each day, the demand for instantaneous race coverage is paramount, and despite producing some of the best coverage on the web for many years across all of our publications, we’re not content to rest on our laurels and fall behind in the competitive live coverage game.

As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Our growth here at DRAGZINE has been quite a rollercoaster ride thus far and while we’ve certainly come a long way, this magazine is still very much in its infancy, and where we are now isn’t where we intend to be in another two years. So if you haven’t already, add us to your bookmarks, subscribe to the newsletters, and come back and see us, because the ride has only begun.