’m a magazine guy. Not just because I’m editor of All Chevy Performance magazine, but because I’ve been buying and collecting magazines since my early teenage years back in the mid ’70s.

I remember my friends and I hopping on our Schwinn Sting-Rays and pedaling to Walt’s Liquor in Pomona, California, for a candy and soda run. As my friends and I would peruse the candy aisle, the drag racing and hot rod magazines on the opposite side of the rack grabbed my attention. It was Drag Racing USA, with covers featuring Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars that had big, fat rear tires spewing massive clouds of white smoke, giant engines topped with towering blowers, and flames shooting from the zoomie headers. It was exciting.

Inside, the magazine delivered more of the same. Incredible photos that practically came alive. I could almost smell the nitromethane and burning rubber. While my buddies spent their paper route money on packs of Topps baseball cards and rock-hard gum, hoping to score their favorite player, I was buying car mags.

Those were the glory days of drag racing when Funny Cars and dragsters had unforgettable names lettered across their flanks. The Hawaiian, Chi-Town Hustler, Melrose Missile, Fighting Irish, Stardust, Blue Max, were just a few of the memorable names paired with retro paint schemes that gave cars personality and made them instantly recognizable. Today, many race cars are covered in oversized corporate logos, but back then fans rooted for identities not brands.

Drivers had legendary nicknames, too, often earned through driving style or personality. Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, Tom “Mongoo$e” McEwen, “Dyno” Don Nicholson, Shirley “Cha-Cha” Muldowney, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins, and “TV” Tommy Ivo were larger than life in my eyes.

Some teams even shared billing between driver and owner with names emblazoned in bold lettering down the side of the car. Dunn & Reath, Pisano & Matsubara, Sox & Martin, Candies & Hughes, and Beebe & Mulligan, immediately come to mind, though there were countless others. Again, fans rooted for people and personalities, not corporations.

Drag racing is sometimes referred to as “straight-line racing,” but in those early days the cars rarely went straight. The machines relied more on driver skill than technology, making the racing unpredictable, exciting, and unforgettable.

As time went on, my interest expanded beyond drag racing magazines to virtually any publication featuring a cool hot rod on the cover. What started as an innocent liquor store purchase turned into a mission to hunt down giant newsstands packed with stacks of cool car mags. This was back in the ’80s-90s when there were plenty of both stores and magazines to choose from.

So, yeah. I’m a magazine guy, and I still have a fairly large collection today.

In fact, the magazine you’re holding right now is pretty cool, too, and it happens to be one more I’ll be adding to my collection.

You in?