Dain Gingerelli
Former Editor
I began my stint at Street Chopper the summer of 1971 as an intern working towards my bachelor's degree in communications at nearby Cal State University Fullerton. I wrote two articles for SC's sister publication, Chopper Guide, and a couple days later our editorial director, LeRoi "Tex" Smith asked me into his office. Tex was an icon in the history, and had been on the editorial staff of Hot Rod and Rod & Custom magazines. He wore huge cowboy boots, and in his spare time he picked and plucked at his banjo. I entered his office, and there he sat, those big cowboy boots propped on his desk, a banjo in his lap.
"Come in, Herm," he said. He often called people Herm, probably a habit he acquired while flying fighter jets in the U.S. Air Force. He plucked a few strings while I found a seat. "You did good on those two stories for Guide," he continued.
"Thanks... Tex." I hesitated calling him by his first name-I was a 21-year-old geeky college student who was in awe of this person. My earliest recollection of Tex was of him on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine that had the big Texan sitting in the driver's seat of his XR-6, a project car that he built and won the prestigious America's Most Beautiful Roadster award with in 1963. Ironically, 27 years later I co-authored a book about the Grand National Roadster Show (where the AMBR originated), and I quoted Tex several times in my tome.
Pluck, pluck-he gave the banjo strings a few blips, then said, "How would you like a job," he began, followed by a few more picks and plucks, "as Hot Bike's technical editor?" Hot Bike was Tex's baby, a new motorcycle magazine (the inaugural issue had just debuted; they needed somebody to help with issue No. 2) cast in the mold of Hot Rod Magazine.
"Ah, yeah," I stammered. One of motojournalism's icons wanted to hire geeky me!
"Good," he said, followed by a pluck or two (I never could figure out what song he was dawdling with that day). "How much do they pay you at Disneyland?" he asked. During my college days I had been a sweeper at the Magic Kingdom.
"$600," I replied. And that was that. I was HB's new tech editor, and they also listed me as associate editor for Street Chopper. Within a few months Hot Bike was dropped due to poor sales, so Tex shifted me to work on his latest baby, Street Rodder Magazine. By late 1972 I was reassigned to Street Chopper as Steve Stillwell's tech editor, and within a year he quit to return home to Georgia to help with the family business, elevating me to the editor's seat where I sat until July 1974 when I quit to begin Stage Two of my career as a freelance writer.
As a post script, we had was some fun times when four of us-Stillwell, Paul "Street" Walker, Robert "RK" Smith and myself shared the man cave office in the back of the building on Melrose St. For the most part we all got along well, we shared way too many laughs, and I think we even produced some decent issues of Street Chopper at a time when the custom-bike industry was still in its infancy.
I owe Tex, Steve, Robert, Paul, Rich Bean (my first editor at Hot Bike), Jim Clark (our editorial director and SC's first editor), and Tom and Rose McMullen (publishers of the magazines) a lot. They helped this gearhead break into the magazine business at a time when I really wasn't sure what the hell I wanted to do other than race motorcycles and cars, and chase women. It's been a pretty good ride ever since, and as I'm fond of saying, writing for motorcycle magazines has allowed me to not have a real job my entire adult life. As a friend of mine once said, "I may not be here for a long time, but I'm here for a good time!"