SS: What were some of the challenges in getting this magazine off the ground?
MP: Just starting a magazine that was predominantly based on import performance cars was tough already. If you wanted to start a Chevy title at Petersen, it was a no-brainer; you could pick up photos and stories from other archives. But for us, there were no Acura or Civic files. The closest thing was Motor Trend and all they had were stock archives. Back then, they wouldn't even give us the time of day.
SS: Although we're now part of the same company today, the first real rivalry to Super Street was SCC. Have they always taken cheap shots at us?
MP: What rivalry (laughs)?
KB: Back when we were the new kids on the block, I can remember Matt saying that they looked at us in this light, like "Oh, that's cute-they have their own magazine." It was very fulfilling that after a year's time, we'd caught up to a book that had been around much longer than us-what was that, nine years or so?
MP: I think there was a couple events where they would wind up with our stickers on their rental cars and vice versa, but it was all good-natured fun. Competition's good. When we started out, we told them, "We're not in this game to be number two or three" and granted we were below that, but my intent was to have the number one book in this segment.
KB: We're still waiting for that to happen! (laughs)
SS: So you really thought you could achieve the number one position in the marketplace?
KB: Whatever it took, we had to be the best. Matt was really good at sending that message from the top down.
SS: What were some of your ideas to get to number one?
MP: Just addressing a part of the market that nobody else was, and again, that was beginning at the street level. Nobody could figure out why we were taking pictures of the 17-second cars at the street races but the guys who owned those cars would see their cars in the magazine and it meant the world to them. It was a magazine for real-world enthusiasts and we weren't fixating on what was going to be cool next; we were just covering it from a street level perspective., making it about the readers. It shouldn't be and it wasn't about what was cool to the editors. Except for Karl.