SCC SUX!!!



Disclaimer: What is said on this page are my opinions and views only and are not associated with any organization. Quotes used on this page are personal views of that person and NOT my own views, however similar they may be. This page shows the dissatisfaction of those that read the journalism of SCC magazine. It is not meant to trash their image but to show people that SCC needs to work on their public relations.



Welcome to My SCC SUX page!!

On the day of June 14, 1997, I sent Sport Compact Car magazine an e-mail (their e-mail addy is scceditor@aol.com) explaining that I went to a local race event in Pomona. The event was the 1997 All-Import Challenge. SCC journalists were there to witness the race, taking pictures and notes for magazine coverage.

I read their version of a certain race between a supercharged Acura CL and a late model Acura NSX. I was shocked. They had printed a totally different outcome of this particular race. I wanted to know why, so I decided to send them an email stating what I and other members of Club DSM had witnessed.

The following is an email that I sent to the Talon Digest. Attached is the letter I had sent to SCC:

I thought that you all would like to know that I read an article in SCC mag about an NSX winning to a supercharged 3.0L Acura CL.

The SoCal chapter of Club DSM went to the '97 All-Import Challenge that was held early April. They had this exhibition run where an NSX got literally toasted by a modded Acura. The NSX lost plain as day and the mag article stated otherwise. I don't know why the facts were totally wrong and am starting to see alot of hedging of facts in articles of races that I've seen.

The mags always seem to leave out key bits of info to make it seem that the subject matter of the articles are bulletproof or the 'in' thing. Fuchs can't seem to touch 10s anymore.........Shih either. With one good run, they become gods, their sponsors too. Every unlearned SoCaller out here always spouts out Shih's or Fuch's name in awe, while the mags leave out things like "Shih blew his engine at last Nov.'s BOI and couldn't back up his blistering 10 sec run" or "Tony Fuchs gets toasted by a yellow turbo Honda CRX that CAN actually hit low 11s consistently" (BTW, Fuchs didn't even come close to 10s that day and didn't run anymore after that run).

My point is, not telling the whole truth is the same thing as lying. While we DSM owners are now getting some coverage, it DOES include derogatory info about breaking trannies/diffs/axles. They list all the bad crap about our cars while I never see other car make articles in the same format. Turbo mag recently did a road test on the Integra GS-R, claiming they did a 14.9 bone stock. They recently did a road test on an Eclipse also, claiming a 15.6 quarter mile. Hrrmmmmmm.....seems to be a trend. They'll ALWAYS be biased, but I guess the key is to lose face graciously while proving their articles wrong.

Below is what I've sent to SCC mag, and I doubt it will be printed. Oh well... I saw what I saw:


Dear Editor,

I would like to comment on your '97 All-Import Challenge article. You mentioned the supercharged Acura CL 3.0 racing the NSX in the quarter mile, with the NSX winning even though the CL got the holeshot.

I wish to state that I was there with my crew (the So. Cal. chapter of Club DSM) and what we saw was TOTALLY different from what your article stated. Here is what we saw:

They both line up at the light. The tree turns green and the CL gets the holeshot. The driver of the NSX must have launched way too high in the rev band because he lights up the rear tires and spins for lie half a second ...smoke is everywhere. By the time he hooks it up, the CL is a quarter of the way done. The NSX finally finds traction and shoots off, but DOES NOT WIN! The CL finishes the quarter mile at approximately 14.5 seconds while the NSX finishes at approximately 15.1 @ 105mph!

Those times are not something I pulled out of my head. When I saw this race, those times were engrained into my brain because, 1) this guy has a 13 second car and spend big bucks to purchase it, and, 2) he has a 13 second car and gets beat by a car that only has a supercharger and is 1/4th the cost of an NSX. I've confirmed the event with the part of my crew that was there to witness the race, just to make sure that I wasn't making a bad claim. I am supported by them........they saw the same as I did.

I was shocked when your article stated that the NSX won. I was also shocked that you stated this and left out the times. I think its important for a magazine of your status to state the facts and to not leave out facts of this nature. I feel that you are trying to save face of the image of the NSX by leaving out the fact that cars like this can actually be humbled by a car that is inexpensive in comparison. The least you could have done was report the times of the event and state the true winner while also stating that the driver made the difference.

While I haven't been living in LA that long, I've noticed a trend in import racing. It seem to me that racing is important to certain sponsors of certain products and that being on top is key to making a name for the product. Top Honda and Acura racers blast thru a 10 sec quarter mile, shattering an old record. This hypes up the products being used on the car. The cars in question never seem to back up their times again but get the credit of breaking a record and reap the benefits of it (sales boom of DRAG kits, Ignition gear, blah blah blah). Everything is hyped up and its sort of sickening.

While I like some of your magazine's articles, I hate the fact that you might be hyping things up a bit. Why was this NSX story reported in this manner when numerous people saw something totally different? Is it to hype of the NSX image, to make it seem unbeatable?

If my facts are totally wrong and we didn't see what we saw, I apologize for accusing. But I'm POSITIVE I saw the NSX lose in a big way.

Sincerely,

Ron Sinclair, Member of Club DSM

PS - these are my views as an individual and do NOT reflect the view os Club DSM.



SCC magazine responded in a less-than-professional manner, stating that I was trying to unravel some conspiracy or something of the sort. While I am 29 years old, they stated that "they would have gotten away with" their conspiracy "if it weren't for those meddling kids. In fact, here is a scan (that has been zipped until I can get it compressed) of my email and their response:

SCC.zip

They thought I was one of those racer-boy types or something....like I didn't know a thing about racing. What a stereotype. They must think all their readers are gullible and dumb (well, they USUALLY are... typical riceboy trash, I guess). To top things off, they never did answer my questions on why they printed erroneous information.

Picture analysis:

The only pictures they have are at the starting line, and you can clearly see that the NSX is behind the CL by like 2 car lengths...the NSX will keep losing car lengths until about half-track.

The picture that they printed is EXACTLY as I explained it and I treat that as some sort of proof. I DID send them my letter describing the race and the pic that they printed later showed precisely what I was talking about. It's also feasible to assume that the smoke I saw at the event was a result of the NSX having no traction...I doubt he could get on it the first 60ft since the NSX is so prone to smoking its tires (also, the tarmac was kinda nasty). Though its not depicted, that NSX smoked its tires so bad that they were probably slicks when he finished.

I want to point out that they never stated the results of that race (finish times) and they didn't take a picture of the result board at the end of the track. Bottom line: they stated a fact that they could NOT back up........no figures, no pictures, nothing at all. I was waiting for some supporting documentation on their behalf, not a bunch of conspiracy dung.

And, they didn't even drop the subject after trashing me and my post. They had to bring it up when replying to other mail from people.

This tacky, sloppily-put-together, non-spellchecking magazine will never get my money again. In fact, I'm finding it hard not to throw away my previous issues, but I need them for referencing purposes.

While I don't want to trash their magazine by giving them negative publicity, they handled this situation totally wrong. I asked a few simple questions and stated that there is a lot of media hype in California regarding certain go-fast cars and products. That was MY view. It was up to them to provide an answer, whether it be a trashy one or an acceptable one. I don't think they should have tried to trash my credibility. In fact, all they had to do was NOT PRINT my letter in their mag. The fact that they printed their dung and tried to make fun of something that they should have printed truthfully shows that they weren't forthcoming with their "answers."

I registered this page with search engines (Lycos, Yahoo, Altavista...) to get this message out to people. I want max coverage, no matter how many years may pass.

In the works: OK. I'm in the process of scanning the '97 All-Import Challenge article that was in the August 1997 issue of SCC. That will be included on this page soon.

[Webmaster's note: I WAS in the process of doing this, until I moved to Japan and lost some of my old SCC mag resources on this subject.


Cutouts of the Talon Digest regarding dissatisfaction of SCC's responses are linked here:

Response #1
Response #2
Response #3
Response #4
Response #5
Response #6


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Copyright © 2001, Ronald Sinclair
Revised: 2 December 2001
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