Randy Bolig? Who Is This Guy

Over the last several years, this online magazine— ChevyHardcore.com, has undergone a lot of editorial changes. There have been several people sit in the editor’s chair, and while each of them earned that privilege, for one reason or another, they all vacated the seat. The problem with that, is that it creates instability with a magazine, and for a magazine to be successful, it must have stability. Hopefully, that’s where I come in. Although I am new to the Powerautomedia family, I am not what you could call a “newbie” to the editorial world. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s start from the beginning.

I was fourteen-years old in 1981 when I bought my first car. Now, don’t gasp too loudly, but it was a Ford. Hey, I lived in a house where Ford cars were the primary family car, so it was expected. Not only that, it was cheap. Although I couldn’t afford the $500 price tag outright, my job on a local farm meant I could make payments. Anyway, it might have been a ’67 Fairlane, but at least it was V8-powered. Since I was only fourteen-years old, that meant I had two years to get the car running and “rebuilt” before I could legally drive it. The engine was in good shape, but there was no transmission, and the car needed some body work. The Fairlane was not only my first car, it was what I call my “practice car.” That is, it was the car that  required me to purchase my first set of hand tools — I still have them by the way.

It was a steep learning curve, but I installed a working transmission, a set of performance mufflers, and even attempted repairing the body. When I was sixteen-years old, I ran away from home for a short stint, and the Fairlane and I had quite a few mentionable — and not so mentionable adventures. I only kept the Fairlane for a couple of years, and then stepped into a long line of Chevy products. The first one came about when I traded the Fairlane for my ’72 Monte Carlo. I do remember buying sheetmetal and actually building 1/4-panels for the car, because no one made them. I didn’t have the opportunity to own that car for very long, as someone else totaled it for me. I didn’t even get a chance to do much with it, and I really want another one.

The next Chevy that I owned was a 1968 pickup truck. When I bought it, there was a little 307 cubic-inch engine under the hood, and a truck four-speed behind that. This is where I learned a little about conversions. I pulled the 307ci engine out, and rebuilt my first engine, which was a four-bolt 350ci with “double hump” heads and a Quadrajet carburetor. I would like to tell you that I “nailed it” on the first try in regards to the engine build, but I would be lying. What did happen was, I learned a lot about piston ring end gaps after building that engine. I applied that learning experience to my next engine build for the truck. Next, was the installation of the Borg Warner five-speed that I sourced from a local junk yard. With the rebuilt 350ci, the five-speed, and 4:10 gears in the rear, that was a really fun truck.

 As many times occurs in life, I soon got married and my daughters entered the picture. We didn’t all fit in the small cab, so another mode of transportation was in order. There are not many fans of the Chevelle’s from ’73 – ’77, but I really liked my ’73. I remember my oldest daughter kept complaining about being cold during the winter months in Pennsylvania, and I couldn’t understand why. That is until one day when I was putting her in the rear seat, and my foot went through the floor. When I removed the rear seat, I couldn’t understand why it never fell out onto the ground — there was no rear floor! Again, no replacement panels were available, so I made them and welded them in place. I never belived in road signs and pop rivets. At the time, I was really gaining an interest in drag racing, and I knew that making my daily driver Chevelle into a race car could cause problems, so I looked for something I could build — enter my ’78 Firebird.

Before the comments fly, it had a Chevy 350ci engine in it. The first thing I did, was try to figure out how I could afford to build an appropriate engine for it. I found a local machine shop that was willing to teach me how to do the needed machine work in exchange for helping around the shop. I learned a lot about engine machining in those two years that I worked there. During that time, a lot of changes were made to the car, and it got quicker and quicker. Every Friday night, the girls and I would make sandwiches and head to Beaver Springs Dragway and race in the Friday Night Street races. Not only did I race every Friday night, but if there was another event going on within a couple hundred miles of home, I was there. Unfortunately, family commitments meant that I needed to be practical, and as the cost of racing got more expensive and my girls were tiring of bologna and cheese sandwiches and mac and cheese, the decision was made to sell the car.

I couldn’t completely get away from racing though. I kept the engine and transmission, and installed it in a street rod. I convinced my girlfriend at the time, Paula, that the street rod was roomier, and we could all enjoy it.

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Time rolls on, and eventually I grew tired of making a living by working in factories and driving trucks, so I got a job with a magazine company. I loaded the family and most of our belongings into a U-haul truck, put the street rod on a trailer, and headed to Florida. Shortly after moving to Florida, the 800 square foot apartment we lived in was just a little too small, so the street rod was sold to make way for a house.

My 13 years at that previous company taught me a lot about what it takes to be a magazine editor. The experience that I have gained throughout the years by working on cars and in the publishing world, has given me the knowledge that I need to now be the editor of Chevy Hardcore.

As for now, my girls are all grown up and have lives of their own. They still enjoy cars, but at present, Cortney is my only daughter that actually has a car to “play” with — a factory ’74 Nova SS, 350 four-speed car. The current TCI automatic transmission means that she doesn’t have to shift very often, but she has rounded up the parts to do the conversion when she is ready.

As for me, I am old enough that I spend my time trying to teach my grandkids about cars. For now, they’re still young enough that I just try to instill the basics in them, but as they get older, I hope to teach them the things that I have learned over my many years of working in machine shops, repair garages, and body shops. Eventually, I hope to show them how to not only maintain their own cars, but actually get their hands dirty and build them.

So, how all of this pertains to you guys is; I plan to do what I can to make sure that you get a quality magazine that you will enjoy reading, and hopefully, just hopefully, we can all meet at some point so I can personally thank you for reading. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know.