As I started to write my first column for Chevy Hardcore, I am stopped as I hear my father fire up his current project he has been working on in his shop for the past couple of months. You see, I had planned on a completely different topic for this column. But after hearing the SBC 350 fire up in the ’72 Cheyenne that him and my brother are working on. I decided to change the topic. It hit me right then and there that my passion for classic cars or rather cars in general, started long before I was ever born. It’s not just my passion, it’s in my blood!

My father and brother's latest project, their '72 Cheyenne

Long before my love for cars ever started, my father was living in what was arguably the most amazing time to be alive if you loved cars. Oh the stories I here about my father and his two brothers during the 60’s and 70’s. I grew up hearing the stories like my Uncle Kenny’s ’55 Chevy that they gutted and completely turned into a drag cart. The same car that was making so much torque that it sheared the driveshaft in two one night on the starting line. Or the story of my father’s regret of selling his ’68 Ford Mustang California Special.

I’m sure there is always some exaggeration to these stories. But the truth was they lived in a time when the cops would watch the local kids race at their favorite spot on the street on a Friday night, and then walk up to my father later and ask how his car was running for the following Friday. The cop had won 20 bucks off him last week, and he’d like to do it again.

Sure it was a different time, but his passion for building engines, restoring cars, and racing was passed on to me. From a very early age I had love affair with cars. For me it was more so in the motorsports world.

When I was young probably three or four, every Sunday meant going to church and then rushing home so we could watch the NASCAR race that weekend. This went on for roughly a season I guess, and the way my parents tell the story was the first weekend during the offseason I was such a “pain in there ass”. That they quickly realized they had to do something or every Sunday was going to be miserable until the Daytona 500.

Their solution was an old VHS tape of some race they had recorded earlier in the season. Now I know It doesn’t say much for me, but every weekend from November to February I would sit down and watch the same race over, and over, and over again. As I grew older, this turned into me wanting to race everything that had wheels. But that was something that my family was always heavily involved in as well.

my passion for cars led to me wanting to race anything that had wheels!

But, I grew up with my father, my brother ,and I  always having a car project or working on our racecars. The latest one, I haven’t been involved in very much, but my father and brother’s recent project has been a ’72 Cheyenne that will end up being my brother’s daily driver. The story and drama with that truck alone could fill this column nicely. But, I’ve got to hand it to them they have done almost all the work on it themselves, and they have just finished painting it last week. It turned out great!

But for those of us who are car nuts, I think we can all relate to those types of stories. It is those stories that you hear when you pull up a lawn chair next to someone at a car show or in a garage. We live for those stories of the “Good ole days”! The reason I believe is because the passion isn’t something we created or fell in love with. It is something that has been passed to us by a previous generation.

This is the reason why when I was presented with the opportunity from powerTV to be the editor of Chevy Hardcore, I jumped at the opportunity! To have the chance to deal everyday with some of the greatest cars ever built, who would pass that up?

We’ve got some big plans with our project cars in the future that we can’t wait to show you. But the question becomes now, what type of content do you want to see on Chevy Hardcore?  We are well on our way to building this magazine into the go-to stop for everything Chevrolet. But we want to know your opinion on what you think needs to be included under the banner Chevy Hardcore.

So leave us a comment below, sign up for our weekly newsletter on the homepage, and then continue to check back in the future to see some of the best news and dirt-under-your-fingernails tech for everything Chevy.