Bizarro Autoblogging: Dave Thomas, Guest Editor For Jalopnik

You read that right, I, David Thomas, of unemployed mind and body, am guest editing Jalopnik for the next two weeks. How does the guy that ran the show at Autoblog take on the competition? It's a wild, wild automotive blogging world.

When the hammer came down two weeks ago at mph, Mike Spinelli was the first to offer condolences and some short term work in the guise of guest editing. It's not purely charity as he's going on some wild European sex tour or some such, but it was a generous offer and one I couldn't pass up. I can't wait to "auto" blog full time again before moving on to my next endeavor. For the next two weeks expect some interesting posts as always, giveaways, emo references (kidding!) and more. I'm really looking forward to it.

Read on to find out how this all happened.

The backstory:

When I worked on launching Autoblog no one was sure what a commercial automotive blog was. That was because there wasn't one. Autoblog was sailing along for a few sublime months before the big, bad, evil empire next door launched their version of the "auto" blog and they dubbed thee Jalopnik.

Throughout the next year I watched Jalopnik like a hawk. We refused to not only link to their posts but I secretly would not even run any of the same information they used. If they beat us to some offbeat tidbit they beat us. I focused on generating more of our own content. And it worked.

In the short year (it's only been a year!?) since I left Autoblog to work with the now defunct mph, I've enjoyed actually reading Jalopnik daily. Spinelli and I have bonded at auto shows and the additions of Davey and Ray have really made the whole operation run like the competition but still with the rock n' roll attitude that makes it a Gawker product. I don't know what to expect. I have no plan other than getting rid of a bunch of desk clutter to the readers, and blogging about a big auto rally in two weeks. Otherwise I'm driving blind and loving it.