Rory Jurnecka has been an SCMer since high school. He
spent 14 years at Motor Trend, Motor Trend Classic and Automobile before joining the SCM staff in 2020. Rory was the Classic and Features Editor at Automobile, penning auction reports and market features,
and writing about some of the world’s greatest cars. Born into an enthusiast family, he has attended Monterey Car Week since childhood. After abandoning a business degree to sell classics at a specialty dealership in Monterey, CA, he returned to college to study journalism at Cal State Fullerton. Rory owns a 2002 Mazda MX-5 Miata and a 2010 Porsche Cayman, and he recently acquired a 2017 Ford Fiesta ST.
SCM’s editorial staff has plenty of opportunity to get out of the office over the course of the year. You’ll find us following the action in Scottsdale, on the concours lawn at Amelia Island, and dashing from event to event during Monterey Car Week. But our favorite annual outing is the SCM 1000. We get to spend six days and five nights with some of the best people: SCMers, readers and contributors alike. That they bring along some of their most prized automotive possessions to drive 1,000 miles is just the icing on the cake. This year’s hub-and-spoke event was held […]
SCM’s editorial staff has plenty of opportunity to get out of the office over the course of the year. You’ll find us following the action in Scottsdale, on the concours lawn at Amelia Island, and dashing from event to event during Monterey Car Week. But our favorite annual outing is the SCM 1000.
We get to spend six days and five nights with some of the best people: SCMers, readers and contributors alike. That they bring along some of their most prized automotive possessions to drive 1,000 miles is just the icing on the cake.
This year’s hub-and-spoke event was held in Spokane in scenic Eastern Washington, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The city’s motto — “Near nature, near perfect” — was fitting. Not only were we impressed with the historic city itself, along with its eateries and accommodations, but the routes heading north, south, east and west were picturesque. Lush and vibrant fields of green and yellow, vast deep blue lakes, historic dams and rushing waterfalls powered by a particularly strong snowmelt greeted us.
Back at the contemporary Davenport Grand Hotel each evening, we enjoyed cocktail hour and some kicking of tires before the evening “Conversations With Collectors” session. On one night, Silver Auctions head Mitch Silver and Gooding & Company specialist Hans Wurl hosted a “What’s My Car Worth?®” session. On another evening, Steven Posner of Putnam Leasing, Garth Hammers of Gooding & Company, and Mal Maloney of Hagerty gave us their thoughts on the state of the collector-car market heading into the Monterey auctions. Over dinner at the Historic Flight Foundation museum, we enjoyed SCM contributing editor Thor Thorson regaling us with tales of “the way it was” driving a 1950s Ferrari in the early days of vintage sports-car racing, as well as what the future of that hobby may look like.
