Scott, thanks for your kind words on my column. Since January 2013, I have been writing for Roundel every other month, and since October 2013, I have been writing for Road and Track every other month.
I am not privy to the inner workings of the club, but my understanding is that the BMW CCA and Roundel are subject to the same pressures as other car clubs and magazines, namely -- why do they exist? What value to they bring in this great big web-enabled world? Roundel used to be THE place to go for BMW-specific tech tips and repair articles, but now you can just go online to find some well-photographed article on a repair forum on how to change the clutch in an M3, or whatever.
With decreasing interest in magazines comes decreasing advertising revenue, which results in decreased page count. This is why columnists were cut. Roundel was a very column-heavy magazine, having accumulated many columnists during Yale's years. Several were cut entirely, and I went to every other month, sharing space with Mark Jon Calabrese.
Because some columnists were cut, it was a bit eyebrow-raising that several new ones were added -- Nikki Weed and Chris Wright. Nikki's addition means that the columnists are not all male (a good thing), and Chris is a gifted writer whose topics range from M5 rubber-meets-the-road to more wide-ranging social topics.
I have said, for years, that IMHO there's way too much racing coverage in Roundel. A certain amount of it makes sense, in that one function a car club serves is track access -- reasonably-priced drivers schools, etc. That's something that's difficult to get outside the umbrella of a car club. It's not unreasonable that a car club, particularly the BMW CCA, have a core of driving/track enthusiasts. And Satch is a motorsports guy. This is why, from schools, to club racing, to other track events involving BMWs, motorsports have taken up a large segment of the magazine.
Again, I am just a columnist; I am not privy to the inner workings of the club or the magazine. But IMHO, Satch is likely to run what writers send him that is well-written, well-photographed, and on a BMW-related topic. More vintage stuff will appear in the magazine when more writers pitch him more vintage stuff and he accepts the pitch.
--Rob
