SCCA’s highest honor, the Woolf Barnato Award, is presented annually to a member who has made the most outstanding long-term contribution to the Club. The 2023 award winner is Paul Pfanner, co-founder and CEO of our company, Racer Media & Marketing, Inc., which has been publisher of SportsCar Magazine for fully half the SCCA’s 80-year existence. Pfanner also founded RACER Magazine in 1992 and RACER.com in 1997. In addition, our company publishes Vintage Motorsport Magazine and VintageMotorsport.com along with operating the Racer Studio Agency. Pfanner was inducted into the SCCA Hall of Fame, Class of 2022.
In this video, Pfanner delivers his acceptance remarks and thanks his SportsCar teammates who are responsible for the consistently excellent work that earned this recognition. In the moments prior to accepting the award, Pfanner was introduced by longtime SportsCar magazine contributor and 2022 Woolf Barnato Award recipient, Rocky Entriken.
The company Pfanner co-founded in December of 1979 published SportsCar Magazine from the January 1984 issue through the January/February 2024 edition that celebrates the 80th Anniversary of the SCCA and the magazine. This 462nd issue produced by the company also marks 40 years of dedicated service to the SCCA by the RACER Media & Marketing, Inc. team. Our company, originally known as Pfanner+Catheron+Brown, Publications, Inc. was launched with the intention of winning the SCCA SportsCar contract. The company initially published Finish Line Magazine for the Cal Club Region of the SCCA to demonstrate its capabilities, understanding of the club, and commitment to quality.
Pfanner was an active SCCA Formula Ford racer, and originally served as SportsCar’s Art Director/Managing Editor in 1978 and then as Editor in 1979 for the previous publisher, Paul Oxman. During that period Pfanner also illustrated three covers for SportsCar in addition to producing seven race car track test features. The first editor of the SportsCar during Pfanner’s long involvement with the magazine was Steve Nickless, who later became the founding Editor of On Track Magazine. Nickless joined our company in 1985 as publisher and later played a central role in the development and launch of RACER Magazine in 1992. Ironically, Nickless returned to the SportsCar editor’s role at the end of 2023 and is the last editor of the magazine as we close this remarkable chapter in SCCA’s and RM&M’s history in 2024.
The mutual decision to end Racer Media & Marketing’s 40-year relationship with the Sports Car Club of America, and cease regular publication of the magazine, came after careful consideration by both parties. The Racer Media & Marketing, Inc. team is grateful for our long and successful relationship with the SCCA that spanned five decades and two centuries. Click here to learn more about the SCCA and how you can have fun with cars.
The early years of Paul Pfanner and Steve Nickless working on SportsCar Magazine are covered in the final two chapters of the video series, FORGING AHEAD that shares the origin story of RACER and the founding of our company.