About

Damien started in the motoring journalism game 17 years ago when he wrote his first road test for the Waitomo News, after starting there writing real estate features. It was a Nissan Navara and he ruined a tyre running over a set of chain harrows hidden in long grass on the farm he was taking pics of it on. So that was a net loss for the newspaper.

Other early highlights included a road test on a flogged out used import BMW 318i, questioning the point of miniature horses in a real estate feature (they’re too small to ride and too big to eat in one sitting…) and covering the Targa New Zealand after he did it with a couple of mates. While his mechanical skills were (and still are, to be honest) barely above “badly trained chimpanzee” levels of competence, he wasn’t much use on the Targa, but he was good at holding the fuel can.

Before the Targa, Damien had reached out to a number of local motoring publications offering an article and near the end of the week-long event he got a call from the publisher/editor of DRIVER magazine, Allan Dick, who expressed interest. So Damien sat down and wrote a colossal and slightly meandering 4000 word epic.

This was fortunate, as it turned out Allan Dick was a fan of sprawling, meandering epics and after not hearing anything from Allan for a few weeks, Damien received a phone call from him offering him a job as assistant editor of DRIVER.

It was here that Damien would learn all about the glamour and excitement of magazine publishing: the punishingly long hours, impossibly tight deadlines, sleep depravation and stress were all exactly like how the telly makes it look, but even with all this glamour and excitement, the cars were still the highlight.

After spending four years as assistant editor of DRIVER magazine (as well as two bi-monthly titles; CLASSIC DRIVER and NZ Today, because one magazine a month just wasn’t enough), Damien then went freelance and eventually became the sole New Zealand content supplier to Top Gear magazine. Okay, it was supposed to be editor, but Bauer NZ had no idea how to handle a motoring mag, so made it a “division” of the Australian title… it lasted six months before an almost total lack of advertising revenue ruined that particular dream…

Fortunately, at the same time, he was also writing for NZ4WD magazine, NZ Company Vehicle magazine, so that kept food on the table. Almost as soon as the Top Gear thing died a thoroughly unsurprising death, along came the NZ Herald, and an offer to write the Good Oil column for DRIVEN. Which was handy.

An unexpected return to full-time employment came when a job offer at www.stuff.co.nz came up, which was followed by an alarming acceptance of responsibility when the editor role opened up and an excitingly large sum of money was waved at him to do that.

Surprisingly, this lasted for three years before meetings eroded Damien’s will to live to the degree that he decided to take a hefty pay cut to take a part-time job of multimedia journalist back at DRIVEN and a triumphant return to freelancing. Which is where we are now.

(By the way; it was a VERY hefty pay cut, so any offers of freelance work are welcome…)