While going through our list of entries to the recent “Worst Car Buying Story” contest that Carsala held, I was very interested to see that the winner was not a gearhead that I immediately recognized from either the Carsala Twitter followers, my Twitter or our FaceBook Fan Page. Being the nosey person that I am, I Googled the email address of the winner prior to contacting him and ‘lo and behold, not only did we have a gearhead winner but an award winning automotive journalist and photographer!

Our winner (and new friend) is Jan Wagner of San Diego, California, author of AutoMatters.net and he is just the nicest person. Originally from Alberta, Canada, Jan has had automotive columns in multiple newspapers and just loves what he does. He has enjoyed racing autocross for years and has some truly wonderful photos on his website of events. One of the most amusing things that Jan covered was his series about his cross country drive from California to the New York Auto Show in a Smart Car for ZAP!

Jan and I were both headed to the Orange County Auto Show in Anaheim for the “sneak peak” for the press and so we agreed to meet, have a chat “in real life” and grab a photo.

At the OC Auto Show

This photo is one I took with my measly point-and-shoot which I was a bit embarrassed to pull out in front of Jan because he has a Nikon D3. He is serious about his cameras: so serious that he was immediately telling me his plans to upgrade to the Nikon 3Ds. But if you look at Jan’s photographs you immediately see how much he enjoys capturing cars in action and at rest.

His winning entry, Used Lotus Super 7 Nearly Ended My Marriage Before it Began, is a really funny story and I can tell you now that Jan still has a penchant for tiny cars to take to autocross (he has a Miata for that now) but he is still single (with 2 kids in college) and hits as many automotive events as he possibly can whether they are track races, off road, auto shows, car shows or OEM sponsored insider presentations.

Carsala and I are very happy to have met Jan and hopefully he will be sharing some of his own stories soon right here!