BEST OF TIMES, WORST OF TIMES

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Take a moment to realize how fortunate we are to have written this story, because there was a very real chance that the 2020 edition of MotorTrend Best Driver’s Car wouldn’t happen.

This year, as you may well have noticed, things are a little different. Even though we started running BDC on October 11, I’m going to back up this narrative by six months to March 11, the day Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 and the NBA postponed the season. Call it the billion-dollar canary in the coal mine.

If something as massive and all-encompassing as professional basketball could be paused just like that, our little supercar festival was surely doomed. We started hearing murmurs, then reality set in. First BDC was postponed, then budgets were slashed, then we found we had no sponsor. Time was running out. What we’d come to expect from BDC would be no more.

Of course, more important than the financial picture was the safety of our team of road testers, editors, photographers, videographers, track workers, and manufacturers’ support staffs in the midst of a pandemic. Could we pull this off even if we wanted to?

This debate went on for months, until the very day we were going to call the whole thing off and tearfully pull the plug … when by a stroke of magic/luck/salesmanship the fine, fine (did I mention fine?) folks at Tire Rack swooped in and saved our rubber-burning bacon by cutting a check to cover the costs of Best Driver’s Car. BDC was back on, socially distanced in October instead of July, but OMG it was happening. So if you want to thank someone for what you are about to read, buy your next set of tires from Tire Rack. (I will now swing my leg back over the fence separating the editorial and advertising sides of the business.)

The 2020 edition of BDC would