Recently, RISING EDGE passed two significant milestones: our third anniversary and our 100th article published. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the successes (and failures) of this little venture, and thank you as the reader for sticking around so long.

In the first year of RE, I pledged to write weekly, and I accomplished that! Having then taken three years to reach the 100-article mark shows that I have since slowed down the pace of writing to about twice per month on average. Writing an article often takes me about 3-6 hours, sometimes much longer if it requires actual research.

I'm happy to report that our average monthly traffic is now over 1,000 unique readers, which seems like a cool milestone in and of itself.

While we've covered a lot of topics and my budding racing career has taken a lot of twists and turns, I'm more excited than ever for year four of RE, and I still have a lot of new article ideas planned, including our first-ever guest article, which I am very excited to share soon.

Recently, a friend asked why I don't do more video content, since people like to see a face associated with the thoughts being shared. While I certainly envy the growth possible for a successful (read: hard-working) YouTuber, writing is what feels natural to me, and it fits in the best with my stage of life.

Plus, I don't think I have the face for video or the voice for podcasting, and I have never liked editing. That said, I enjoyed doing the voice-over video commentary for my Mid-Ohio race report, and I plan to do some more of those in the future.

At the end of the day, RE amounts to little more than the blog of an amateur driver, eager learner, aspiring engineer, and sometimes, an excuse-generating critic. I think that my deep-rooted curiosity drives interesting conversations with people who are much smarter than I am. I've always thought those conversations would be interesting to someone else (hence the original idea of RE being a podcast). Thus, I continue to share in the hope that someone will find the information, emotions, or experiences shared to be interesting, and perhaps learn something themselves.

I don't have much else to say this week except thank you, and I hope to hear from you again soon. Let me know how your racing season has been going, or what you have planned for next year, or feel free to suggest a topic that you'd like to hear more about. I'm always just an email away.

Let's drive fast and have fun,

-Thomas

Bonus: The Cool-Down Lap

I read a lot more than I consume other forms of content. Perhaps some of you are the same way. I'm going to start occasionally sharing outside articles that I enjoyed. Here's the first batch, starting with one quite fitting:

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Fewer People Are Reading for Fun, Study Finds
"...the share of people who reported reading for pleasure on a given day fell to 16 percent in 2023 from a peak of 28 percent in 2004 — a drop of about 40 percent."
- The New York Times / Maggie Astor
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This is Reynolds: A Visit to the Factory in Birmingham
"The whole scene is pure, mechanical wizardry. I watched and photographed Nadeem for several minutes, and I still don’t really understand the mechanics of what I was viewing. But as I stood there, I gained a true appreciation for the seemingly effortless expertise of this little company–127 years of daily production, innovation, and cycling influence. Despite its quirks, Reynolds really is impressive."
- The Radavist / Chris Blandford
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Inside the Dangerous, Secretive World of Extreme Fishing
"In this prolonged state of sleep deprivation, wetsuiters must keep constant track of moon phases, bait migration, wind direction, tide swings, current speed, water temperature, swell and surf conditions—knowing that a single mistake can spell injury or worse. Wetsuiters pursue a fish, yes, but also an old and very human question: What can a body do?"
- The Atlantic / Tyler Austin Harper