The final candidates for Dirt Rider’s Extreme Job Interview made their way to Southern California this week for a three-day stint in the spin-cycle of our magazine’s production.Dan Kouba (Mr. Brown), Brian Purtymun (Mr. Red) and Derek Steahly (Mr. Blue) routed directly from LAX to the plush, well-lit offices of Dirt Rider for a quick meet-and-greet while Pete Peterson (Mr. Pink) drove himself in from nearby Santa Monica. It was nice for all of us at Dirt Rider to put faces to the names and to finally meet our (hopefully—they are still working on final assignments with deadlines!) future co-worker. You’ll be able to check out the samples they sent at Dirtrider.com real soon. Click here to see their original submissions.After introductions to the entire staff, we walked across the street to Rocco’s Italian Kitchen for more pasta and parmesan than the second season of The Sopranos. Rocco’s is sort of an office habit so we figured we’d start the candidates out with a proper carbo-load. Bellies full, we all said goodnight and waited for the work to start on day two.Tuesday was slated as “office day.” All of us on staff found some task or project that would test each candidate’s ability to tackle some of the day-to-day work we do here. We parked each candidate at a computer and put them to work editing stories and doing some product research. Everybody put in a full day’s work and turned in some good projects. Our only regret was that we didn’t have a hundred e-mails and fifty phone calls for each of them to answer while they worked.Wednesday was finally the day to ride and see how these guys handle a day in the life of DR testing. We hauled six bikes out to Hungry Valley for some off-road riding—a perfect chance for everyone to get some real testing in. Some of them grabbed a new bike and decided to tackle a first test while others concentrated on individual parts. Everyone except Pete and his dislocated wrist put in some seat-time and completed a thorough day of testing on the bikes. All the candidates worked hard, teaming up and working together to take photos while asking a lot of great questions. We’re all looking forward to reading what they came up with from the day of testing. Hopefully they’ll all produce some good written work, because in the end, that’s what turns all this fun we have into an actual job.A big thanks to all the candidates for making the trip out; it was a lot of fun for us. With all the unique talents, we’re confident we’ll find the right man for the job (plus some great future contributors). Another big thanks to all the readers on the message boards who helped in our decision making process.Once the projects are in, we’re going to make our decision pretty quick. So if you want to get your two cents in, check back soon to see the new writing samples. Once again, we’ll have a link to the message boards for all of you to tell us what you think.
