Behind the Scenes at Sporttruck.com

You may sometimes wonder how the Sporttruck.com staff spends their days. Well, if you listen to the print editors, we ride Razor scooters around the office, get aromatherapy massages, and catered lunches several days a week. (Okay, so that last part is actually true.) Fact of the matter is, we're always under the gun for creating new material for the web, using every resource and avenue at our disposal to make it happen.

The latest gizmo to be put to use in the Sporttruck.com offices is a handy little JVC hard-drive video camera. We'll be the first to admit the vids aren't 52-inch HDTV quality. But on our site, they're none too shabby. In addition to its nifty hand-held size, this gizmo comes in handy for a variety of uses. We just discovered another one of them last week.

We're putting together a video road test (a Sporttruck.com first!) on a 2007 GMC Sierra Denali. But after reviewing the action footage we captured, we were disappointed with the weak-sauce audio we got of the otherwise pretty burly-sounding exhaust note. The built-in mic on the camera just didn't capture it to our satisfaction. So being the crafty types that we are, we decided to use the tools at our disposal to capture something a little meaner-sounding. We knew the $10 Sony hand-held mics we had could get pretty decent audio. (We didn't know Sony made anything that cheap, but evidently, our video manager did.) So using the multi-purpose Automotive.com bumper sticker, we affixed said microphone to the bumper just above the tailpipe protruding beneath. Along with some calls and E-mails back and forth to the actual video pros at the posh Motortrend.com offices in L.A. to see how the "pros" do it, we placed it just far enough not to "blow out" the audio levels, but enough to capture the throaty rumble of the 403-horse 6.2 in the GMC.

Well, let's just say we succeeded. When we played the audio back on our computer speakers, heads popped up all over cubicle land asking "What the heck is that?" The door of the digital sales office slammed in protest over the racket us digital ruffians were making. We knew we had succeeded at that point. So not only do we have a burly soundtrack for the video, but we're going to post the sound clips of our exhaust audio online shortly thereafter for your listening pleasure. So you too can have the fun and satisfaction of pissing off your Prius-driving co-workers with your reckless display and celebration of American muscle on your desktop. 

Check out the road test here!