No greater joy shared than the joy of AutoWeek.

Byline: DUTCH MANDEL

An apology up front: I must go back on a promise. I've said that this issue would not look inward but instead would focus attention on our great community of the car clan.

In writing this column, it just can't be done. Not entirely.

AutoWeek has been so much a part of our livesyou have been there, as have the cars and the events that make up this lifestylethat I would be remiss not to say my mind.

As was my father before me, I am blessed to be the editor for this thrill ride called AutoWeek. It has not always been fun and gamesthis is a business, after all. But if you must toil in a mine, give me a pick, a shovel and a canary, and know that this is the one that I thoroughly dig.

As I come up on 24 years at Crain Communications, parent of AutoWeek, I think of this. The last 11 of those years has had me on this ship's bridge. I say with pride (and appropriate cockiness) as AW's longest-tenured editor, no one else could have gathered as tremendous a staff as we have, nor could anyone have grown and focused AutoWeek any better. And certainly, no one could have enjoyed it more.

No one.