Evert Nelson
Evert Nelson blends visual storytelling with feature reporting on how people move, ride and gather around vehicles. He works as a chief photojournalist and creative lead at The Topeka Capital-Journal, and his coverage focuses on the culture, businesses and communities that form around motorcycles, cars and local roads.
Motorcycle and riding culture
Nelsen’s recent work highlights places and experiences that matter to riders, using both images and narrative detail.
In his feature on Kickstart Saloon, he shows how a bar with a reputation as a rough biker stop functions as a tight-knit, supportive community for regulars, treating the motorcycles as a backdrop to a story about belonging and mutual help. His social video work extends this focus, documenting maintenance and customization of bikes such as supermotocross machines and an adventure-style KLR650, and walking through practical upgrades like integrating Apple CarPlay into a motorcycle cockpit. Across these pieces he consistently combines mechanical interest in the bike with attention to the people who ride it, giving his coverage a human, community-first angle rather than a purely technical one.
Automotive projects and mechanical work
Nelson regularly documents hands-on automotive work, using short-form video and photo sequences to show what it takes to keep older vehicles on the road.
In one series he revives a 1983 GMC square-body truck, framing the process as a step-by-step resurrection of a classic vehicle rather than a simple repair clip. In another he focuses on major mechanical tasks like pulling an engine, treating the job as a narrative of effort and problem-solving rather than a quick highlight reel.
This emphasis on the physical work of maintaining and modifying vehicles, and the satisfaction that comes with it, distinguishes his coverage from beat writers who concentrate on specifications or industry news.
Sports and event coverage with a visual focus
Alongside his vehicle-centered stories, Nelson covers regional sports and events in a way that leans heavily on photography.
His X feed features extensive galleries from college basketball doubleheaders and other collegiate competition, pointing readers back to full picture galleries at The Topeka Capital-Journal rather than text-only game stories. He uses similar visual-led coverage for tournaments and championships in other sports, often highlighting behind-the-scenes or locker room moments after key wins. This pattern shows that he approaches sports and events as opportunities for immersive visual reporting, fitting with his role as a chief photojournalist.
Role at The Topeka Capital-Journal
Nelson holds a senior visual role at The Topeka Capital-Journal, serving as chief photojournalist and creative director for the newsroom.
His output mixes staff photography, feature storytelling and cross-platform content, with still images running in the paper and companion clips appearing across social channels. Many of his posts explicitly direct audiences back to CJOnline galleries and coverage, underlining his function as a bridge between visual reporting on the website and wider distribution on social platforms.
His body of work is marked by a consistent interest in vehicles, mechanical projects and the communities around them, all rendered through a visual-first approach that supports the paper’s broader reporting.
4 more automobile journalists.
Aarian Marshall
Aarian Marshall is a staff writer at WIRED who stands out for covering how cars, software, and policy collide. She writes on transportation systems and cities, from the auto industry to broader mobility systems. Before WIRED, she reported on cities and urban policy for The Atlantic’s CityLab. Her beat runs from electric vehicles, fuel prices, tariffs, and car-buying decisions to autonomous vehicles, robotaxis, and software-defined cars. She reports with a systems view, linking policy shifts, technical failures, and urban life to what happens on streets, in repair shops, and at the pump.
Abby Smith
Abby Smith’s most distinctive work combines motorsports coverage with live digital and radio reporting. She is Digital Director at KRDO13 and covers the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, including race updates, weather shifts, breaking developments and ways to follow the action. Her beat also includes automotive news, crime, public safety, politics, city government and community life. Notable work includes coverage of homicide arrests, a major drug bust, a presidential address about the war with Iran, a family’s effort to bring Stephen Hubbard home, a state governor candidate and a city security ordinance. She also reports on fitness, school spirit and station staff. Smith writes in a concise, factual style shaped by investigative documentary experience. She turns live events, official announcements and daily developments into clear coverage across digital and radio platforms.
Adele Peters
Adele Peters covers climate solutions and other structural problems as design and policy questions, focusing on what can work in practice. She is a senior writer at Fast Company, where she reports on energy, transportation, housing, materials, agriculture, corporate sustainability, and social impact. Her stories examine climate technologies, grid resilience, electric vehicles, renewable energy, modular construction, homelessness, affordable housing, compostable materials, regenerative agriculture, and ecosystem restoration. She looks at whether projects can scale, their real-world constraints, and their measurable effects. She interviews political and philanthropic leaders, startup founders, and climate tech entrepreneurs, anchoring stories in what is being built and tested. She has written more than 3,000 stories and contributed to Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century and State of Housing Design 2023.
Adrian Leung
Adrian Leung writes engineering-led coverage of Chinese electric vehicles and performance cars for CarNewsChina. He focuses on new energy vehicles, battery systems, powertrains, electric platforms, high-end domestic brands, and track-ready models, and he explains technical details in plain language for non-specialist readers. His reporting treats new models as hardware and systems stories, with precise figures on range, battery capacity, chassis layout, motor outputs, weight, and acceleration. He also covers the Chinese auto industry’s finances and technology roadmap, including sector profits, vehicle volumes, and solid-state battery timelines. His background in Electrical and Computer Engineering shows in the way he writes about vehicle electronics and battery management.