Human-Generated Automotive Gibberish
Miata is always the answer, if only for a moment.
There are two kinds of crazy, the kind where you go out of your way to do something irresponsible for the sake of feeling something, and the kind where you try to do something “smart” for the sake of being responsible. When you finally get fed up with your nightmare project car, the one that seemed both a bad idea and the answer to all your dreams, you end up doing the latter kind of crazy and purchase your sixth Miata.
Less is more, unless we’re talking about revs.
Perhaps this conflict comes from spending a lifetime lusting after modified cars, but it can feel difficult to name a vehicle that combines all my favorite details. One car may have the chassis I want, but another the powertrain, and another yet the styling. If you have talent, time, money or, quite unlikely, all three, you can create the car of your dreams.
You know better, but what’s the fun in that?
In your late-20s you will find a questionably modified econobox. You should buy it, assuming you’re a glutton for punishment and don’t realize it’s going to take over your personality. As the honeymoon dissipates, you will discover that the previous owners generally quarter-assed their way through the build before your bumbling bird brain came on the scene. Yes, you have been down this road before, but it’s been months since you made your last fun car purchase, and Craigslist is just staring you down with another one of those boxes you’ve always wanted to check. After all, this is what dreams are raged from.
Close to Home, Far from Bored
As will be obvious, we’re still figuring out what to do with this whole video thing. This time we kept it much more simple though; a local meetup, some local roads, and a longer chat about my current Corolla GT-S.
Where should we go next time?
High Fidelity or Soulful Grit? Choose one.
One of the best and worst parts of music streaming is that you don’t always know what song you’re going to hear. Maybe you’ve had the same song from the same artist on the same playlist for years but, one day, Spotify or the powers that be change which version they’re hosting. You pull up the app, hit play, and hear most of the familiar cues from the song you know and love. And then suddenly the nuances of whatever remaster or radio edit you’re listing to come through. You recoil and pick up your phone to check that you tapped on the right song. You did, but what you’re experiencing is…different. That is what it feels like the first time you tuck an M42-powered E30 into a corner for the first time.
Making up for lost time by losing time on another roadtrip.
One would think I’d be happy having done the Tour de Del without any hiccups, but with a little extra time over the 2025 holidays I felt the need to drive the 86 to SoCal, again. This time I’d being going all the way to Los Angeles though for the Vintage Japanese Motoring Union new year’s hang, with some time in the canyons for good measure.
The best sports cars can be driven flat out without going into orbit. The 996 GT3 is arguably one of them.
You’re almost there. You already know, from the last few miles, that cranking on the lock at this point in the corner is going to scrub the front tires for no reason. The next two seconds feel like two hours, at least compared to the same experience in cars that don’t put the cart before the horses. Sensing that the front is still a little too light, you relax your big toe, letting the accelerator pedal come up a smidge and feeling the nose come down just enough as you turn toward the apex.
Sometimes improvement begins with starting over.
It seems fitting that one of the first posts in my attempt to revive this blog is about a return to Drift 101. The first post in this blog was published in 2016. The last post before the unintentional hiatus, from my first visit to Drift 101, was in 2018.
Re-reading my first post on Drift 101 elicits a few winces, as a lot of things do when reviewing a previous version of yourself. I vaguely remember the state of mind I was in when I wrote it, six months after the class, trying to impart the elation from the experience into the post and also relive it enough to encourage the continuation of my writing. It’s hard to say if I intended to take such a long break from this project, but when I found myself with a little extra time last year I knew what I wanted to do, go back to Drift 101.
Peace is just a disposable camera and a vintage car away.
You can’t pretend to live in the pre-digital world. There are too many reminders – your phone chiming with a text from your wife, the vague thought in the back of your head that your 10lb CD folder doesn’t have that album from your Spotify favorites, the sign at the deli in the middle of nowhere asking you to tag them in your Instagram post…
That said, you can choose to turn down the digital noise. For a few hours, maybe even a few days, you can go and “find yourself” without the self-medication that’s popular if not necessary between 5PM and 9AM on weekdays. And what better way to do it than with an old car you don’t quite trust.
One by one, cats eyes whiz past my left shoulder at such speed they’re nearly an unbroken yellow line. The universe shrinks down. All that exists is the heat, the wind, the noise, and my buddy just ahead of me in his first-gen NSX, a silver rocket amidst the rolling, golden expanse of Central California.
Transfixed, I admire the back of said Acura flowing over the slightly bumpy backroad, almost a mirage. Suddenly I touch the rev-limiter in a gear normally reserved for dyno runs. The noise abates and returns with purpose as I quickly find the next gear. My idiotic grin becomes a cackle as I briefly consider how many of these cars, both his NSX and the Integra Type R I’m piloting, are today normally relegated to garage spaces. Both seen and treated as retired athletes more suited to bask in former glories than ready-to-buck sport cars.
You really ought to drive your damn sport cars.
