The breath of The Dragon envelopes you, and you understand, as you pass back into clarity, that you’ve just had a golden moment, a driving experience that will never leave you. The Dragon does that. It always does that.
The 100th Indy 500
One of my very first prehistoric memories was the piercing sound of those rorty engines wafting across the corn fields and subdivisions of West Indy,their mechanical wailing drifting into my bedroom and sparking a curious awe that has never left me.
4DSC Returns as an ’09 Maxima?
Since there is no Infiniti dealer within driving range, I take my car to the local Nissan dealer for service. Despite having traded off my 350Z nearly a year ago, I still get their “Nissan” mailings and the offer of a $19.95 oil change from them was irresistible, so down I went for a few […]
Busted in Georgia
It’s about 1 AM, on a Sunday. I’d been on the road for nearly 5 hours. I was in central Georgia, just south of Macon, returning home after attending a friend’s wedding in Nashville and I was hungry so I got off the Interstate and pulled into a popular roadside restaurant. The menu featured an […]
Log of The Z – Remembering the Expensive Chimichanga
I tend to write a lot of stuff about my Z. I guess because owning it suddenly put me into the Big Leagues. It was a fifty-five month period of unending adventure and oddball happenings that sharpened my appreciations and provided me with a coda for my life’s experiences thus far. Me and the Z […]
Only Guy to Call me Dude
If you are ever in Arizona, you should go by the Grand Canyon. In April of ’03 , the Florida Z had less than 5000 miles on it when we arrived at the Canyon. It went in the unpaved North Way, along the Navajo Trail paralleling the edge, and parked itself in front of the […]
Day of the Cobra…A Mountain Story
[This story appeared previously (Oct 2003) on a site devoted to 350Zs. At the time I had owned my Z for about 6 months. I’ve reprinted it exactly as it appeared]. “. . . I was alone, I took a ride, I didn’t know what I would find there. . . “ I was in […]
My First Time in a Datsun 610
They say you never forget your First Time. You’ll always remember the short beat of the heart when you first saw her, the anticipation you felt when you realized that she was yours, the dreamy sensuality that overcame you as you gently washed her body, feeling every curve and contour for the first time.There’s that […]
SkidMarks with Jerry Hofschneider
Article Series
Skidmarks is an eclectic assortment of irreverent, humorous, and sometimes nostalgic commentaries on automotive-related themes.
Part 1 of the Fantasy Test Drive
It was five years ago this week when, with a predestined wild hair making itself known, I bought my new 350Z. I traded in a perfectly good 2000 Maxima for it. It was really the first time that the dealer had a reasonable supply of new Zs, and he knew what he had; I had […]