Cars. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.
On a good day, it’s your sweet ride. Your whip. Your wheels. “I’m all revved up, living life in the fast lane.”
On a bad day, it’s a beater. A bucket. A lemon. “Sorry boss, car troubles again.”
If you haven’t been living under a cage full of rocks, you’ll know any given day in Maricopa is probably a bad day. That’s why in the August edition of InMaricopa, we published a story titled: “How State Route 347 ruined this woman’s life.”
It feels like every problem in this city ultimately gets tied back to cars, if you trace it back far enough. Road-raging motorists pull guns in the street, reckless drivers abound and people die just trying to get to and from work. Some 115 people move to Maricopa every week, and they come by car, as the stubborn city streets do little to accommodate them.
We are a city with two different Facebook groups called “traffic rants,” after all. Maricopa prescribes car crashes like a supermarket multivitamin — one a day. Literally.
But amid the lost and ruined lives, the road rage, the missed dance recitals; amid the “Sorry, honey, I’ll be late for dinner again” phone calls in a standstill somewhere near M Mountain, people have come together who otherwise would never cross paths.
For those whose cars represent more than getting from point A to point B, their hotrods, old schools and imports are a vehicle for comradery. And October is when they come out of hibernation.
You gotta fight for your life
Two Maricopa men, Nicholaus Hudson and Zee Escobar, have never met. But they have two things profoundly in common.
First, they’re both pioneers of the Maricopa car scene. Second is the reason why.
Escobar, the self-styled “king of car shows,” never went public with his late-stage testicular cancer diagnosis until a recent interview with InMaricopa.
Escobar, the creator of 347 Car Meets, has long used the car show to preach his “everything will be OK” philosophy, citing his cancer as the reason.
He started the series named for the infamous Maricopa throughfare in 2020 at Pacana Park. Unsure if he would survive his cancer, he said he wanted to leave his mark on Maricopa.
The first meet drew fewer attendees than a Bernie Sanders rally in Wyoming. With nothing to lose, Escobar persevered until the event grew into a Maricopa mainstay, attracting hundreds of cars and dozens of vendors to the likes Sequoia Pathway Academy and Copper Sky Regional Park.
The venue is ever changing with a steady increase in participation.
“I’ve been through enough to help people,” said Escobar, a Glennwilde resident. “Just to have them notice me, that I survived, it gives them hope. That’s the reason I’m doing it.”
Hudson, who lives in the Maricopa Meadows, also found out in 2019 he had late-stage testicular cancer. The only way he knew to cope was cars.
His Instagram account, @Nickorocy, is dedicated to his purple Mazda Miata — the color representing awareness for testicular cancer — and has racked up Maricopa’s population worth of followers since his diagnosis.
What many of his 70,000 followers don’t know is that his car saved him.
During a fight with insurance adjusters over needed but bank-breaking cancer surgery, Hudson made another devastating discovery — his cancer had spread to his lung, liver and kidney.
Hudson started chemotherapy in 2021, the time when he traded his motorcycle to a local kid for the Miata that propelled him to online fame. He parked the car outside his hospital window during every round of chemo, waving fondly to it as he would a close friend.
“I’ve always been into cars, but that really took off when I got the Miata,” Hudson said. “That car puts a smile on my face.”
Baby, you a song…
Ben North, a Glennwilde resident and owner of Voodoo Performance in Chandler, said Maricopa has one of the best car scenes of any community. It’s tighter knit than the ones you always hear about in Phoenix and Scottsdale, he believes — think Barrett-Jackson and Goodguys.
“I think Maricopa has one of the best car cultures as a community because it is its own island,” North said. “Nobody really wants to drive out of there if they don’t have to with their nice ride.”
Members of the Maricopa Cruising group, which meets at Burger King on Tuesday nights, show up “for the comradery,” said Donna Gradin, another Glennwilde resident. It’s described as an “everyone knows everyone” type of deal. Gradin has been a reliable presence at the cruise-ins for the last two years, bringing her green-and-yellow vintage ‘34 Ford pickup, which sports orange flames behind the wheels.
The Lakes at Rancho El Dorado resident Dennis Rossini described the Tuesday group as “just guys and girls getting together and just enjoying life.”
Like Escobar’s cruise-in, the Maricopa Cruising group has been itinerant since it started in the 1980s, according to Peoria resident and group member Julio Escamilla. The group first met at Maricopa First Baptist Church, then at Sonic, then Bashas’ and McDonald’s before settling in the big lot behind the home of “have it your way.”
The group had been kicked out of each location for a different reason, explained Escamilla, who’s considered the scene’s “warden,” enforcing the rules of no burnouts nor loud music. He said he doesn’t want to see the new generation get swept up in showboating.
“This ain’t the place for it,” Escamilla said. “If they lose control and hit one of these cars, they won’t pay for it.”
Rich Inferrera said he attends the meet every Tuesday as his “big night out,” often bringing his ‘55 Chevrolet or ‘37 Ford for a warm evening of cigar smoke with like-minded buffs.
“We just hang out, chill and sh*t,” said the Meadows resident, adding he will never get sick of “looking at the beautiful cars.”
John Marsh, another frequent flyer from Cobblestone Farms, switches between his ‘55 Chevy hardbody, ‘55 Chevy Bel Aire convertible, ‘68 GTO convertible and ‘32 Ford. He said he enjoys chatting with others about their cars, what modifications they’ve made and bonding over their shared love for automobiles.
Sometimes that love seeps beyond city limits, Marsh explained. “You get all of the stares on the road,” he recalled from one of many convoys up to the Valley. It’s one of his favorite things on the road, the stares.
Steven Stoiber, from Glennwilde, joked he brings his 1970 Pontiac GTO to the Tuesday meets to get away from his wife and to “talk sh*t to the guys.” He added it also gives him reason to keep his car, which he has kept running smoothly since the 1980s.
Despite the jokes and locker-room talk between the guys, Hidden Valley resident Dawna Caporusso made it clear cars aren’t just a man’s world, even if that world is a bit segregated. She and her husband Wayne sometimes bring their ‘57 Chevy or ‘87 El Camino.
“There’s a big joke about one of the guys who says he doesn’t like it as much as he used to because now there’s women,” Dawna Caporusso said. “We usually make a circle of our own and stay out there.”
Say hello to the support staff
Some key players in the Maricopa car scene don’t have that prized auto to boot.
Gregrory “Bori” Vega’s modern commuter car doesn’t turn any heads, but the photographer from Senita has yet to miss a single meet. Snapping photos of the vehicles during “golden hour” is enough of a thrill for him.
“I’m their family,” Vega said of the Maricopa Cruisers group he has been part of since 2019. “I go all over the place with these guys.”
Then there’s Dee Davis, known in these circles as “the one-armed bandit.” He does more work in the garage with one arm than many others do with two.
The Rancho El Dorado resident has been working on cars for a quarter-century and polishing metal for eight years. His work has been featured on the cover of magazines other than this one. He said his favorite part of polishing cars is admiring the final product.
These cars are worth three stars
In the restaurant world, one Michelin star means it’s worth a stop. Two means it’s worth a detour, and three means it’s worth a whole trip.
Maricopa’s car scene gets three stars in this regard, according to APEX Motor Club’s director of club operations, Brittney Stotler. The club opened five years ago and has welcomed enthusiasts from far and wide.
Only 7 in 10 members live in Arizona, many of whom commute from the East Valley to race.
“If you buy a new McLaren or a new Porsche, going up and down the [Loop] 101 isn’t very thrilling, or at least it shouldn’t be,” Stotler said with a laugh.
That thrill can be therapeutic. When you’re on the track, you have no time to worry about paying the water bill — you need to focus on the pavement, she said. Many members, however, join the club as a social foray, as is the case with Maricopa Cruising.
“It’s really neat to see that comradery develop and the friendships that have developed with it,” Stotler said.
Entire families join in. Stotler said she has seen children outrace their parents on the track.
But for a few like Bo Linsey, owner of Bo’s Knows Auto, it’s a solitary life as a Maricopa car guy.
Linsey’s Palo Brea driveway is packed with cars of every decade and design. He said he achieves the healing properties of car culture through solo expression. Fixing a car, he said, “it’s like chasing a high, but without drugs.”
Introducing… cyberbros
A sub-subculture, you say? Not all car guys are created equally, and one hot new archetype — cyberbros — is cropping up all over the Maricopa car scene thanks to what’s arguably the most polarized car on the market right now.
Tesla Cybertrucks went on presale back in 2019. Development started two years later, and the first 3,000 models were awarded to presale buyers in a lottery. The first Cybertruck was delivered Nov. 30.
Since then, InMaricopa has identified five of these Cybertrucks as belonging to people who live in Maricopa. Palo Brea resident Jeff Lockerman and Senita resident John Wiltberger own stock silver trucks, while Tortosa resident Jesus Baeza went for a more custom look.
His pentagonal prism of an electric four-wheel-drive truck sports a blue wrap with the web address for his dog breeding company, Desert Dobermans, plastered on the back. He got it in July, and admitted his choice of truck was “very out there.”
“I’ve always been a car guy, buying cars, fixing and reselling them,” Baeza said. He has owned more than 50 of them in his lifetime, but when he got his Cybertruck, “my perspective completely changed,” he said.
The truck is low-maintenance and much more intelligent than your average Ford or Chevy, Baeza explained. He said he has not formally met any of the other Cybertruck owners in Maricopa, save for a few brief exchanges in passing.
“We just wave at each other, or at night we flash our lights at each other,” Baeza said.
“I see them more often in Maricopa than in Chandler and even Scottsdale. If I do, it’s usually on the freeway, and a normal silver one.”
The cyberbros he has met elsewhere are always friendly, he said. “They’re not afraid to come up to you and say, ‘Hey, I want to look inside your truck.’”
North, the Voodoo owner, said as a car lover, he doesn’t see why Cybertrucks shouldn’t mesh with the rest of car culture in Maricopa.
“Everybody’s still waiting for the Jetsons,” North said. “Everything from the ‘70s isn’t going to be the same as it is now in 2024. Things are going to change.
“If you like e-trucks and got your little group going, that’s fine. If you bring e-trucks over to where the muscle cars are and talk, I don’t think people will really have an opinion or say anything.”
