You briefly take your eyes off the black ribbon of asphalt unwinding before you to exchange silly grins with your well-bundled co-pilot -- words are just whipped away by the icy-cold wind. Your Sapphire Blue Miata is near the end of a long line of speeding Miatas, tops down, heaters blasting, in the darkest hour before dawn, and a crescent moon and billions of stars twinkle in the cold desert sky. You see the line of nimble roadsters stretching into the distance, their head and tail lights painting a moving, twisting undulating line in the night as they gracefully crest hills, swoop through turns, and disappear briefly in the hollows, only to reappear already turning over the top of the next rise, and all the while being bathed in a crescendo of richly varied exhaust notes and alternating heat and cold as the slipstream holds, then releases, your little bubble of warm air. Mile after mile, turn after turn, this mob of Miatas swarms through the night; straight-aways, when encountered, are taken at eye-watering speeds to close the gaps, then a flurry of fast shifts makes your tach needle bounce toward the red, a stab of brakes to set the suspension and then you zoom-zoom through the turn and into the next set of twisties. Time seems to stand still on this ancient track as you and your passenger follow a leader somewhere far ahead and lost to sight towards some mysterious destination; then you notice the hectic pace slowing and there they are. You see fifty or more Miatas packing a small car park, spilling out along the road, taking refuge where they can in the gray pre-dawn, all is hushed now but for the tinking and clinking of hot engines beginning to cool, muffled sounds of doors shutting, quiet conversation, and now the steady tread of drivers and navigators turned pedestrian walking quickly yet quietly towards the goal, arriving just as the sun starts it's climb out of the canyon depths framed against the glowing purple dawn by magnificent Mesa Arch.
That's the way it happened, during the second Miatas in Moab tour, 14 May 2005.
