History Of the Blue Ridge Miata Club
The Blue Ridge Miata Club was born in late August, 1999 to unite Miata owners in southwest Virginia. Charter President, Roger Huffman, was surfing the net looking for information about the '91 Miata he had just purchased when he came across Miata.net. As he looked for a local club to join, he found there was none. Closest on the list was Central Virginia Club, leading to contact with George Ferrell. That led to Melinda Rose, owner of a '99 Miata, who was eager to help in starting a club for the area.

Roger and Melinda began to communicate regularly regarding the intricacies of forming such an organization. In the meantime, Roger began to look into the painting of his own car at a body shop in Roanoke. While doing so, he met Randal Johnson who owns a '95 M edition. Yet another person was added when Roger met Larry Martin, owner a '90 Miata (since gone to the great scrapyard in the sky and replaced by a '94 M edition), at a Cruise Nite at Fast Freddy's in Salem, a local Saturday night car hang out.

The Blue Ridge Miata Club was born on August 31, 1999 at Ruby Tuesdays in Roanoke. The five charter members (Roger's girlfriend Kim Brown has since acquired a '96 Miata) decided on a basic framework for the club. Armed with a club name and a mission, we created fliers to place on cars for a membership drive and searched the net for anyone in the area who owned a Miata. Fast Freddy's became a weekly Saturday night informal meeting. As people began to notice our Miata row, interest in the club increased.

By the end of 1999, the club had 20 members and a great web site www.BlueRidgeMiataClub.org.
Special thanks are extended to Gordon Miller and his company, G3 Systems, Inc., who have done such a super job on the web site. Because of a lot of work and even more fun, we are growing rapidly. There's lots more to be done and we guarantee lots more fun... Come join us!