The Miata Road: A Quick Mabry Mill Run

Top dropped - time to get twisty!

As I write this entry, I realize it has been three months since I got the new Miata MX-5. I recently clipped through the 6,000 mile mark. Mileage has been a bit high as I made a couple trips in October that were a bit long - one to the Nashville, TN area and another to Washington, DC. One of those was planned, the other was on short notice. Overall ownership experience has been mostly positive, although I do have one problem I'll need to do a quick write-up on. I also realized I have at least one story in the queue here and probably two more that I need to add.

Back to this particular entry though. This past weekend an event was held down in the Deal's Gap / Tail of the Dragon area called TougeFest. For those who don't know, Touge is a Japanese word (or at least based on a Japanese word) for "pass" and really refers to mountain passes. Those who enjoy driving the "twisties" know mountain passes are good places to find roads that traverse the gaps between mountain peaks, winding up and down mountainsides. Touge has been adopted to refer to these (often) narrow, twisting mountain roads and the fun that can be found in driving on them. The TougeFest event (from what I can tell) is based on the many car or motorcycle specific events held at the Tail of the Dragon (like MINIs on the Dragon or Miatas At The Gap). TougeFest shifts the focus just a bit to the driver and enjoying the roads, so all vehicles are welcome.

Unfortunately, I was not able to make it to TougeFest (again). The Deal's Gap area is just a bit outside the range of what I can make in a day trip unless I was really desperate. With the aforementioned trips in October, I really did not want to commit yet another weekend to being out of town. Since I had the rare free weekend with some decent weather, I decided to make my own Touge-inspired event.

A quick run through the car wash before heading out.

The plan was to make a run up Hwy 66 out of Winston-Salem then loop around and take Squirrel Spur Road up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I've run those roads many times in the MINI for several events, so I was looking forward to hitting them with the Miata. Once on the BRP, I planned to go up to Mabry Mill and eat a meal there. This past weekend was their final weekend to be open before closing for the winter season. After eating, I planned to run back down to Rap's Orchard Gap and then take Orchard Gap Road back down the mountain. This would position me for a run home on Hwy 52 with a stop at Pilot Mountain time permitting.

First things first though, the Miata needed some dirt knocked off, so that called for a quick run through the car wash. After that, I topped off a cup of coffee for the road and topped off the Miata with some gas before heading over to Winston-Salem. Once there, I found a parking lot to pull over in and drop the top while grabbing a couple pictures.

Another view of the top dropped before heading up Hwy 66

Then it was on up Hwy 66. I always think of Hwy 66 as "the Bullfrog" because it was the site of the run I did with a car club a little over a decade ago in my then new MINI. The Tar Heel MINI Motoring Club holds an annual event called the Bullfrog Run named in honor of one of their members who was known as Bullfrog. I never met him, but was told he was the epitome of what it means to enjoy the driving experience. I did so many of those Bullfrog Runs, that I just associate that road with Bullfrog (Hwy 66 was selected because it was his favorite road). For those not familiar, Hwy 66 is a nice twisty road with some good technical sections that makes a good tune-up for the Dragon.

Not sure if this video will work - maybe once the post is published it will play but it is not working in the preview. This is from the Pogocam.

On the way up, I also tried to capture some video with a new Pogocam POV camera that I got really cheap through meh.com. I think I need to work on it a bit or get something that can grab more than a few seconds of video. I like the concept though.

Once I was done with 66, I looped around to Squirrel Spur Road. This is another fun road in the area full of twists. It can be run up the mountain or down the mountain. On this day, I was headed up. I did stop at one place where there is a fairly large pull off. I discovered they have actually built a picnic area there. Anyway, you can see Pilot Mountain in the background of the picture that I grabbed there. On up at the top of Squirrel Spur Road you get to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Some ice cream at Mabry Mill. Yes, it is the most photographed spot on the BRP.

I road on up to Mabry Mill hoping to get a meal at the restaurant. Alas, lots of other people had the same idea and it was absolutely packed. I found they had a 2.5 hour wait list to eat. Yes! - 2.5 hours! Did not want to wait that long, so I got an ice cream cone, grabbed a shot of the mill, and then hit the road south.

Next stop was at Rap's Orchard Gap. Sadly, Rap's has been closed for a while now. I mainly wanted to get the info from the sign about the agency handling the sale because...dreams(?). Rap's sits at the top of another fun, twisty road - Orchard Gap Road - that runs down the side of the mountain. There are actually several of these "gap" roads in this area and I've made a nice route that uses them that I call a "gap run". Today would just be the one though. At the bottom I turned onto another twisty road called Bear Trail that carries one out to Hwy 52. I was a little bit surprised by how much traffic was on Bear Trail.

A stop at Rap's Orchard Gap. Want to finance my purchase of it so I could re-open it?

After all that fun on the mountain roads, I had one final stop I wanted to make - Pilot Mountain. Just to do it, maybe get a good shot at the top. Unfortunately, it was slam packed when I got there. I found out later that there was also a food truck event in the area. Anyway, at the base they had signs indicating there was no parking available at the summit. I figured I would ride up there just to do a circle through. Even that did not work out though as I got pretty close, but then hit a line of cars just stopped. Not sure why we were not making even slow progress, but we were not. After about 10 minutes of sitting and not moving more than about 50 feet, I gave up on that and drove back and headed home.

So, as I wrap up this recap, thought I might share a couple final thoughts about the Miata and how it compares to my MINI. Both are small cars that do not focus on making big power, with both hovering around the 15 lb/hp mark. Enough to be peppy, but their source of fun lies in being capable curve carvers. I'm still learning the Miata and readjusting to a rear-wheel drive car.

After these initial 6,000 miles I am still impressed with how much better it feels to have the better weight distribution of the Miata. The thing that I realized during the drive was that I could push on the Miata, but I did not feel like I was having to work at it. With the MINI I was always in a battle with the understeer tendency thanks to all of the weight being up front and being front-wheel drive. With the Miata I get much more of a sense of point - go without all of the battling of the car. I dare say it is easier to drive. Not sure easier is the right word, but hopefully you understand. All that said, it could also be the fact that I was solo and not worried about shepherding other drivers that helped lead to a much more relaxing experience.