The idea of a Miata Club for the B.C. Interior began to percolate after the Sea to Sky Chapter Miata Club organized a run from the Lower Mainland to Kelowna back in 1999. The Sea To Sky group repeated the run in 2000, this time inviting other clubs to join them for a weekend in Kelowna.
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 Westside Road,
2001 Topless Sun Run |
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Seeing the success of those events, Kelowna Motors service manager Shelly Stephens and owner Brian August got involved and promoted the idea of a new local club for their Miata customers. The idea was very well received, and Okanagan Valley Miata Club was born.
The new group took over the organization of the 2001 event and christened it the Topless Sun Run. That first event drew 104 Miatas from B.C., Alberta, Washington, Oregon and beyond for a weekend of sunshine, spirited driving and the company of fellow Miataphiles.
Word of this great event spread fast, and in 2002 the numbers reached maximum capacity with 255 people and 140 Miatas, an impressive number given the club’s membership was 65. The rest, as they say, is history; the Topless Sun Run has been packing the parking lots ever since.
Since the early days of the organization, the Okanagan Valley Miata Club members felt the need to adopt a charitable organization to give some purpose to their passion. The club chose to support the British Columbia Transplant Society. The club helped to promote the B.C. Organ Donor Registry and donated the proceeds from the Topless Sun Run and other fund raising efforts to the cause. Today the Okanagan Valley Miata Club supports a variety of organizations and worthy causes, and as of 2007 the club has donated a total of $16,500.00 to charity.
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| The OVMC membership includes Miataphiles from Kelowna, Lake Country, Vernon, Lumby, Kamloops, Westbank, Peachland, and Penticton. In addition to the Topless Sun Run, the Okanagan Valley Miata Club organizes drives and social gatherings throughout the year, and holds monthly meetings to plan the coming events. The membership has even been known to forage the countryside for hundreds of kilometres in the tireless pursuit of really good ice-cream. But whether it’s a drive through the countryside or a monthly meeting, the emphasis is always the same; fun, friendship and sharing the passion for their cars.
Okanagan Valley Miata Club excursions have taken its members throughout the Okanagan Valley and around the Pacific Northwest on some of the twistiest and most scenic stretches of blacktop available anywhere, which is of course, precisely where a Miata belongs. |
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Fintry Provincial Park,
2003 Topless Sun Run |
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