Mike Moss (driver) and John Cutrone leave a checkpoint in the 1000 Miglia. Provided photo.

It was late at night in the Italian Alps when Michael Moss started to seriously wonder what he’d gotten himself into. The sun had long set, the precarious switch back roads illuminated only by the glint of moonlight. The brakes had gone out in the Spirit of Zora, the 1957 fuel-injected Corvette Moss was driving, along with the headlights. Downshifting the four-speed transmission to mitigate speed, Moss and his co-driver John Cutrone were doing everything in their power to stay on the road.

“We had been lost all day,” says Moss. “It took us four hours to get off the mountain, going down switch back after switch back. John was watching out from one side of the car and I was looking out the other. One of my driving lights had a little bit of light in it, and there was some from the moon, but not nearly enough to see properly.”

Moss arrived at his hotel exhausted. Three hours later, he was on the road again. Such is the experience of the 1000 Miglia, a historic recreation of the legendary endurance race that runs 1,250 miles across Italy from Brescia to Rome and back. From June 9 to 13, Moss and Cutrone represented Sarasota as TEAM ZORA USA, driving 15 hours a day in their corvette, competing in multiple stage races each day. The original Mille Miglia ran from 1927 to 1957, an endurance race on par with the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The Spirit of Zora is an ode to Zora Arkus-Duntov, a chief engineer for General Motors known as the “Godfather” of the Chevrolet Corvette. Although the ‘57 Corvette is not on the list of admitted historical cars allowed to compete in the 1000 Miglia, the Spirit of Zora was granted a special exception based on its historical significance. One of just two Corvettes to enter the race—and Sarasota’s only entrant in the history of the 1000 Miglia—TEAM ZORA USA finished 371st out of 436 cars. “The course is unique in that it takes you over cobblestone streets through these walled cities,” says Moss. “I’m flying 70 miles per hour through these cobblestone streets and there are little kids on the side trying to high five you.”

Mike Moss (driver) and John Cutrone leave a checkpoint in the 1000 Miglia. Provided photo.