In summary: A good time was had by all. What else do you want to know?
Well, there was this distance endurance rally, first year for The Abingdon
Trials. Four cars entered on Thursday, ran about 540 miles in a bit over
12 hours. They were circulating up around northern Illinois, south western
Wisconsin, and north eastern Iowa. Six cars entered on Friday for a
distance of about 360 miles in a bit less then 8 hours, so they were back
in time for the fish fry. Not sure where they went on day two, but
generally south I think, maybe more info later. The first and second place
finishers were 4 or 5 miles different each day, with the cumulative total
distance for the 2 days coming out only 0.19 miles apart after 900 miles.
And they dit take substantially differing routes, so it was definitely the
competitors' craft and intuition playing out here. Kudos goes to Curt Bork
of the Chicagoland MG Club for coming in a close second running solo in his
MG TD. First place went to (not a big surprise) Team Fokowie (hope I
spelled it right) running a BGT.
I wasn't counting, but I think the Saturday morning car show had a few more
than 50 cars, mostly B's, 2 or 3 C's, maybe 5 Midgets, 1 TD, 1 TC, 1 ZB
Magnette, 1 MGA (thank you), and one VT 4-seat tourer (hit of the show
IMHO). All non-MG cars combined did not make a separate class, consisting
of 1 Jaguar XJ sedan. And I think there was one entry in the modified
class, some of you may know the CQWBOY MGB with a really nice roll bar and
an unabashedly "warm" engine. (But after the Saturday afternoon time
trials, he's looking for driving lessons.)
This show is getting a little more laid back as time goes on. They used to
show up at 8 am with the buckets and rags, spend a couple of hours
polishing before the concourse judging. Now a lot of the guys and gals
stop off at the local eatery for breakfast, roll into the show about 10:30,
park on the grass and wait for the judges to rub off a little of the dirt.
I know that I didn't bother to scrape the bugs off. This year it was
mostly exhibitor's choice judging with a separate class for concourse cars
on a volunteer basis. The several cars actually entered in the concourse
class sure made the job of judging a lot easier. I wasn't there for the
finish, but it seems like the VT, the TC, and the Magnette did fairly well.
Maybe someone else will fill in the stats.
I had to leave the show a little early to set up a nice little autocross
course on Main Street in Abingdon for the (once again) traditional
gymkhana. We had about 20 MGs struting their stuff there Saturday
afternoon with about 50 more people watching. No backing into the garage
or pumping tires this year, just seeing how much rubber we could leave on
Main Street with the city's blessing. I kept the course fairly tight to
keep the speeds down and the running times up in the restricted area. The
final track length was just under 1/4 mile with running times from 31 to 36
seconds. Lots of fish-tailing and tire burning going on, couple of loops
thrown in for good measure, pretty good show, loads of fun for everyone.
The run felt like 70 mph (and looked like it too) when we were actually
doing more like 35 or 40 tops.
It wouldn't be right for me to set up a track precisely to my own liking
and then go out and spank everyone else, so for starters I left the race
tires home. After most of the cars had done 3 laps and I had 2, that
@#$%^&* modified MGC had bested my time by 1/4 second, so I took the third
run for good measure. That last run was going very well, so a couple of
gates before the finish I took out a cone for a 2 second penalty, otherwise
I would have had best time of day by 1/4 second. Felt good taking second
place, saved my soul. (Yeah, I know, no one else bought that story either.)
We all greatly appreciate the assistance and efforts of the local support
from Abingdon. On Saturday in particular, the town had more people working
and helping out at the gymkhana than the club had. Ed Lindsay, the local
cop, had run our request and insurance papers through the city council to
get their blessing for out street event, and then proceeded to handle most
of the local coordination. They arranged to borrow a truck load of traffic
cones from Galesburg because they were in short supply in Abingdon during
construction season, and also provided a lime line marker from the local
ball park for us to mark the course. A couple of township workers showed
up with the cones and proceeded to barricade the streets for a few blocks.
Then a couple of local cops spent some time on our behalf flushing out
parked cars to give us the free space.
The main attraction on the sidelines was the Top Brass bar, left side of
the first block of the competition area. They had a big cooker out on the
sidewalk, serving up pork chop sandwiches and burgers and brats so no one
had to miss any of the action to grab a bite to eat. No alcohol allowed in
or around the cars during the competition, but hey, that was just a couple
of hours. Once the street was cleared and back to normal (slow and quiet)
a huge portion of the gang merged into the Top Brass and occupied the place
for a couple more hours. Seems like that shop did more business in one day
than in a normal month of operation.
The Saturday night awards banquet was considered a hit by popular voice.
Turns out that Jumer's does a pretty good buffet with roast beef, so
everyone ate well and enjoyed the food. Otherwise, a typical awards thing,
lots of trophys, door prizes, bad jokes, and the bar was handy. Not the
high point of the week end for me personally, so ask someone else for details.
Other than during the driving activities and banquet, the hospitality suit
was generally going strong, bathtub full of beer and soda, fridge full of
wine, and loads of tasty munchies to nibble while we all tossed about our
favorite BS about MGs. Warm summer evenings, nice patio parties, and more
good company than anyone could soak up. The pool was put to good use as
well as the hot tub and the sauna. And yes, all those rumors about the
co-ed sauna are true. There was a Sunday morning brunch at the hotel for
$5 with the club picking up the difference, so lots of people took them up
on that deal and stretched the fun into an extra morning before departure.
Not much mechanical troubles for this event. One MGB had a u-joint
replaced Saturday morning, one Midget borrowed an alternator because the
DPM had screwed up the wiring during a transplant, and the VT got a lot of
help with a Grapes of Wrath generator repair Saturday evening, works great,
no cost. All cars arived and departed under their own power, and I cannot
recall seeing a car trailer during the entire weekend.
I got a little surprise as I was leaving on Sunday, an offer of "Three MGAs
for sale, very reasonable". Check out a separate post for that one. I had
ample opportunities to humble some more back roads on this trip, managed to
make some dusty roads dustyer, and lots more bugs flat dead. May you all
have many more such wonderful MG experiences as we had this weekend in
Abingdon, Illinois.
Cheers and toasts,
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude (and one more trophy)
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