I belong to a local British Car Club that is predominately MG owners. A
fellow member posted an announcement on our club email list letting us know
about
the "Collier Cup 2004" event taking place at Watkins Glen next year. Since I
am one of the few Triumph owners in the club I take a lot of grief so I
replied with the little know bit of history that follows. I thought I would
also
share it with my Triumph friends. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and
New year.
Marty Sukey
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By the looks of thing this should be a well attended event and a lot
of fun. The Collier Cup has a lot of history behind it and since Jeff
didn't mention it, I thought I would share some of it with my MG
friends since it is the Christmas season and everything. Back in the
60's when auto racing was in its heyday in Britain there was a towing
company located on the outskirts of Liverpool owned by the Collier
family. Things were a little slow for the towing business one year and
the group was sitting around trying to figure out how to drum up some
business. The old man had been around cars for most of his years and
knew them pretty well and he came up with the idea of sponsoring a
race featuring MG's. The game plan was if there was a good turnout of
MG racers, then there should also be a good turn out of fans. He
figured between the racers and spectators he would be raking money in
hand over fist towing all the ones that broke down around the track. I
believe the first "Collier Cup" event took place in 1963 and the
Colliers made so much money from the event that year that they decided
to make this an annual event.
Happy Holidays
Marty
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