Everything You Wanted to Know About West Virginia, But Were
Afraid to Ask
LoriLee and I set out Friday morning at 6:00 CST (which is
really EST, but I won't get into the explanation about daylight
savings confusing the cows) and set out for Harrisonburg, Va
some 700 miles away. We followed IN 46 through Brown County and
then continued down this scenic driving route on IN 7 to
Madison, IN which is on the border with Kentucky. From there we
took a small windy 2 laner down to hwy 64. If anyone is ever going
north through Indiana in their lbc I highly recommend taking
7 north and then 46 over through Bloomington instead of 65 north.
A very pretty drive with lots of curves and not very many large
hills to go up.
The same is not true of 64, since it basically just goes up and
down all the way to the Blue Ridge mountains. The C ran just great
the whole way, but was having trouble doing better than 60 up
the steep hills. I drove at 65 the whole way, so I was passed
continuously by the law abiding drivers of our country whizzing
by in the left hand lane.
After a minor over-heating incident at a traffic jam due to some
construction just across the border into W. Va. we made it into
Harrisonburg at 8:30 - 12.5 hours total. The car had mysteriously
started to run warmer than usual somewhere in W. Va. after hitting
a bump, which made the carbs act a little funny once we started
doing some local driving. Registration was at the Village Inn
in Harrisonburg and we met and talked with several C owners before
retiring.
The next morning we got up and drove up 33 to the top of the mountain
which is at the north end of the Skyline drive in the State Park.
All of the Cs and 4 Bs (22 cars total) drove along this absolutely
beautiful windy route to a specific lookout area, where we all
stopped for some pictures. The organizers of the event took a shot
of everyone with their car and these were passed out later mounted
on plaques to everybody who came. A very nice memento.
We all next proceeded to the Buckthorn Inn in Staunton, Va about
20 miles away where we set up the cars for the "meet." The AMGCR
doesn't really do concourse judging. We all just go around and talk
to one another about our cars and then vote for what we think looks best.
There were several very nice cars including a GT that had been completely
restored from a badly rusted condition by Jim Jones from Louisiana.
Mark Whitt had a nice red roadster and Jim ??? had a MGB with
a buick V-8 in it with matching flares and other performance
accessories.
After the "meet" we all rallyed back along yet another beautiful
Virginia backroad, this time through farm land and colonial
farm houses.
My heating problem had obviously become and exhaust leak by that
time, and so the trip back to Indiana the next day was a little
warm. It was at this point that I remembered teh sage advice of
someone on this list (Roger or Scott ??) that "the car is a system."
So I turned the heater on and was able to get the temperature down to
around the N for most of the trip back.
We had an excellent dinner on Saturday evening followed by an
entertaining auction. I picked up a vintage 1969 edition of the
MGC factory workshop manual while my wife got a beautiful limited
edition MGC Silver Jubilee poster.
All in all this CBA ("C" Event of Brutal Aggressives) was a big success.
We are planning on going up to the Summer Party in Grand Rapids this
coming weekend. It is supposedly a great time and a definite "must
go to once" event.
Will
'69 MGC Roadster ATM
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