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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