Jack Feldman wrote:
<<<Subject: British Car Week
I wonder with all the cars around we don't see more. I only saw a few cars
during the week. Every day that the weather is clear is a day I drive my
LBC, Car week or not. I was going to rat out Kim Tonry about driving with
his top up. Glad I didn't, he had a good reason. >>>
Glad I came clean before I got ratted out! We made up for the top up run with
the tub of dirt in the back and trays of flowers in the boot later in the
week when we made our annual run south to the Champagne British Car Festival.
Usually we spend 2 nights in Chambana but this year we drove down on Saturday
morning and headed back Sunday afternoon. With the shorter stay, we packed
less which freed up the room behind the seats so we could stow the top for
the trip. Usually for this kind of expedition, the Midget gets packed to the
gunwales and the top unfortunately stays up for lack of anywhere else to put
it. So we had a gorgeous trip south first following along old Route 66 as far
as Braidwood and then over to Illinois 115. 115 is what has become known
within the Chicagoland MG Club as "Barney's Route". Barney Gaylord long ago
found this as a way down to Champaign County Sports Car Club events which
avoided Interstates or the heavier traffic on US 45. It's a wide open,
traffic free two laner through farm country on the Illinois prairie. Usually
we stop in Roberts, IL about 1/2 hour before Urbana at "Sundae Drive" for an
ice cream break, But we passed that up this year in favor of pushing on to
the hotel for a Guiness instead. So we did not check in on the gentleman we
met last year in Roberts who on seeing our LBCs in the Sundae Drive car park,
invited us over to see his collection of Ferraris, Maseratis, Jaguars,
Allards, a Rolls Royce, and more. Barney has already thoroughly covered the
Champagne show (which just gets better every year). Although I don't quite
think he did justice to how much effort he put in to earning his hangover on
the pub crawl. We thought he was stepping into the vacant shoes of the
legendary absent Jeff Rust from the ISOA Triumph Club. Jeff is legendary for
the pub crawl a couple years ago when due to wretched excess, he ended up
spewing - over the side of the upper level of the double decker London bus
that was the pub crawl conveyance.
So the event was great as always, and that long peaceful top down drive was
something to be treasured.
Kim Tonry
Downers Grove, Illinois, USA
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