The preparations for the Abingdon Summer Party have begun and plans are starting to solidify. And …“Wow!” … Things are looking terrific for the third edition of the successor of John Twist’s University Motors event. First of all, we returned to the traditional third weekend of August, which makes August 15-18 the dates to mark down in your calendars. The program events will remain pretty much as they where last year and we welcome the new club members who stepped up to help out. Steve Selan will run the car show and the Sterling judging while David Lieb has agreed to sponsor the Abingdon Trials Double Twelve. We don’t expect as much competition from the NAMGBR convention this year because it will be held in Dallas Texas and is not combined with the other registers as it was last year in Minneapolis. But there is much more exciting news!

We will be hosting the North American MMM Register. These are the real old MG sport cars, Midget, Magna and Magnette, built between 1928 and 1936 with small displacement 4 and 6 cylinder overhead cam engines. Because not many of these old MG’s survived, the register is rather small and we welcome their choice to join us in Abingdon for their annual party. One could almost say for their Home Coming to Abingdon. This enthusiastic group of MG owners includes two very special people; Jerry Goguen who ran a MG Museum in New England for many years and who contributed a tremendous amount of effort and dedication to the survival and support of this exciting breed of MG models, and Peter Thornley, whose father John has been associated with the MG Factory in Abingdon in the UK for almost half a century. We encourage you to come to Abingdon to share the weekend with the oldest MG’s in the country and meet these MG stars in person.

The regalia sales for 2002 will be integrated in the regular club regalia and Larry Daniels has plans to order so called ‘Safari Shirts’ that can be pre-ordered through the registration form. Other major changes for 2002 are the registration fees and the hotel. We will now be able to register separately from the meals and you can participate in just the Saturday night dinner or Sunday morning breakfast. Rumors about the future of the hotel have been ended because it is now the Best Western Prairie. The hotel is committed to our long-standing relationship and details are forthcoming in the brochure currently under design by Ralph Arata. We expect to have these ready for you in March.

We have made great effort to get the Abingdon Summer Party on the calendar of all major clubs in the area as well as the surrounding states. Many web sites and publications have also agreed to include our event in their calendars. A British Car Club from Nebraska already approached us about participating with a dozen MG’s.

We are looking forward to a very exciting weekend with well over 125 MG’s from the surrounding states, from the MMM Register, and from several car clubs. Stay tuned to this newsletter to receive information about the plans or get the latest from our website www.chicagolandmgclub.com where Barney regularly updates the Abingdon section.