While the chat is still all about the hoot and holler good time at Seven Springs, I'd like to say I had a good time too.  Even though I don't have a Twin Cam I dropped in Sunday morning to rub elbows with some of the blokes I'd been corresponding with the past few years, and to absorb whatever I could from the tech sessions.
A couple days later I walked into the NAMGAR First Timers meeting with my son Elliot (his first GT).  I was immediately struck by the number of people who looked like old friends, hardly first timers, as I had been already chatting with them for a couple of  days about what we have been writing about for a couple of years (Twin Cams).  Good show, guys, just for having a chance to connect faces and real bodies to the names and cars.
I think the official count from the Twin Cam Group was 30 Twin Cam cars and 6 Deluxe’s. The Wednesday car show had something like 148 MGA’s on display including many of the Twin Cams and a number of race cars.
Add to that my seven month body sill replacement and body off repaint was out of the garage just in time to get to PA. See here: http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/restore/rt635.htm And yes I did have more free beer than I could handle all week.
I have been happy as a pig in a poke just being back in the driver's seat again rather than being buried in dust for months on end.  I got to try that "gravel road beyond the covered bridge" during the Thursday rally, really ought to have a (larger) sport ute for that one, pretty deep and rough, but it was fun for a couple of miles anyway.  The rest of the "normal" rally route was a bunch of twisties through the hills, so I let the navigator worry about filling in the blanks on the answer sheet (when he wasn't scratching the cowling with his finger nails). My only car problems for the 1300 mile trip were, (1) a relay for the new air horns crapped out and had to be bypassed to get the horns working again, and (2) the wipers quit working momentarily when a very small wire (maybe 22 gauge) on the intermittent wiper control module broke at an end terminal (which I had predicted two years in advance).  So much for aftermarket accessories. I did help to rejuvenate one push rod car that had limped in the last couple hundred miles on 2-1/2 cylinders due to no clearance on 6 of the 8 rocker arms.  We also changed out two failed generators and one bad control box in the car park, and another car ordered up a master cylinder for next day delivery.  Sorry about the Twin Cam with half an engine, mostly sorry I didn't get a chance to poke my nose into it to see what was amiss.  Then there was the unfortunate bloke who ran his MGA head long into a stone flower planter because it looked very similar to the back wall of the car park (two lanes farther away).  That made a good display vehicle for the insurance tech session, and I got a good picture to illustrate the "grille crusher" badge bar accessory on my web site.
My Thursday afternoon tech session on Drivability of MGAs went on quite well.  The originally planned 2 hour session got trimmed to 90 minutes, maybe to fit an available time

slot.  I don't think anyone left in mid session.  Apparently the autocross video, pictures of my car ripping around on three wheels, and chat about sway bars and suspension tuning holds some interest for enthusiastic MGA drivers.  When we got tossed out of the room after an hour and 45 minutes, some of the gang reconvened in the car park for an extended session another hour or so until it was time for the awards banquet.
All jolly good fun, and I'm happy to have met some new friends up close and personal.  Keep those engines humming.
Barney Gaylord - 1958 MGA with an attitude -
http://MGAguru.com

Seabring MGA’s



50 Years of Twin Cams



GT Badges at the car show