The RETURN TO ABINGDON-'05 is now history and what a week-end it was. 30 cars registered and 29 were MGs with an odd car from the north woods of Minnesota called a Mini Cooper. Missouri and Iowa were also represented, but they had the good sense to drive MGs. Rich Burger of Missouri even won a trophy for best black car in an 80B(LE). The car show was run in honor of Ray Glorioso. Wilbur recalled that Ray always wanted to have a show that was simple and each car was only up against the others of that same color. We had eight categories and seven trophies. Red- Barney Gaylord 58A, White- Dave Mullis 72B, Blue- Tom Fanning 74B-GT, Green- Gary Picard 60A, Yellow- Roger Goebert, Damask Red- John Wierzbicki 74B, other Rich and Deb Leslie-71Mini Cooper. We are mailing a trophy out to the Leslies in the north woods as we ran out of trophies due to an accounting error in the "other" category. Many thanks to Bill Mennell for running the car show.

We then moved on to the gymkhana and about ten cars participated in the event. Its not too often that you get to close Main Street in town and run alone on a track that will truly test your driving skills and that of your car. Timing was split second with our electronic timers and trophies were awarded as follows: Barney Gaylord won first place, but has magnanimously refused an award as he had set up the course. (This was before he knew that he had won a trophy in the car show.) The first place trophy went to Wilbur Mennell in his 71B with a fast time of 33.419. Second was awarded to John Wierzbicki who ran the course in 36.769, and third went to Curt Bork in his TD with a best time of 37.976.
Many thanks to Wade Keene for running the gymkhana this year.

The fun rally was set up by Barney and myself last summer and it was a good one. I told people to take along a farmer friend, if possible. When if farm country, do as the farmers do. We included many farm implement questions, as we assumed that many club members were city people. Surprisingly enough, many answer sheets were submitted with a three-way tie for second, however, only one was 100%. Curt Bork had first place all to himself, as he knew a manure spreader when he saw one. I think that many Knox county farmers saw their first MGs that day. No shots were fired at the funny foreign cars, however. Second place went to the Wierzbicki family in a 74B. They knew a dump rake when they saw one. Third place went to Ralph and Susan Arata in a 70B. The tie went to the third tie-breaker question, "What year was Cecil Kimber born?" Thanks again to Barney Gaylord for his help with this event as well as the gymkhana.

In case you didn't notice, John and Diane Wierzbicki of Lindenhurst in their 74B went home with three trophies this year. They had big smiles on their faces. Thanks go out to Gary O'Reillly at the Louis Glunz Co. for the donated Old Speckled Hen beer and to Tom and Judy Josefek for their help with the hospitality room. Tom was also the official photographer for the week-end and we will post the many beautiful photos to the web site.

Sat. dinner was at the beautiful Soangetaha country club and the food was delicious, as always. there were 48 people for dinner and I didn't hear one complaint. I even went back for seconds and there was plenty of food left so I felt that everyone had their fill. Sunday came and the color tour was grand, the weather cool, but sunny, the Abingdon people warm and friendly, and it seemed like everyone had a great time.

The food was good, the events all came off without a hitch and the beer was cold. The comment sheets that we distributed came back very positive and I feel that we have an event to carry forward for many years to come. I believe that we built up on a twenty year foundation laid by Jim Evans. My apologies if I forgot to thank someone, as so many helped out this week-end.