Can you believe it? About half of the 2016 Driving Events of your MG Clubs of Chicago is already behind us. In this issue you’ll find reports on the July events and if you haven’t taken your MG out as much as you had in mind, your final chance is now. Do your MG a favor, go through the invitations and information about the upcoming August and September events, and block your calendars. Participating in the 2016 Driving events is not very difficult at all, it just takes a little bit of planning. Sometimes life gets in the way and driving the MG loses out to the other summer activities. Putting some of the driving events of the MG Clubs of Chicago on the calendars at home, at work, in the garage, and on the refrigerator may help to keep up the priorities for the second half of the 2016 Driving Events of your MG Clubs of Chicago. And the second half looks great with three rallies: The Tally Ho, the Lucas Memorial, and the Halloween rallies. Don’t be afraid for the rallies, we always have easy to follow driving instructions. But even if the ‘competitive element’ is not for you, you can just enjoy the ride in your MG and the friendships of your fellow MG drivers. We’ll also have the Westmont Cruising’ Night, Miata Autocross, The British Car Show, and the all-weekend Wine Cheese and Beer Tour. There is still a lot of summer left and I hope that you’ll find a few events that you like and we look forward to seeing you and your MG on the road. 


As you know we also have two driving Championships going on. The Moss Motors Trophy is for the overall club championship with points awarded for participating and scoring in all events of the calendar. The Victoria British Trophy is the competition championship with points only for the competitive, autocross and rally, events. 


The standings for the Moss Motors Trophy after 11 of the 21 events (including the Garage Tour and Ray’s Picnic) is as follows. With 20 points in first place is the MG Midget of Tim and Jamie Schafer. They participated in 8 events and the Midget did very well in the Autocrosses this year. In 2nd place with 15.5 points are Rich Meservey and Sundy Mead who had their 1980 MGB LE out to 7 events.

In third are Ric and Nancy Maitzen. Their MG TD was out of service for a while but organizing the Spring Tour and scoring well in the Spring Chicken Rally still gave them 11 points. Phil Law and Bob Lee are tied for 4th place with 10 points each. Remarkable because both drive MG TDs and both are navigator challenged; Phil is often a solo driver and Bob is usually accompanied by one of his grandchildren.


In the fight for the competition trophy, Tim and Jamie Schafer is also in 1st place with 14 points. As I mentioned above, the Midget did very well in the Autocrosses but they also placed 2nd in the Spring Chicken Rally. David and Lisa Novak are 2nd with 6.5 points. Their 1974 MGB. won the last Miata Autocross and they also participated in the Spring Chicken Rally. Tied for 3rd with 6 points each are Jim and Lois Evans who won the Spring Chicken Rally with their 1977 MGB and Rich Meservey and Sundy Mead. 

These standing show that there are two ways to accumulate a lot of points for the Moss Motors and Victoria British Trophies: scoring high (1st, 2nd, or 3rd) in competitive events, or participating in a lot of events. Doing both, like Tim and Jamie Schafer, of course is even better. The 2016 calendar, just by coincidence, had 4 of the 5 Autocrosses in the first half of the season and will have 3 of the 4 rallies in the remaining half of the season. Therefore, the interim standing for the Moss Motors Trophy above and the Victoria British Trophy below are a little bit skewed toward the Autocross participants. But that will change in the second half with the rallies and tours. It is also exciting to see that there are three MG TDs in position to challenge for the Moss Motors Trophy. Ric and Nancy, Phil, and Bob have done very well in past rallies and could easily wipe out the points differential in the remaining events. Wouldn’t it be great to see a vintage MG win the overall championship of the MG Clubs of Chicago?

I will bring the scoring table to the next events and please ask me if you have any questions about the standings. And of course, I’m always happy to hear from you with suggestions, ideas, or questions. You can reach me at 847 342 9804 or at reinoutvogt@gmail.com

"The more you drive, the more you smile".

-- Reinout Vogt