Road America
Kimberly Cup Races, Sept 8, 2013
Cowboy Dave Bralich wins the ELVF Kimberly Cup!
 In a performance worthy of the racing greats, Dave Bralich won VSCDA’s Kimberly cup race held as part of the 25th Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival Sunday, September 8th at the 4 mile Road America track.
Starting from the pole position, Dave managed to hold off an aggressive field of 30 plus cars, relinquishing the lead only once, but being challenged through the race. Dave and his steadfast #31 MGB qualified on the pole for the race by setting a personal best 2:58, faster than ever before by almost 2 seconds on a track often considered the fastest in North America. He was cheered on by Dee and the rest of his friends in the British Race Group, who stood at the fences with their hearts in their mouths each lap as a ferocious Datsun 510 would close on him, only to see Dave pull the last little bit from his bag of tricks and hold him off repeatedly.
Congratulations to Dave for a fine demonstration of driving skill, perseverance in overcoming many mechanical challenges and steadfast nerve in front of a very determined and closely match field of competition! Here’s hoping he plans on sharing his trophy bottle of wine with his friends!
~~Scott Fohrman
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The Abingdon Trials
October 5-6, 2013
The Abingdon Trials were held October 5th-6th. This rally tested not only its participants' navigational skills, but their physical stamina and their cars' mechanical reliability.
Three teams began the rally on Saturday morning: Steve and Rose Skegg from Downers Grove in their 1976 TR6, Eric and Jason Durham from Grand Rapids, MI in their 1978 MGB, and Mark Z. Michalak from New Buffalo, MI in a 1960 MGA.
After a check run to determine their odometer offset calculation, the teams were handed their checkpoints and sent off with a few basic rules: They must locate all the checkpoints and determine the shortest overall distance back to the starting point, paper maps must be used with no GPS, smartphones, or digital help of any kind, and all traffic laws must be followed at all times.
The teams had to visit ten checkpoints and were given 24 hours to return to the starting line, which all three did in ample time. For the most part we had nice weather, with one thunderstorm intruding for at least part of the rally. There are two difficult parts of a rally like this. One is finding the exact location of a checkpoint based on your map's information and the visual clues provided in the checkpoint package. For the most part everyone did really well with this, though Taliesin after dark did prove a bit difficult. Hint: high powered spotlights really do the trick!
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November 2013
