2020 Mini Endurance Rallye Recap
“Triumphant Tour” – by Carolyn Westbay
The St. Louis MG Club held yet another successful Mini Endurance Rallye on September 12. Eight cars had registered, but seven showed up to battle it out for the shortest mileage to be driven to pre-set locations without the use of any electronic aids created after 1981, the last production year of the MG’s. The participants were given points south of St. Louis to head to his year. The six locations included Davisville, MO and the Dillard Mill State Historic Site; Farmington, MO and the Saint Francis County Courthouse; Ironton, MO and the Arcadia-Ironton Whistle Junction and last Amtrak stop in the area; Park Hills, MO and the Missouri Mines State Historic Site; Perryville, MO and Missouri’s National Veterans Memorial; and finally Ste. Genevieve, MO and the Visitors Center. According to rallye attendees the highlights of the tour were Dillard Mill State Historic Site with an actual working mill from the 1800’s, and the Missouri’s National Veterans Memorial with a full recreation of the Vietnam Memorial that is in Washington, DC, and the banana bread the Rallye Masters made and shared with all.
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Green MG has Todd Brown and Charles Brunning in the photo
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Red MG in photo has Simon Dix, Robert Rushing, Robert Bentzinger and Bob Horzmann in the photo
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all group photo
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Red triumph has Rose Skegg and Jayson Vana from Chicagoland MG Club in the photo
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The weather looked a little iffy on Friday night, but ended up being a great driving day. Weather was overcast for most of the day, in the mid to high seventies, and the only rain that did fall was north of the area where the rallye locations were found. The rallye had been delayed from its original date in April due to the Covid 19 pandemic that had hit the nation. The re-scheduled date probably ended up being a nicer weather day, but did mess with a couple of clues that the rallye masters had set up back in March. Rallye masters had to send out text messages this year to let participants know to skip a couple of the questions, while it didn’t interfere with the locations that were driven to, it did end up with a question being dropped from two of the locations.
This was a good year for cars, as there were no significant break downs of any of the participants. All cars left on time and were back within the allotted 11.5 hours and all seven cars were able to finish the rallye. With Covid 19 restrictions still in place, there was not an official award meeting, but instead a re-hashing of the rallye occurred in land MG Club the parking lot as the participants returned. There were again folks driving from out of town to participate in the rallye. This year there were two cars that drove down from the Chicago area. Many clubs no longer put on these type of rallies, so members of other clubs do appreciate that our club does to continue to do these.
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