Keystone Region MG Club, Inc.

18th Annual British Motorcar Gathering

Sunday, June 12, 2011 | Reservoir Park, Hellertown, Pa.
All-British car show hosted by the Keystone Region MG Club

➤Winners List

By Mike Jones
Keystone Region MG Club Show Co-chairman

The weather for the 18th Annual British Motorcar Gathering was poor to start the day. I started my drive to the park at around 6:15 a.m. I put up the road signs on the way down to Hellertown and I noticed that I had to use my wipers to demist the windshield of my MGB/GT.

I knew it was not going to be a great morning.

Shortly after I arrived at the park, Terry Allen pulled in with his truck and trailer. His MG TC was warm and dry inside of the trailer. We talked briefly about scaling things back for the day. We decided against that idea and went ahead with our plans for another great British Motorcar Gathering.

All of our wonderful volunteers showed up exactly on schedule and ready to go. The Hellertown Borough had fixed certain areas of the show field that we identified as problems a few weeks earlier during our park walk through. The park had never looked better.

The cars began to arrive shortly after 9 a.m. They came in slowly at first and then at a slightly faster pace. We remarked that there were many cars from New York and New Jersey. The sun, however, never did break through the clouds. We also heard that some of the participants had started out in rain. That is never a good sign for a British car show.

By the time all was said and done, we had 120 cars on the field. This was far below other years, when we have topped 200 cars. Everyone who did come to the show ad a great time. After some rain in the early hours of the morning, we were rain-free all day.

The day progressed smoothly from start to finish. We were not swamped with spectator cars, but we had a good group of people just coming to see all the cars.

This year we had sponsors for 17 of our 22 classes. We are grateful to our sponsors and we recognized them several times through out the day. Our own Robert "Van the Music Man” Van Syckle DJ did another splendid job. Our food vendor continues to get good reviews.

You can never tell what group of cars will show up in mass in any given year. This year, we seemed to have a greater number of MG Midgets than most previous shows. We had some great door prizes this year. XK’s Unlimited from California continues to give us some very special Jaguar door prizes and our friends at Castrol sent us a great number of items.

Working with my co-chair Terry Allen and with all of the club members is a real joy. It is a pleasure because everyone is so willing to help. For some members the day of the show can be a very long day. Many members drive some distance to the park and then work from the set up period beginning at 7 a.m. until closing. We owe them a debt of gratitude. It takes a lot of our membership to produce one of the best British car shows in the Northeast.

We want everyone to stay healthy, because in just six months we need to begin plans for British Motorcar Gathering Number 19. The honor roll is listed below with a big thank you to all.

• Terry Allen, co-chairman
  ▪ Ken and Cindy Beck
  ▪ Tom Brobst and Abbie
  ▪ Bob Brown
  ▪ Marty and Marybeth Chamberlain and Tracy
  ▪ Kim and Charles de Bourbon
  ▪ Art and Margie Edinger
  ▪ Ed and Angie Haas
  ▪ Richard Horn
  ▪ Myra Jones
  ▪ Arch Kunkle
  ▪ Gerry Kunkle
  ▪ Bill Miers
  ▪ Leon Morgan
  ▪ Dennis and Ann Marie Nash
  ▪ Bill Page
  ▪ Bob and Penny Pilat
  ▪ Noel Peters
  ▪ Victor and Lani Rodriguez
  ▪ Jeff and Lisa Rorhbach
  ▪ Ken and Barbara Saltern