Gallery of Past Club Events
2007 Scottish Games
September 15, 2007
Our "Drive" for September was a shared event with the MG Car Club to the Virginia Scottish Games & British Car Show. The MGCC arranged to gather at the Historic Aldie Mill in Aldie, Va., for our starting point before caravanning to the Games from there. After partaking of the coffee and doughnuts provided by our hosts, we joined the group of about 15 British cars headed for the Games along picturesque Route 50 through the towns of Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville before reaching the entrance of Sky Meadows State Park, home for this year's Games. A thank-you goes out to Bryan Sieling of the MGCC for taking the lead on this outing and getting us to the Games on time.
Caravanning with the group were the MGAs of Carl Josefson, Steve & Nancy Woodall, Bill & Karen Marshall, Warren Arthur - who actually drove past Sky Meadows on his way to Aldie to join us - and Keith & Kathy Kallapos driving an MGB GT for this event while Keith continues to ponder the just-proper shade of green for his MGA project. Meeting us at the show field in their MGAs were Butch & Judy Smith and Tom Ford, showing how he spent his summer vacation by unveiling a freshly painted and polished look for his long-serving MGA.
The British Car Show is an informal event at the Scottish Games and the cars were displayed for the pleasure of the crowd with Bentleys parked beside Minis and the occasional Rolls Royce providing shade for an MG. This is a show where the focus is on the cars and not on the amount of polish provided by their owners! About 75 British cars were in attendance with Austin-Healey, Bentley, Jaguar, MG, Mini, Morgan, Rolls Royce, Triumph and both ends of the Riley spectrum - from a tiny Elf Mark II to Doug Campbell's beautiful 1950 right-hand drive 2.5 liter Drophead represented. Our view overlooking the mountains and valleys was outstanding as was our field location, central to the events of the day.
The light-hearted show judging was by selected members of the Scottish Games. The first award given was the Clan Chieftain award selected by Gwen Graham and presented to Jack Triplett for his Bentley 3.5 convertible. The second presented was the Mayor's award — traditionally judged by the Mayor of the City of Alexandria, home of the Scottish Games for many years. With the move to Sky Meadows, no city officials were present this year and the honor of selecting a recipient went to Scott Innis as head of Clan Innis, which sponsored the award. Scott judged his selection based on the "car which I'd most like to tour Scotland in"¯ and selected an Austin-Healey 3000 Mk II.
The final award was the President's Trophy which is judged and presented by the current President of the Games. Tom Wright selected a Jaguar XK-120 based on the car's beautiful lines, its very sympathetic restoration and the fact the car was clearly a "driver"¯ and enjoyed by its owners.
In addition to the British Car Show, there were traditional Scottish athletic competitions to watch, bagpipe, fiddle and Highland dance competitions, pipe & drum corps, many colorful Clan displays and a wide selection of traditional Scottish fare to keep one going throughout the day. Did I mention bagpipes? There were more pipers piping throughout the show field than this scribe has ever witnessed and after five hours on the field, I believe every British car enthusiast knew all nine notes produced by the bagpipes and many, many, many of their possible combinations!
We would like to offer a special note of thanks to Tony Books of the Virginia Scottish Games for his fine efforts in the organization and running of the British Car Show and for allowing us to be a part of the event.
