NEMGTR GOF100
By Corky Guenther
For those of you who are not MG nuts and in particular not T-Series nuts, the New England MG”T” Register was founded in 1964 and held the first “Gathering Of the Faithful” in Meredith, NH August 21-22, 1965. Two GOFs were held each year with the exception of 1996 and 2001 when only one was held as there were national all MG events. Thus the 100th GOF was in 2016, September 8-10 in Concord, NH. Now, in 1964-65, I was in the Navy and MGTC thoughts were nascent as I prepared for Polaris submarine service. The first TC I saw in person was probably in 1966 as I passed a Texaco gas station in Norfolk VA. The handwritten placard on the windshield said $500.00. To an E-4 sailor, it might as well have been 5 Million. I didn’t even slow down.
Fast forward to the spring of 1990. The TC’s restoration was just completed and Priscilla and I attended our first GOF (MK 50) with the car. Fast forwarding again to 2016, that meant that we were going to attend GOF MK 100. Dave and Kathy Ahrendt were also going but since their MGTC was disabled, they were driving the Town & Country. At least sort of a namesake. They had made plans to leave on Sunday, Sept. 4th staying the night in Hazleton, PA and then on to stay with friends in NH for a couple of days before heading to Concord. We decided that we would tag on to their plans as it would provide some measure of security vs. heading north on our own and leaving Monday or Tuesday. That meant a first day trek of about 535 miles – approximately 9 hours driving time mostly via Interstate. Our personal best was 670 miles in 18 hours on mostly non-Interstate roads on our way to Reno in 2011. So, game on. Instead of going to NH on day 2 we spent a couple of days with friends in MA.
We arrived in Concord mid-afternoon on Wednesday. We renewed old friendships, made new ones and thoroughly enjoyed the next two and a half days as we immersed ourselves in the activities of the GOF starting with a tour of three private car collections, the “Great Unwashed” car show, a rally, a Lake Winnipesaukee cruise and luncheon, Valve Cover racing and Saturday’s Car Display a “Concour d’ Provenance” (presentation of the history of the car) and Awards Banquet. The theme of the Saturday night Awards Banquet was Royalty – specifically Crowns. Our TC was voted 1st place at GOF 50 in 1990 and thus normally is in a display only “Preservation” class which was suspended for GOF100 placing it in the TC class where it was again voted best in the class. We won’t be there for GOF 150.
We left Concord Sunday morning – destination Chambersburg, PA 519 miles distant. Somewhere along the line in mid-afternoon, the TC quit. The cause, fouled plugs – again. I had prepared 3 clean sets in anticipation and then failed to place them in the car for the trip (I found them on the bench in the garage). Fortunately, Dave had thrown his travel tool kit in their TC (van) and therein a set of plugs which we installed and we were on our way. The plan is to re-ring the engine over the winter and put a stop to this. Monday’s return home was about 425 miles and traversed without incident except for a couple of small navigational errors. One missed exit due to inattention to Garmin and the other just due to being tired and taking a dead end lane instead of the on ramp to US421. As I said at the time: “Must be time for a nap”. After 8 days and 2145 total miles home felt pretty good.
The Winning Crowns