The Driving Events Season of 2013 is moving by in a very fast pace and we already had 13 or 14 events. You'll find the upcoming events in the calendar in back of the newsletters. There are also special invitations in each newsletter and every week or so, the CMGC sends out an email blast. Plus, you can find everything of the VMGCC and CMGC home pages on the Internet. You better act quickly before it is all over again. This is the time to schedule your participation in the Tally Ho Rally on August 11, and WCB Tour in September. The Auto Cross program is going on as well and I'd like to thank auto cross veteran Bill Mennell to pick up the coordination for the remainder of the season. We have two more on the schedule: August 10 and September 7.

In addition to these events, there is the British Car Festival at Harper College in Palatine on September 8 and the University Motors Summer Party in Grand Rapids, MI in the weekend of August 15-18. As part of that weekend Kim Tonry and Steve Skegg are the rally masters of one of the most challenging rallies of the season, the Grand Lake Tour. A non-stop lap around Lake Michigan. I talked a lot about the history of that event in its first re-appearance by Mark Michalak, in 2012. Kim and Steve won the rally and are now inviting all of us to the 2013 edition. Mark has decided to go even further and bring back the Abingdon Trials, another long distance rally from the past. Call Mark, Steve, or Kim if you have any questions about car preparation or participation.

If you have been following this column a little bit you may have noticed that all the events that I write about, and that we all enjoy, have one thing in common. Actually, not only do they share the same thing, they all depend on the same thing. Organizers, rally masters, tour directors, whatever you want to

call them. Behind every event that you enjoy are the great people in our clubs that have done the leg work. They took care of the logistics, they wrote the announcements for the newsletter, they planned the route and made the instructions, and they reserved a restaurant. And I am probably forgetting some of the details. There are quite a lot of tasks that go into having a full calendar of events each year and it takes a good group of people to put it in place. Please make sure that we say: "thank you very much" for all their hard work. But also I would like to ask you to pay attention to the organizers of one of your next events. See what they are doing and how they are doing it. You'll notice that it isn't necessarily rocket science. It is dedication and maybe you can offer to help with an event next year. And maybe you can take on the organization of an event for the season after that. It is always good to get more members involved to spread the load and it is also good to get new members involved to get fresh ideas. Who knows, you might be one of those people?

As far as having the driving events for the two MG clubs in Chicago together, it starts to work out real well. The last few events saw several members of each club and brought out a larger variety of MG models. And the cool thing is that it goes both ways. A T-Type on the Jo Daviess tour? Sure, and I heard that how hard they tried, Ric & Nancy's '51 TD didn't fall behind. A 1995 RV8 on a garage tour with mainly 40's and 50's cars? Sure, and everybody liked Dino's car. It is not about the club you belong to and it is not about the year of your MG. It is the friendship of people with a shared interest, old cars in general, British cars in particular, and MGs, any year or model, specifically. And the more we bring together the better. Hope to see all of you in the remainder of the season.

"The more you drive, the more you smile".

-- Reinout Vogt

Preliminary Standings

After 13 driving events, these are the preliminary standings and include the Jo Daviess tour, Garage Tour II and the Reversed Lake Shore Tour If you have any questions, stop me at the next event or meeting and I'd be happy to show you the details. The entire spread sheet with all the names and points is too large to print here in our newsletters.

Drivers 16 points - Ralph Arata, Victor L'Heureux, and Dino Perez 14 points - Ray Hansen 13 points - Roger Goebbert 12 Points - Jim Evans, Steve Gorr, John Kearns, and George Phariss 10 Points - Tom Holzman and Ric Maitzen (Yes, the first T-Type in the standings!)

Navigators 16 points - Penny L'Heureux 14 points - Sue Hansen 13 points - Susan Arata, Lois Evans, and Shirley Goebbert 12 points - Lisa Perez 10 points - Nancy Maitzen

Please note that participating in many events or winning a few competitive events, rally or auto cross, are good recipes to get high in the standings. Doing both is even better.