This past weekend, the Indiana British Car Union held their annual London to Brighton Run over 145 miles of rural back roads. Always a fun event, I last participated in it back in 2005 where we clinched third place out of about 25 entries in my 1967 MGB-GT. This year, since the MG is still laid up with a failed clutch release bearing and the carburettors from my E-Type are apart on the workbench, the trusty XJ6 was called into duty for the rally. We set off bright and early on an absolute scorcher of a day, all fluids brimmed and the air con keeping us nice and cool. After an hour-and-a-half ride out to the starting point of London Road near Indianapolis, we set off on the rally at 10AM sharp and rolled in to the Hilltop Restaurant five hours later, still feeling great and with a mostly completed questionnaire of clues which we had to find answers to along the route. This year, the field was about the same, 25 cars, mostly of the MG or Triumph variant with one Sunbeam and one TVR for flavor. I must admit that although most of the roads would have been more fun to negotiate in a sports car, the outside ambient temperatures and humidity reminded me that we were fairly lucky to have been graced with 40 degree chilled air from the XJs fascia vents all day. Scores tallied had us tied for fourth place with another team who won by virtue of having brought an older car than we, so we were duly awarded a fifth place plaque. Not bad by any account, and not to mention the fact that Krista is a newbie at this sort of thing. And kudos to her, she held up remarkably well for being cocooned in my mobile ice box for several hours. But do note she's wearing a sweatshirt in the photo ;)
Oh, and the Jag? As always, she performed without complaint. And we just so happened to roll 130,000 miles on the way home.
No comments:
Post a Comment