MG Motoring 2019 Volume 59 Issue 5 | Page 14

MG Car Club of South Australia 50 th MG Australia National Meeting Brisbane, Queensland From.. Michelle and Jason Edwards O n the 9 th , 10 th and 11 th of January 1970, the first Annual National Meeting for MG Car Clubs in Austra- lia was held in Sydney. This was the only MG National Meeting not held over the Easter weekend. A total of 98 com- petition competitors attended this meet according to the historical records. The cost of the weekend was broken down to events, with Concours at Vaucluse House costing $1 to enter, $2 for the Hill Climb at Amaroo Park Raceway and $2 to participate in the dirt circuit event. On the Saturday night, dinner was $4 per head at the Chevron Hotel located in Kings Cross. Unlike today’s organised event with pre-registration, back in 1970 there was no registration was needed – you just showed up with your money in your hand and you were in. J um pi ng f or war d 50 ye a rs to Easter 2019, the 50th MG Australian National Meeting was hosted by the MG Car Club Of Queensland in and around the Brisbane bayside suburbs of Redlands, overlooking beautiful More- ton Bay. Peter and Delia Rayment need to be thanked and congratulated on the considerable time and effort they put into a photo wall display of the 50 years of National Meetings. Thank you, also, to all the contributors. There were over 130 competitors and 110 social en- trants from all over Australia, and even a few international visitors, who made their way to beautiful Queensland to participate in the four days of social and competition events. Preparing to Leave Adelaide Faye spent a week cleaning and polish- ing each of Jason’s cars prior to depar- ture. Tim dropped off his race wheels for Jason to transport to Brisbane in the trailer, but Tyler and Aiden took one look at them and decided that they were too dirty to go in the trailer, thus embarking on a cleaning project. They came up quite well, so well in fact, that Tim swapped over one of the clean wheels for a dirty one, so it also could be cleaned. Getting to Brisbane The MG Car Club of South Australia had eight people register for the event, how- ever due to unforseen circumstances, the Bray’s withdrew, leaving Tim Ed- monds (president of the MGCC SA) driving his 1974 MGB GT V8 and the Edwards family, with Jason driving his 1952 MG TD, and Faye, Michelle, Tyler and Aiden driving in a tow car, with their 1955 MG TF in the trailer. The SA contingent – Jason, Faye, Aiden, Tim, Tyler and Michelle The four days spent on the roads through outback South Australia and New South Wales provided many oppor- tunities for Jason and Faye to hone their 12