I don't think I've mentioned this yet. This will mainly be of
interest to John Ross, who owns my old race car, but it points out
what a small and connected community the owners of old British
sports cars can be.
Shortly after I started here at Megatest last summer, the artist
from the Marcom department saw the picture of me in the old black
MGB in its original paint scheme, with the red, yellow and orange
stripes on it. Glen asked about the car and mentioned that his
parents used to race, and that they used to race MGBs as well as
some other kinds of cars.
Later inspection determined that Glen's sister Lisa had previously
owned that very same car.
I met Lisa a week or two ago, and we got to talking. She was
apparently a kid when she "owned" this car -- it was going to be
hers when they got it fixed up one day, and then her dad bent the
race car so they converted Lisa's car into the racer. Then they
sold that car to John McEwen, who had last raced the car when I
bought it.
I actually bought it from Butch Gilbert, who is well known and
well respected in the M.G. racing community out here. He was sort
of "Uncle Butch" to Glen and Lisa when they were growing up. In
fact, Lisa remembered getting her chin bruised up while taking the
victory lap (at what she said felt like most of racing speed), sitting
on the rear deck of Butch's MGB, holding the checkered flag in one
hand and clinging to the roll cage for dear life with the other. She
was just tall enough that her head stuck over the roll bar, and her
chin banged up and down on it for the whole lap.
So John, if you ever decide to sell that car, give me a call and I'll
see if I can get in touch with Lisa. She'd still like to have it one
day... :-)
--Scott
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