Northern National Concours Show 2015
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MG OWNERS CLUB NORTHERN NATIONAL CONCOURS SHOW, Pateley Bridge, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, 8-9 Aug 2015.
Well, you have to be very brave or very stupid to make this trip on your own, Cairnryan to Pateley Bridge 220 miles. We decided to give this show our best shot and Sandra and myself did spend many many hours preparing our MGA as best we could as novices to this standard of competition.
We only mentioned our proposed trip to a few, but on arrival at Larne Port, guess who, Ray and Coral Hamilton heading over by coach to a Manchester United game, our secret was out. The daunting issue was that when you’re 3rd in line onto the ferry, then you’re 3rd off, and from there to Dumfries we had 25 articulated lorries sitting on our boot lid at 45 miles per hour, however not to worry we motored on towards Yorkshire, 6 hour drive with 30 minutes of a stop.
The show was held in a beautiful setting in Nidderdale Agricultural Showgrounds in marvelous weather for the 2 days; Saturday for us was spent with yet even more spit and polish, Sandra is now a complete expert on chrome wire wheels, any less than 30 minutes per wheel is insufficient.
Morning of show, off with the waterproof cover and 1 mile from Bed/Breakfast farmhouse to the Showgrounds, cars arriving at 9.30 am with everyone allocated their numbered space, and then out again with micro fibre cloths, tools evenly spread out in boot, brief history of car placed at front, and sit back and nervously wait for 11.30 am judging.
Our judge, nice man was under car, in car lifting carpet, under bonnet, into boot and just about every crevice examined thoroughly and finished by asking for a brief history, shake of hands and on to the next
car.
About 600-700 MG’s altogether on the showgrounds, some cars entered for Concours, Premier and Master Class events arrived by trailer and then driven onto the showgrounds, this is serious stuff and many of these cars are kept for showing only, but all MG models entered in above events were magnificent.
We thoroughly enjoyed the event as novices to the game, and guess what, our car got baptised on return journey over the Pennines, just a little rain. Thanks to Sam C for his motivation and encouragement to us, and Noel Corry with his MG expertise in fixing a few late problems,
Derek and Sandra Gaw
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