RV Travels With Huggy

I drove in the 25th annual Tulip Rallye sponsored by the MG Car Club Northwest Centre this past Saturday, April 22nd. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were 254 cars that entered the event, making it the largest ever of all 25. My friend, L B, who is the instructor of the digital imaging class I took last fall at the local college went along with me as my navigator. I started at the Starbucks across the street from the shopping center where the rally started, so I did get my mocha. When L arrived we drove across the street and picked up our entry stuff, learning we were car number 80.

Here is a scene of people talking with each other and enjoying looking at the cars before the start of the event:


One of the entrants was a green MGA with it's mascot traveling on the luggage rack that mounts on the trunk (boot for those closer to their British roots.) Here is that car & mascot:


The cars started leaving from three seperate lanes in groups of twenty. We were in the fourth group as car #80. You couldn't just follow another car as there were three seperate sets of instructions, so they didn't all go the same way. Also, that other car might be lost. We drove through Burlington & Mt. Vernon, soon getting out of town. This area is well known as a nesting area for eagles and we spotted this nest in the top of a tree, still visible because the leaves are not out in full yet:


We spent a lot of time on Whidbey Island. You should have seen all the sports cars in the towns of Oak Harbor and Coupville! Plus they were going all directions. Remember there were three seperate sets of instructions. We paused on the way into Coupville to take a couple of photos of the landscape:


Here is the second one from the same location. This one has Mt. Baker in the background across Puget Sound:


It becomes a challenge to come up with a place large enough to end an event like this, with so many cars and people. 254 entrants plus those working on the event. For the second year in a row they used the Swinomish Indian Tribe's Northern Lights Casino on SR20 near Anacortes, WA. I was able to take a lot of photos of cars while we were waiting for others to come in and the results were computed.

This first one is probably the oldest car in the event. I talked with the owner but do not remember what year it was built. I know there were not too many of these built and some were melted down for their aluminum to build WW2 aircraft. The guy who has this one has owned it for six years and drives it often. There is the front of a Triumph TR3 in the corner of the photo. This is a Bentley, a British car that I believe is still being built and is in a class with Rolls Royce:


This is the interior of the Bentley. The owner and his navigator wore period costumes, including leather head wrapping helmets while on the road:


I have loved the look of the Jaguar XKE since it was introduced, I think about 1961. It's lines just kind of epitomize what I think a sports car should look like. I think there are some similarities in shape with the Miata and that may be why I like Miatas so well. This is a great example of an XKE:


The last MGBs were built in 1980. By then the company had been sold and was under the same ownership as Triumph. The owner's decided to drop the MG sports car and concentrate on building the Triumph line. Some years later a British heritage group acquired the molds for body panels for the MGB and started building a few cars, using the aluminum V8 that Rover had purchased from General Motors and was used in Buick & Oldsmobile mid-size care in the early 1960s. This made a pretty high performance car out of the MGB.

I don't know if this is one of those cars but think it is a US car from the late 1970s that the owner has modified. But, he has added that same V8 engine & 5-speed transmission, along with a nitrous oxide system for additional power when wanted. The engine seems to fit pretty well:


Any car club that had at least three entries of their members was competing for a trophy. My Club Miata NW had six or eight and the winner of our trophy also won last year and I think someone told me she won the year before. She likes this event and is always an early entrant. Here is her Miata, with it's number 18 on the windshield:


One of the more exotic of the newer sports cars is the Lotus Elise. There were two of them in the event, including this yellow 2005 model. Cars with fewer than 3, or not in a car club, competed in an open category against each other for a trophy:


I like this photo as it combines two veteran British sports cars, a Morgan in the foreground and an MGB behind it. The other Lotus is behind the Morgan but you can't see much of it. Mt. Baker is also visible in the background:


I have other car photos and may use them at times in the future. This was the first car rally I have been on in quite a few years. Annie & I used to go on this event on a regular basis and enjoyed it a lot. It was still as much fun but as much as I like L, I wish my Annie were still here to go on them with me. I guess maybe she is still there in the car. Wonderful memories.