After the extreme, fickle weather of recent weeks, the Marque Sports Car Club Trophy Day was  a joy: 26 degrees and fine with a light breeze.   This was the first time the Association had used the Bethany Reserve in the Barossa Valley for its annual trophy-picnic day on 15th of February 2014.   

We arrived at the same time as the MG club and it was a race to peg out our ‘claim’ for space.   The biggest challenge then was to erect the marquee from a pile of poles and vinyl that we were warned required skill akin to solving a Rubik Cube to assemble.  With surprising logic, dexterity and co-ordination Allana and I completed the task in a time that would match any seasoned camper.  

The main body of cars arrived about 11am and the socialising began in earnest.   Everyone seemed to be in a very relaxed and there was plenty of light hearted banter and laughing.

On their ‘maiden’ display were our new banner flags that Poppy Hawkins (our assiduous Social Secretary) had pressed hard to get from the manufacturer in time for the day.  Poppy also went to a great deal of time and effort to manually extract 23 images from the internet of each model of the MX-5 since its ‘birth’ for a poster which she then had commercially printed for display on on a ‘sandwich-board’ that was personally hand-crafted by husband and Sporting member, Dennis Hawkins.  To complete the display, Poppy also produced a  complementary poster size collage of photos from our club image gallery.   As Club President, I would like to publicly thank and congratulate both Poppy and Dennis for their exceptional effort and support for the the Club.

While the Club did not win the prize for the brightest or shiniest car on display, three of our members did cast a shining light on our club by winning trophies for three motor sport categories.  Congratulations to these three members: Peter Eames, Marque LeMaistre and Ian Duncan, all long-time, dedicated Club motor sport competitors.

In all, we had 25 cars in the club group, enjoyed a comfortable picnic under the dappled shade without without grief from any of the usual irritants like flies, ants and mosquitos and a great day was had by all!

Des Long
Club President
See the images