Monthly Archives: August 2017

[Two MOGSouth Members flew both the Morgan and MOGSouth flags on the 2017 race track in Put-In- Bay Ohio.  This report (and the pictures) is from Rick Frazee.   Rick is in the yellow car in the pictures.   He and Jim Besst did battle with the other race cars and it would appear hay bales.  I have yet to get there but will find a way some time in the future.  Mark]

2017 Put-In-Bay races are done for another year.  The races are staged every year (8th year in a row) on the airport runways of Bass Island in Lake Eire.  In the 50’s the races were run through town on the city streets.   While my Morgan continues to improve in speed and reliability we still had a few problems.

This time what we thought was Weber carb jetting problems turned out to be an intermittently bad Petronix coil.    Luckily Jim Besst (another Morgan racer) had a spare coil, that I had given him some time ago, with him.

Race day brought rain showers that made the track a bit slick.    The final race was going well when about 3 laps into a 10 lap race, at one of the quick right left corners, a dive bombing MG TD forced me off my line and into a hay bale that a previous car had bumped out into the edge of the track.    While I knew something was wrong I did continue on for another lap.   Steering seemed to be getting progressively harder so I exited the track at my paddock entrance only to be stopped by the paddock steward and told to reverse.    He then proceeded to remove a complete hay bale still tied with string.    Once removed everything worked as it should with no damage to the Morgan other than a small crack in the left rear fiberglass fender.   The Morgan is all cleaned up as of this morning and we will leave Put-In-Bay for another year and head on to Watkins Glen Sunday to race at the Glen the following weekend.

Jim Besst’s Morgan 4/4, in the same race, made 9 1/2 laps before missing a corner and landing on top of some hay bales keeping Jim from finishing the last half of the last lap.  No apparent damage to Jim’s Morgan either.

[This photo came from Jim Besst, showing his green 4/4 in good form with Rick trailing (for the moment.)  The photo courstesy Daniel Mainzer.  Cheers, Mark]  

At the final lunch it was suggested that the airport authority was looking to offer me a job sweeping the goose poop from the airport run ways.

Cheers Y’all.   Rick

[This photo from Steve Cripps of Rick and hay bale (goose poop sweeping?) came in after the post.  Thanks Steve. ] 

Vintage cars parade through Charleston, gather at gardens on Collector Appreciation Day

[Great showing Ken!! We all need to fly the Morgan Flag when we can!! Mark]

In a role reversal, Brad and Connie Rustin inherited their shiny 1968 Datsun 2000 from their son.  The couple bought the roadster more than a decade ago and fixed it up over eight years — including a complete frame-off restoration — so their son would have a cool car to drive when he was old enough. The teenager enjoyed some hours behind the wheel but as he matured, shot up to 6 foot 5 inches. Now he “can’t get into it,” says Brad Rustin, who too has a personal interest in the car. “I actually owned a 1967 1/2 when I was in the Marine Corps,” he said.

Rustin husband and wife motored the classic Japanese sports car in a parade-like morning drive and parked it at Magnolia Gardens for a show July 15 in recognition of National Car Collector Appreciation Day. The collector day cruise-in, rekindled in 2016, attracted 52 cars this year, said Trevor Shelor, head of the local Antique Automobile Club of America chapter and appreciation day organizer. He brought three models — a 1953 Ford, 1926 Model A with a 19th century sleigh built for the seats and the city of Charleston’s 1949 Chevy police car.   “Just celebrate the day how ever you can,” Shelor said.

The Charleston area began celebrating National Car Collector Appreciation Day in 2010. The congressionally authorized event sponsored by the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association takes place in July, with localities selecting dates. Charleston has the only sanctioned event in South Carolina.

In the Lowcountry, the car collector day originally was a show, then evolved into a parade loop from Brittlebank Park around downtown Charleston. Last year, the parade started in Mount Pleasant due to a conflict at the Ashley River site. The car show returned last year at Magnolia Gardens, as models crossed the Ashley River and followed S.C. Highway 61 west. For 2017, the collector car route followed Savannah Highway to Davison Road near Hollywood, headed out toward Summerville, then turned east on S.C. Highway 61 to the plantation.

Justin Hustead of West Ashley wheeled his red 1933 Plymouth street rod with all-steel body and Corvette engine to the cruise-in, held on a grassy field near the sprawling house at Magnolia Gardens. The collector day drive and show was “fine,” said the antique car owner, who bought the 84-year-old Plymouth a year ago in Florida.

Displaying a 1967 Morgan Plus 4 with Kingfisher blue paint was Ken Kreuzer of Summerville. “In Europe, you can still get one,” he says.

Most of the attendees were from the Charleston area, although there were exceptions. Khushi and Sethi Salil of New York were visiting Charleston for the first time and went to Magnolia Gardens. They saw the car fest and came by to check out the classics.

“I’ve never been around Charleston,” said Jeffrey McCants, of Brevard, North Carolina, who displayed his 2014 Chevy Camaro. “We were actually on vacation and heard about it,” he said. McCants is fond of Camaros, noting that his father owned a 1988 model. “It’s cool,” McCants said.