At least twenty five cars and their people began showing up at South Towne Mall around 9:00 on the sunny and warm Saturday morning. The cars cooled off a while as people mingled. Around 10:00 we all got under way, from time to time following Duff Lawson in his yellow Mini heading east and then south over the hills to Alpine. Les and Laurette Marx in their white TR3 and Fred and Jenny Pink who have a Spitfire on the way back to usefulness saw us off. They did not do the Alpine Loop this time, but hopefully found us to be a tolerable group and will join us for future BMCU events.
In Alpine at the Chevron station a few additional cars joined our convoy and raised our numbers to at least twenty eight vehicles. Roger Dotson and perhaps others arranged with the ranger station/toll booth to let us all by as a group. Up we went between great numbers of SUVs and pick-ups parked along the narrow Loop road, not to mention the odd horse trailer and tow-vehicle, some moving toward us on the road, some not. On the east bound grade well past the Timpanogos Cave Visitor Center an ancient fuel pump in Rob Foye’s TR4 decided it had enough. After determining the problem was not going to lend itself to being a roadside fix, Rob was able to coast back down to civilization and obtain assistance getting the car home. A dark blue TR 250(?) peeled off from our group waving farewell below Sundance. Bill Beecher led many of us off the main road to Heber toward Midway. Some of us got caught behind a Volkswagen Jetta nursing a flat tire toward flashpoint while driving on it past the service stations in Midway. By the time we got around him, we were on our own to find the park, which turned out to not be very difficult. Our thanks to Bill for making arrangements with the Heber City Park for the cones that guided us across the grass and perhaps for permission to be there at all.
Belatedly a sign-up sheet was started about the time people were leaving the park. A couple in a yellow Spitfire missed signing the sheet. Here are the names of those who did sign and sometimes their car: Terry Rees, David Rees, Mat Brown, Roger and Jill Davis Sunbeam Alpine, Dawn & Kimberly Owens Mini Cooper, Tyson Tanner, Jim Stover & Linda Jennings TR6, Rich Wayland & Emma Sunderland TR 250, Barry & Denny Blackett TR6, Susan & Jon Hermance 48 MG TC, Floyd & Kathy Inman plus granddaughters Elle & Cate 52 MG Y, Bob & Valerie Lex(sp?) MGA, Ed Nielson 72 TR6, Larry & Stephanie Farrington 76 TR6, Bill Beecher 58 TR3, Roger Dotson 58 MGA, John Progess 62 MGA, Steve Nelson 54 MG TF, Dan Schweikert 02 Jaguar XK8, Kevin Cowan 76 MGB, Duff Lawson 62 Mini, Chris Dunbeck, Patrick Wong Spitfire. My apologies to anyone I missed or whose name I failed to decipher correctly from the sign-up sheet.
-Jon Hermance
