The Chairman’s Award

Richard Skidmore (Former President, Ontario MG T Register)

One of our club’s oldest and most coveted awards is the Chairman’s Award which was first presented in 1971. This award is presented to the T-type car that accumulates the greatest odometer mileage during the period from one Spring GOOF to the following Spring GOOF. This is also limited to Ontario based cars due to our limited driving season.

Of course, the first question is “Why is it called the “Chairman’s Award” since our executive is headed by a president? Well back in 1971 our chief executive was called Chairman. Simple as that! The trophy was personally made by Sam Weller, a co-founder of our club. Sam designed and made the trophy as you see it today and you might suspect that the engine parts used were all MG. Sorry to disillusion you – the piston is a from lawnmower, make unknown, and the valves and gear are from a Volkswagon …. but don’t tell anyone. A bit of historical MG lore was added when Henry Stone of Abington visited our club in the mid 1980’s. He presented the club with the octagonal brass plate now affixed to the right front corner. This plate was an inventory plaque from one of the machines in the Abington factory that produced our T-cars, over the years. I doubt that very many clubs have a piece of MG history of this nature.

The Chairman’s Award has been presented every year without fail since 1971. Some years it was hotly contested with two or more drivers attempting to accumulate the winning miles and engaging in good natured ribbing as the miles rolled on. In 1996 Bob Grunau and Andrew Patenall drove to the limits to decide the winner. Andrew Patenall drove the TB to Vancouver, approximately 6000 miles, to be declared the winner by 2,659 miles but both Bob and Andrew drove over 10,000 miles. The TB was also the oldest car to receive the Chairman’s Award.

In other years the winner was someone who wasn’t competing for the award but accumulated the most miles just from the enjoyment of driving their MG.

As at 2006, the winning mileage has ranged from 957 miles in 2009 to 17,860 miles by Jay Moszynski in 1982. The average winning mileage is 5,750 over the years. In 2011 the total mileage exceeded 230,000 miles!

Winning cars have been: TB – 1, TC 8, TD – 21, TF – 9, and Arnolt – 1.

Following is a listing of all the past winners and the mileage achieved and our congratulations to you all: