President's Picnic - A Newbie Perspective

16 September 2013 / Words by Trevor To

It is 6:00am and I get a wake up buzz from Adam Rumjahn with an update on the weather. Rain threatens to ruin the Concours and the event. After receiving a message from Guy Coles and Michael Soulos, it was confirmed that everything was to proceed as normal! President's shout for lunch was still on!

The judges and volunteers arrived at Ebenezer Church by 8:30am to organise the day’s proceedings. The weather was still gloomy but that was the last of the clouds we would see for the day. Cars were lined up in order of NA, NB and NC classes under an amazing warm Sydney spring day. There were four runs which were estimated to arrive around 10:00am from the Sydney, Hunter, Illawarra and RPM Chapters. We saw a total of 70+ MX-5s arrive and attend the day.

All the cars arrived and the proceedings were officially underway. The Concours judges were prepped and judging criteria was carefully run through; it was to be as comprehensive as possible. Six apprentice judges were paired up with six experienced Concours judges to carefully examine the cars from head to toe and every little corner was wiped with our handy white gloves supplied by Reggie Walker. Lunches were starting and the judging was still going with our white gloves turning into an ugly blackish grey colour. The NB and NC classes had a lot of variation from car to car, a lot of places which were commonly missed and big margins between the first and last of the classes. NA class turned out to be the closest of them all, only 3 points separating the eventual winners Colin & Elaine Caldwell and their red NA6 and Adam and his white NA6 ... appropriately parked side-by-side. What turned out to be a loss for Adam was a win for him in the end, as he was awarded Best in Show - definitely well deserved. His 300 hours spent detailing (and a frustrated wife) didn't go to waste!

There were some very interesting cars which showed up. Riko's heavily blinged up NB MX-5, Andrew’s 1.8L V6 NA, and the one which caught my attention the most was Russell's absolutely rare-as NB MX-5 Coupe; one of only two in Australia! We had interesting and we had just pure laughter when vandals (namely Paul Byers and Guy Coles) turned up on Phil Ashton's car to really give it the makeover it really needed: black and red flames with blue and silver rims! And as Phil said, "Loved your work, too bad it was done too late for people's choice".

A great day for a picnic with the Sydney Chapter picking up the majority of the awards. Our President Bryan can confidently say to Guy and Michael, a job well done!

More of David Lawler's fantastic photos can be found on Flickr.