So how the heck does something like this happen to a plain old TR6?
 And yes...... that's me and my car!

This is the February 2009 issue, but to understand how it all came about you have to roll the clock back to spring 2008. First off, you have to understand that I'm a letter writer........i.e. Letters to the Editor of newspapers and magazines. It can be about something I like or something I don't like. In the past I've had my letters published in various newspapers, TV Guide, Golf Digest, Car & Driver and Tennis Magazine.  Sometimes I write to compliment them on a great article or to offer a suggestion. In this case it started with a suggestion............ Hemmings is in the process of restoring an MGB which will then be donated to the Good News Garage Vermont and ultimately given to someone in need of a car.......in this case it will be a really cool car! In reading that they were preparing to do the wire harness, I wrote to Craig FitzGerald (Editor) that they should consider a modern harness from Advance Auto Wire. This is the company that Dan Masters started and whose harness I installed back in 2004. The email was sent from my Triumph mail address and all of that email carries my signature that says:

The next thing I knew, Craig had visited my site and said that they might be interested in doing an article on my car. They liked all the upgrades that had been done to build in reliability and drivability. At this point it was sometime in June 2008 so I mentioned that I was considering attending their car show at Stratton Mountain Vermont but it seemed to be a rather "stuffy" show with the 2nd day of it being invitation only. The first day is open to everyone however. Craig insisted that I'd have a good time and to come on up. So in July, I made the 3 hour drive to Stratton on a beautiful summer day. As soon as I pulled in and parked my car, Craig came over and introduced himself and spent some time looking the car over and being particularly blown away by the TBI installation. Later on in the day Richard Lentinello (editor in chief) and his son stopped by. Richard has three Triumphs, '60 TR3, '67 GT6 & a '68 Spitfire so he was very interested in all the upgrades that had been done and how well they were integrated into the car. He agreed that they would do an article later in the summer or early fall. Well magazine publishing moves to a different calendar than the rest of us so in mid October it was time for another email asking if they were still interested. I mentioned that I also had an email from Tim Studdard, the editor of Classic Motorsports, saying he had seen my web site and might be interested in doing an article. Craig FitzGerald and Matt Litwin came down on election day and spent about 4 hours taking hundreds of pictures. After seeing the car, photographing the car and getting to drive the car, Craig said he would definitely do an article in either the next issue or the one after that. In early December I got an email from Craig saying the car would be in the "next" issue and that I would be pleasantly surprised but wouldn't say why. Well, once again publishing calendars and normal folk's calendars don't jive and the "next" issue wasn't January but February. And that's how it all happened.

Here's a whole page on me taking pictures of them taking pictures. I loved it when they just parked the car diagonally across one lane of the road to take a bunch of pictures! The cover picture was taken with Craig lying on the floor of their SUV with the tailgate open and us driving about 15 mph down the road. He kept motioning for me to get closer and I probably got to within 6 feet of his bumper.

The only bad thing to come of this article was that in my haste to get them to the Orchard for the rest of the pictures, I left my sweet wife Jeanne home! I forgot her..............and then we made the cover...... without her in the car! Bad Bob......bad.....bad......bad