So lets take a look at what these various activities are, starting with the gentler ones and moving on towards the fast and the furious as we go.  The regional parts of the Club are called Centres and the smallest unit within the Centre is the Natter.  A Natter is simply a monthly meeting at a pub in the evening where local Club members and their partners can meet up to chat about all things MG and plan future events. You will find information about Natters on the websites of each Centre which in turn can be found via Home > Centres > United Kingdom. 

You will always find a contact for each Natter and it’s a really good idea to ring the contact before you turn up.  They can tell you which bar everyone will be in or maybe that everyone will be out on an event that evening!  It also means that the Natter leader will be expecting you and can look out for you when you arrive, so as to welcome you properly. 

As we said, several Natters make up a Centre and a Centre can be over 1,000 members, so you would expect Centres to putting on some ambitious events – and you’d be right.  Centres have proper Committee structure and good links with the Club office in Abingdon.  Centres publish an annual calendar of events to all members in that Centre.

These events may take place at one venue, for example a Meet up at somewhere like Brooklands.  A meet-up could include a Pride of Ownership competition, a just-for-fun opinion on whose car people would most like to drive home, often judged by everyone taking part.  It could be a bit more serious and appointed judges would judge cars for originality and preparation – this is called a Concours. Another very popular activity often arranged by Centres is a Run, where cars will all start in one place and travel to another, following a route provided for you in a Road Book.  There is no timing and a Run is not competitive but you can guarantee an interesting route and some excellent banter between the driver and the navigator!  Sometimes there may be clues to solve along the way, in which case the event would normally be called a Treasure Hunt. Centres also organise competitive sporting events such as Trials.  A Trial may take place entirely on one piece of private land or be arranged something like a Run but with trips off the road every so often onto private land for a slippery climb up a hilly lane.  Fabulous fun and great for your car control skills but it’s likely to mean you are going to be jet-washing your car afterwards! 

A Production Car Trial is for pretty much standard cars, whilst a Trial might also include classes for specially prepared cars. If your Centre, or a nearby one, has access to a large tarmac area they might organise an Autotest, a true test of driving skill run against the clock.  A course made up of traffic cones is laid out and you have to manoeuvre round it in the quickest time, without hitting the cones.  A variant of this is the Autosolo, with an easier course but perhaps a bit more speed and with no reversing involved.  Spread around the UK, there are Hillclimb venues, usually a tarmac private drive or road where competitors go against the clock to find out who can get up the hill quickest.  There are often classes for relatively standard cars with just common sense safety modifications.  Do the same thing on the flat, probably over a part lap of a racing circuit and you have a Sprint.  There will be plenty of Hillclimb and Sprint competitors in your Centre, ask around to find out more about these exciting speed events. Registers are of course focused on particular MG models, so you can imagine that Meet ups and Runs are the most common events they organise.  Often, of course, these may include Concours and/or Pride of Ownership.  Some Register Runs are very ambitious tours around large parts of the UK or even overseas, making for a holiday themed around your favourite type of MG!  Most Register events are open to all types of MG but this is not always practical for various reasons, so it’s always a good idea to check if this is OK first, before entering for the event. If you really want to know if you can drive and have a need for speed, then you will probably want to venture out onto a racing circuit. 

'Track Days'

MGs on Track started off as a group of MG enthusiasts who decided to try a bit of self-help.  A few of us had tried the occasional track day, but sometimes found the mix of high powered cars on commercial track days a bit daunting.  These events were quite expensive so we couldn't go to as many as we would like and we also found we enjoyed them much more in the company of fellow MG enthusiasts.

In 2002 we formed MGs on Track and our objective was very simple - to get as many MG owners as we could enjoying track days in each others' company for the cheapest possible price!  This philosophy remains and continues to be our primary aim!

The biggest change to date happened in December 2003 when MGs on Track was taken under the wing of the MG Car Club.  This offer made tremendous sense and secured the operational future of MGs on Track. We have a formally elected committee, all of whom are MG enthusiasts who enjoy driving on track. You can find out more by clicking here