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THE HISTORY OF THE SORRY SAFARI TOURING SOCIETY
INTRODUCTION – AN EXCUSE
BY BRIAN ALDER
In response to several questions about the prior existence of Sorry Safari Touring Society and when the present club was founded and so on. The following, two-part, treatise (I always wanted to write a treatise!) has been composed in an attempt, once and for all, to place the information, in written form, in the hands of those who might wish to read it. Before I give the wrong impression, I should make it clear that I enjoy talking about the subject and that I am not trying to duck or discourage the questions.
Maybe I need a handy reference, too!
THE REINCARNATION OF SORRY SAFARI TOURING SOCIETY
Sorry Safari Touring Society was founded on Wednesday evening, October 25, 1961, at the home of Ed and Betsy Du Chaine in San Lorenzo, California. The history of the club, however, goes back beyond this date to a time when its founding members were all members of another sports car club which held its meetings in a beer and pizza hall on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, The Monkey In.
Monkey In Motor Club, MIMC, during the last portion of the fifties, was the foremost variety rallye club in the East Bay, if not the entire San Francisco Bay Area. When other clubs offered rallyes, the trophies were more or less consistently taken home by MIMC members, but even greater success was enjoyed by the rallyes engineered by MIMC. In these early days of rallying the Bay Area, most clubs were drawing 30 to 60 cars per event, while MIMC rallyes generally drew in the neighborhood of 100 cars. The consistently high attendance at MIMC rallyes was no accident. Their offerings were, without fail, well thought out, well prepared, fun events requiring ever increasing degrees of skill, in a time when the rallyes put on by most other clubs consisted of little more than open road races with enough checkpoints that cards could be drawn to form a poker hand.
Successful as MIMC was, its success was short-lived. Dissention, the plague that has killed many other organizations reared its ugly head, and all but caused the demise of the MIMC. The club did manage to survive for a few more years, but a faction did leave the club. “The Outcasts” as they thought of themselves, met at the Du Chaine’s home that evening in the Fall of 1961 and what emerged was Sorry Safari Touring Society Ltd.
Rallyes concocted by the devious minds of SSTS rapidly became more technical and more demanding and therefore, more enjoyable to the competitive rallyist. SSTS quickly replaced MIMC as the leading Club in the area. The Club had gained its popularity both through the caliber of rallyes it offered to the public and the ability of its rallyists. Members were encouraged to “preview” each rallye before it was offered for public consumption. This was two-fold in purpose. First, it served to test the technical tricks built into the rallye and second, to find and eliminate any mistakes.
A further effect of the preview was that SSTS members were exposed to the sometimes Satanic tricks of its rallyemasters before the general public. The result was a continuing cycle of trickier rallyes produced and more skillful rallyists educated.
During its heyday, the year 1964, club members offered 18 rallyes to the public and although its membership hovered at the level of about 25 individuals, it was quite common to see, in the published results of other club’s rallyes, that six or eight cars of the top ten finishers were from SSTS. This becomes more significant when it is realized that by this time, the average rallye was drawing 100 - 200 cars.
By the beginning of 1965, the better rallyists within the club had burned themselves out. Some quit, some just slacked off in activity, but the days of SSTS as the supreme rallye club were over, and, indeed by 1969, SSTS had ceased to exist except on paper, and in the memories of its former members.
In 1972, those memories were rekindled and SSTS was reborn as a local chapter of the new England MG T Register. In its new guise, SSTS is a club devoted to the MG T series, their maintenance and preservation.
To be Continued..................
PART TWO: WILL THE REAL SSTS PLEASE STAND UP?
The founding of Sorry Safari Touring Society as a local chapter of the New England MG T Register is almost as controversial as the beginnings of the object of our affection. When did SSTS start? – When was the first MG produced? The next paragraphs provide the information for you to form your own conclusion, at least with regard to the article written by Brian Alder.
On Sunday, June 24, 1972, a mini-Mini-GOF was held at the home of Skip and Verna Kelsey. This was a highly successful event and was to pave the way for many more. Early in May the following year, I received a call from Skip asking if Lillie would be interested in joining a local chapter of the NE MG T Register and also asking what the status was of Sorry Safari. I was the last Secretary-Treasurer when SSTS died in 1969, so this was an appropriate question. I told him, “yes, we were interested”, and explained that SSTS still existed on paper and still had a bank account. The Club had been incorporated in the mid-60s, and the dissolution process, I was told would cost more than the bank balance of $139.40, so I took the easy way out.
Upon hearing this, Skip suggested using the name Sorry Safari Touring Society Ltd. for a local chapter. The idea sounded good to me and I told him so, and a date was agreed upon – May 27, 1973.
The following is and excerpt from the minutes of the meeting of that date. “A meeting was held at the home of Skip and Verna Kelsey for the purpose of meeting those persons interested in MG T type cars and discussing with them the resurrection of SSTS”. Now, you decide -sorry- I don’t recall the date of the phone call, my office diary has long since gone up in flames.
From this beginning has risen a phoenix, which strikes fear in the hearts of absolutely nobody, but is known to MGers nationally. Indeed, we have been joined by individuals from Maryland, the Carolinas, Ohio and Wisconsin.
The first West Coast Gathering, GoF West ’73, in Santa Barbara, was attended by SSTS in the persons of Skip and Verna Kelsey, John and Dorothy Brookman and Rich and Vicki Trexler. The Alders, were to have gone, bailed out at the last minute because grandma, the baby sitter, had been delayed in Hong Kong. How’s that for an excuse?
By New Years’ Day 1974, SSTS was six families strong and was to grow to 29 families by the same day in 1975. Since that time, the membership has steadily increased and is now hovering around 45 families.
The year 1974 was an important year for SSTS. Not only was it the year in which the membership saw its largest growth, but it was also the year in which it accepted its greatest challenge – that of co-hosting a major event.
GoF West ’74 was held at the Del Monte Hyatt House in Monterey and was co-hosted by SSTS and the Monterey Peninsula Chapter. This was quite an undertaking considering the size of each club. At this point, SSTS had about 20 families and MPC probably had less than half of that. Neither club was more than about a year old, and no one had ever tried anything remotely resembling a GoF before. Every member in attendance from the two clubs was put to work under the direction of Skip and his co-chairman, Ace Sarich, of MPC. The weekend was a howling success, and the cars made such a it with the community that the two clubs were invited to take part in Pacific Grove’s annual Christmas parade.
For nearly two years, SSTS had struggled with the problem of revising the previous club’s constitution. The old document was a springboard, but changing a rally club constitution to fit an organization dedicated to a specific series of cars from a single mark was not without its difficulties. Finally, on Friday evening the 7th of March 1975, the new constitution was ratified at John and Pat Davis’ home. What could be more fitting than that this should occur in San Lorenzo!
The “Inn of the Seventh Mountain” in Bend, Oregon was the site for GoF West ’75 and SSTS made a strong showing with 12 families caravanning in 22 cars from the Bay Area. Two other families, the Brookmans and the Alders, were also in attendance but were to make the trip in more leisurely fashion.
The major MG event on the West Coast the following year was, of course, GoF West ’76. This time, the location was the Queen Mary in Long Beach. What a majestic site! All those little British cars and that great big British boat! This year also saw the advent of the Mini-GoF on the West Coast and again, SSTS was involved. In May, a number of us participated in the Santa Barbara Chapter’s “Hearst Castle Tour” held at the Golden Tee Lodge in Morro Bay, and in November, SSTS hosted a Mini-GoF at the Los Gatos Lodge – on, of all places, Los Gatos. This event was the first in a series of annual Mini-GoFs, which have bounced around Northern California from Santa Rosa in 1977, to Carmel Valley in 1978, to San Andreas in 1979, and to Sacramento in 1980. These events are enjoyable because they are restricted in size to around not possible at a major GoF with two or three hundred people, and frequently more.
For the thrill of seeing a multitude of noble little cars, nothing can beat GoF West any year. The locations picked for these gatherings have been as interesting as they have been varied. In addition to the above-mentioned site, there has been Olympia, Washington (’77), Vail, Colorado (’78), San Diego (’79), Lake Tahoe (’80) and Spokane, Washington (’81).
GoF West ’80 in North Lake Tahoe was hosted by SSTS. Sorry Safari is the first club to have hosted two West Coast Gatherings. Since 1980, SSTS has been involved and supported GoF West again at North Lake Tahoe in 1993, Monterey in 1998 and Napa in 2001.
Club events have also varied from wine tours to mystery tours, from progressive dinners to camping trips , and from taco feeds to vintage car races, but, so have they remained the same; there is always good food and drink, there are always the cars and best of all, there are always the members of the Sorry Safari Touring Society. The pattern of activities established in these formative years of SSTS continue to this day (October 2001) and at almost 100 strong, SSTS is sailing Safely (Fast) into the new millennium!
Editors note: Brian Alder was a member of SSTS from 1962 until he died in 1985. A very enthusiastic MG’er and SSTS’er, Brian was an avid photographer and has an award for photography named for him at the annual GoF-West. In his will he left his TD to the club so that after some repairs, it could be sold and contribute to the continuance of the club. This was done with the help of many of the members in 1985/86. Brian’s wife Lillie, is a Life member of the club.
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