Saturday June 16th was an all around winner. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. Thirteen Triumphs and over two dozen NET members gathered at Prospect Hill Park in Waltham, MA to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of New England Triumphs. This is the very spot where the first gathering of NET took place in June of 1977.

     With a scheduled start time of 1:15pm, I figured I’d get there a few minutes early so I shot for 1pm. After all, I was transporting the birthday cake; I didn’t want to be late. Well, as I pulled into the parking lot I was pleasantly surprised to see at least 8 Triumphs all lined up. Tire kicking and general B.S.ing was already in full swing so, of course, I joined right in. More cars continued to show up and once unofficial Club Historians and charter NET members Jack and Jane Nixon arrived it was time to cut the cake!

     The park wasn’t too crowed and we easily found an area with several picnic tables for the cake cutting ceremony. We hastily tied the club banner to some adjacent shrubbery, lit the candles, and sang happy birthday to ourselves (kinda weird, huh?). The cake looked great with the NET logo reproduced on top and tasted even better. It’s nice to know that, no matter how much older NET members get, they’re still riding around in little British sports cars and eating their dessert first!

     After we polished off just about the whole cake, it was time to break camp, fire up the Triumphs and head out on the road. Bob Lang, rally master extraordinaire, did an outstanding job of finding some terrific back roads for us to travel. With his printed directions in hand, we took off in a few small groups but once we got on the “back side” of 128 we were able to pretty much maintain a 13 car caravan through Lincoln and Sudbury. Quite a feat considering today’s traffic.

     In fact, we even added a 14th Triumph (NET member, Ted?,excuse me if I’ve got the name wrong) when we paused for a stop near the Grist Mill, up the road from The Wayside Inn. As luck would have it, a wedding was just getting out and the bride and groom’s limo pulled up near us at the Grist Mill for their photos. Once the bride realized that her wedding wasn’t being crashed by a renegade bunch of Triumph aficionados she was actually able to smile for the camera. It was about this time that we figured we’d caused enough mischief here and saddled up for the rest of the tour.

     The roads and scenery on the remainder of the tour were beautiful although, at one point, we did scare Ellen Sparrow into thinking she was going to need to find reverse! Fortunately Bob Lang was able to keep us moving in a forward direction and we even did a bonus lap of the pond. A roadside thermometer flashed 84 degrees as the caravan of gleaming Triumphs roared past. What a glorious afternoon!

     We arrived at Firefly’s in Marlborough with enough time to stretch our legs, kick more tires, continue B.S.ing and commend Bob on his choice of roads. Once the restaurant opened we shuffled in for some of their self proclaimed "Bodacious Barbeque" and they aren’t kidding! The NET contingent sat down, on the outdoor patio, to great food, cold beer and the swapping of Triumph stories. It doesn’t get much better than that!

     After dinner a few of us, who were going in the same direction home, followed Ned Sparrow on some more twisty back roads to avoid the Interstate and it was the perfect way to cap off the day. So, if you missed this one, I’m sorry to report that you missed a great one. But I’m happy to report that the general principles NET was founded on: social gathering, camaraderie, tire kicking, B.S.ing, and beer drinking are alive and well. Long live NET!