April 20-22, 2006
National Corvette Museum
Bowling Green, KY
This was a landmark trip.
I would not be returning to Maine in the same Corvette I
left home in.
The trusty old '97 C5 that had been with us
since the beginning in 1998 had over 200,000 miles on it.
The
bridle would be passed to a new C6 in a special ceremony in front of the
National Corvette Museum.
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(Most of the photos that include me were taken by Russ
Caron; a couple were copied from the NCM website.)
Monday, April 17
The trusty '97 leaves its home of 8 years for the last
time...
Tuesday April 18
After an overnight stop with my parents in
Philadelphia, it was on to Bowling Green.
The Corvette Plant as seen from I-65 just
before Exit 28.
Stats for the final trip in the ol' girl.
Not too shabby, and as much of a pleasure as it had always been!
Parked on the circle at the National Corvette
Museum while I tracked down where the new C6 was and how to retrieve it.
The last time I had seen it was on April 9 when
it left my house in Maine on Dick Borchers' flatbed.
The car was at Museum Exec. Director
Wendell Strode's beautiful 1869 Homestead B&B a few miles out of town.
Thomas Watts
kindly drove me out there.
Dinner that evening at the Santa Fe with Frank
& Bettie Noerr from CA and Aida & George Walden from WA.
Wednesday April 19
The day was spent running errands around town,
washing the old car, getting acquainted with the new car,
telling it's story,
showing off the odometer on the old car, etc.
In a quick walk through the Museum I found this
in a back staging area: the ACTUAL Indy 500 Pace Car,
the one that Lance
Armstrong will drive at the 2006 Memorial Day Race!
Evening dinner at 440 Main with the Faveros,
Bishops, Kilgos and Quackenbushes.
After dinner, I put in an appearance with the
"Lot Lizards" behind the Baymont.
The "fire" on this black C6 caught my eye, and the flash!
Thursday April 20
The old and the new Vettes spent the day out in
front of the Museum...
...while I set up the usual display in the
Atrium, right next to the C5/C6 Registry table. Selling 50/50 tickets.
Promoting
the C6 fund drive. Had a slide show running all day.
Thursday Evening: The "NCM Thanks Dave
Hill" Dinner
Friday April 21
Pretty much a repeat of Thursday - cars
outside, me inside at the display.
Friday Evening: Corvette Racing Dinner
As usual, the C6-R racing drivers Johnny
O'Connell and Ron Fellows were all the entertainment
anybody could handle! This
could be a second career for these guys...
After dinner it was time to go to work. In the
Convention Center parking lot, under some pretty bright lights, Paul and
I, with help from Jim Miller,
installed the smaller sponsor logo and club
decals... now that it had finally stopped raining! 11:30 pm finish.
Saturday April 22
This was the big day for the C6
Presentation and the C5 Auction!
Up at the crack of dawn to wash both cars (it
had been raining off & on ever since I arrived in Bowling Green on Tuesday
afternoon.)
Then to finish transferring everything from the old to the new. I
almost overlooked the EZPASS toll transponder hidden up behind the mirror.
The final odometer reading of my ownership.
What memories... they were great miles!
At about 10:00 we brought both cars up to the
front of the circle and opened up the old car so potential bidders could look it
over. It still looked incredibly good!
The C6 Presentation
At the designated time of 10:30, Paul Eggermann
took the mike and explained to the crowd how he conceived the idea to raise
money
to buy the new C6 so that I could continue Sandy's Corvettes Conquer
Cancer mission. I thanked him and all who helped make it happen,
and
thanked Sandy for pulling some strings up there to bring out the sun for the
occasion!
Retired Corvette Chief Engineer Dave Hill then
read this plaque (donated by Great Lakes Trophy) and then presented me with the keys as Paul looked on.
The C5 Auction
The auction of the old car had a little
different twist: the high bidder would split the bid and write 2 checks for
equal amounts; one to the
American Cancer Society and one to the National
Corvette Museum. Both are tax deductible. Then I would sell them the car for
$1.00.
The auctioneer did his thing, and in a few
minutes the car was sold, at $11,300!
I couldn't have been any happier when I
saw who got the car, and they couldn't either!
Roman and Marilyn Sabadaszka first met Sandy and me at the Black Hills Classic
in 1998 during our 2nd month on the road.
They were volunteers manning the NCM
booth right next to us in Spearfish, SD. Marilyn was in tears, and she wasn't
alone...
Roman got to write the checks.
The first one for $5650 went to Jessica Jones
from the American Cancer Society's Bowling Green office.
The second, for the same amount, was presented to
Wendell Strode, Executive Director of the National Corvette Museum.
As promised, I sold Roman and Marilyn the car
for $1.00.
Happy Birthday Roman! (Yes, it was his birthday!)
I had them sign the $1 bill and the fuel rail
cover on the C6.
But wait, it gets even better:
The Sabadaszkas announced that they were
immediately placing the car on loan to the National Corvette Museum
for 2 years.
When they get it back, they will take it back home to Alpharetta,
GA where they will leave it exactly as it is...
and continue to take it to
Corvette shows, raising money
for the American Cancer Society!
It just doesn't get any better than this! The outcome exceeded my wildest
fantasy:
that the winner would simply donate the car to the Museum!
Here is the car as I last saw it: in a back
storage building (with a '53) as it awaits it's display time in the Museum.
(I
signed the fuel rail cover with a "Thank You" to the new owners!)
NOTE: In June the car was on the
turntable in the front window by the entrance
to the Museum! Tom Rohrer sent me
this photo:
Saturday Evening Banquet & Auction
The new Corvette Chief Engineer, Tom Wallace, gave
us some thoughts on the best job in the world, if not one with a lot of chance
for advancement.
No Corvette Chief Engineer has ever been promoted! (His 3
predecessors all retired from the position.)
As usual, I finished selling the 50/50 tickets,
with half the total receipts going to the lucky ticket holder and half to the
American Cancer Society.
Tom Wallace drew the winning ticket for the $1276
winner's half.
The winner, NCM Lifetime Member Tom Vickers, declined the prize,
and told me to keep it to further the cause! This was the first time at this
event
that the winner donated his share back to us, and was the crowning touch
for an incredible day! Thank you Tom!
Sunday April 23
After packing up my display and getting it all
(yes, all) into the C6's somewhat smaller bay for the first time, I moved it
down for a photo behind
Sandy's memorial brick on the front walk under the big sign at the NCM entrance.
Here you can see the panel on the door which lists the names
of the individuals
and organizations who helped make this car possible. The silver group at the bottom
of the door contributed $100 or more, and the
gold group are donors of $500 and
up. There are a lot of familiar names on the door: 23 of them also contributed
to that brick, back in 2000!
After final goodbyes to the wonderful folks in
the Museum, I was ready to leave for home. Harold Holeman of C5reations
came by and I teased him
that I still had space on the car for his logo. He said
he would like to do that in the near future, and then offered to put his
"stretch bra" front
bumper mask and mirror covers
on the car, right then and there; an offer I
couldn't refuse! It only took him about 20 minutes to install the mask and the
necessary attaching hardware!
(I noticed something unusual on the way home... see below.*)
Time to hit the road back to Maine.
* On the way home, I had occasion to pass through some construction
areas that had those portable radar signs showing "YOUR SPEED IS ##".
I noticed that, with 3 cars passing by the radar unit in close formation, I could
see the readout for all 3 of us. We were obviously traveling at exactly the same
speed, but the display showed 70 mph for the guy in front of me, 63
for me and 70 for the guy behind me! This was confirmed in a later
construction zone. What do we have here? Is this mask on the nose some kind of a
stealth radar tricker? The mask is a black spandex kind of fabric, not the
typical vinyl upholstery material most bras are made of, so maybe it is a lousy
surface for the radar signal to bounce off. When I got home, I called Harold to
thank him, and told him what I had observed. He was astounded, and said he'd
have to pay attention to that in the future, thinking it could be a heluva
marketing tool! (;-)
Monday April 24
After a quick overnight stop
at the Motel 6 (no comments...) in Carlisle, the home stretch was almost entirely in moderate to
heavy rain.
Final stats. It's strange to see the odometer
reading only 4 digits instead of 6...
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To
wrap up this trip and bring it back to the PRIMARY MISSION, we were able to
raise
$7126.00
for the American Cancer Society's Bowling Green office.
($5650 from the C5 sale + 1276 50/50 + $200 in check
donations)
The National Corvette
Museum also got $5650.00 from the C5 sale.
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