Michelin Bash 2018
National Corvette Museum
Bowling Green KY
April 26-28
Always one of my favorite events, but this year it was a bit disappointing. Even with Shari O'Brien's help we only raised $215 for the American Cancer Society's Bowling Green office. We attribute this to the fact that we could no longer sell 50/50 tickets or draw the winning ticket at the closing banquet.
Thursday, April 26
Departing Decatur AL (early start to avoid Nashville traffic)
Arrival at NCM
Setup in lobby
More outside
Thursday Evening
Corvette Racing Banquet
NCM Conference Center
On podium: L-R, Wes Wong, Doug Fehan, Harlan Charles, Lee Willard (Michelin racing tire engineer)
Back at the Microtel for the night, this was in the parking lot: A Holden Ute, all the way from Australia!
Friday, April 27
Fellow Vets with Vettes club member DeWayne Hasencamp signs the hood for his donation to the American Cancer Society.
GM VP for Performance Cars, Jim Campbell, stopped by for a visit. We met him at Bloomington Gold in 1998, when he had been on the job as Corvette Brand Manager for 2 weeks.
Saturday, April 28
A quick walk through the museum before packing up
Roy Orbison's '67
Extreme high mileage 2000 C5 - 773,338 miles, on the original engine!
As always, I checked the status of Sandy's Brick.
Time to head for home.
Tick
The Gator!
Coming out of Nashville on I-65, I was slammed by a highway alligator (a tire tread) thrown from a vehicle ahead of me. The first few photos below are screen captures from the dashcam video of the event.
As you can see from the video, this was not the usual flat alligator, this was still a loop. The crunch as it passed underneath did not bode well. The photos below were taken at Rocket Republic in Madison AL where I stopped for a beer and to assess the damage.
Permanent damage: serious scuffs on the decal, and the air dam underneath: missing! The scuffs and black smudges on the paint rubbed out. The protection provided by that Stretch Bra is amazing!
Back home
