Corvette enthusiasts to converge for Homecoming

[Rob]

Corvette enthusiasts to converge for Homecoming

By ALYSSA HARVEY, The Daily News, aharvey@bgdailynews.com/783-3257
Thursday, August 9, 2007 11:41 AM CDT

Corvettes aren't an unusual sight in Bowling Green, but they will be all over the city with this weekend's 26th annual National Corvette Homecoming.

“This is the biggest that it has been in many years. Attendance was up 10 to 15 percent last year,” homecoming owner and coordinator Joe Pruitt said. “We have more pre-registered cars this year for the show than we've ever had - over 100 showcars. We have more vendors than we've ever had before.”

Gates open at 9 a.m. Friday through Sunday at Western Kentucky University's L.D. Brown Agricultural Exposition Center. Admission is $10. Active duty and veterans of the military, active and retired general motors employees and Western students will be admitted at half price with identification.

The weekend will include a variety of activities, including car shows, seminars, arts and crafts and vendors. There will also be a new show - Sans Pareil - for high-dollar, original Corvettes. Events that have been canceled include an auction and drag racing.

“We aim to be in the top handful (of Corvette Homecomings) in the country,” Pruitt said.

There will also be a Corvette parade Saturday. Corvettes will meet at 5:15 p.m. at Weyerhaeuser's parking lot and leave at 5:30 p.m. The route will go to Elrod Road, Neal Howel Road, Three Springs Road, Plano Road, Scottsville Road, U.S. 31-W By-Pass, University Boulevard and Russellville Road to WahBah! Steelhorse Ranch and Saloon.

“We'd love to have people come out and holler at us and wave,” Pruitt said.

Tony Feckter of Bowling Green is excited about the Corvette Homecoming.

“It has been a lot of fun. I've found it enjoyable,” he said. “I thoroughly enjoy the car.”

Feckter enjoys Corvettes so much that he has two - a 1959 and a 1960 - that are both licensed and drivable.

“I bought the '59 when I got out of the military. It was a used car, and was what I could afford,” he said. “With the '60, I was looking for parts and built it up.”

He said he has been attending the homecoming - whether as a participant or a spectator - since it began in 1980.

Corvette Homecoming founders “Sam Hall and Tom Hill started the homecoming, and I started then. The first year was really small,” he said. “Sometimes I helped out. Sometimes I bought and sold parts. Sometimes I'd just go and enjoy it.”

Feckter believes that people will enjoy the event.

“It's a local Corvette event so people in the area have someplace to go and enjoy it,” he said. “It has a good show. A lot of people have pride in their cars and want to take them to where people see them.”

Pruitt agreed.

“We encourage everyone to come out and look at some gorgeous cars,” he said.

- For more information about the Corvette Homecoming, call 791-2117 or visit the event Web site at http://www.corvettehomecoming.com.

Corvette Homecoming schedule

Friday

6 p.m. - Cruise-In starting at the Baymont Inn

7 p.m. - Music by the Jackie Fox Band and food and refreshments in front of the Baymont Inn

Saturday

9 a.m. - Gates open at Western Kentucky's L.D. Brown Agricultural Exposition Center. Admission is $10 for adults and free for children under 12.

Activities will include:

Arts and crafts marketplace featuring handmade goods

Vendor swap meet with auto parts

Car corral open to all makes and models

Registration for car shows is $40 for two days and $15 for each additional show class

10:30 a.m. - Bob Stevens will present “Evolution Of The Corvette” in Classroom 2

11:30 a.m. - Tom Hill will present “Engineering Of 2008 Corvette” outside with factory display

noon - Drivers meeting for Corvette show cars

12:15 p.m. - Car shows judged by retired and active GM factory employees

1 p.m. - Celebrity Select. All Corvettes with paid admission are eligible

1 p.m. - John Ballard will present “Recognizing Factory Correctness” outside at lift

2 p.m. - Vera Pruitt will present “All About Me!” in Classroom 2

3 p.m. - Wil Cooksey will present “Q & A With Plant Manager Of GM Assembly Plant” in Classroom 2

4:15 p.m. - Autographs to include celebrity judges

5:15 p.m. - All Corvette Parade

Sunday

9 a.m. Gates open at Western Kentucky University's L.D. Brown Agricultural Exposition Center. Admission is $10 for adults and free for children under 12.

Activities will include:

Arts and crafts marketplace featuring handmade goods

Vendor swap meet with auto parts

Car corral open to all makes and models

Registration for car shows is $15 for one day and $15 for each additional show class

9:30 a.m. - Devotional led by Bob Bean in Classroom 2

10:30 a.m. - Bob Stevens will present “History Of Corvette Styling” in Classroom 2

noon - All GM Show featuring all GM vehicles, including Corvette

noon - Reunion show open To all '57, '67, '77 and '87 Corvettes

noon - Sans Pareil show open to a select few Corvettes

3 p.m. - Awards presentations

 

[Zippy]

Sounds great!

I'm planning on going Sunday.

 

[Scott Winebarger]

Missed it and I am only 4 hours away... Where is my head anymore.... Ok no guesses!

 

[JohnGrawcock]

Missed it and I am only 4 hours away... Where is my head anymore.... Ok no guesses!

:booty Who's guessing.

 

[Scott Winebarger]

You are just wrong !

I hope everyone is having fun at the Baymont!

 

[Rob]

Corvette Homecoming returns

Bragging, buying, shooting the bull all part of annual event

By RACHEL ADAMS, The Daily News, radams@bgdailynews.com
Saturday, August 11, 2007 9:10 PM CDT

Hundreds of Corvettes in all colors and varieties glistened in the sun Saturday, parked in neat rows on the parched grass of the L.D. Brown Agricultural Exposition Center for National Corvette Homecoming.

Corvette enthusiasts snapped photos and paused to talk with car owners as the owners themselves sought refuge from the sun beneath tents, under trees or in front of large misting fans. A team of green-shirted judges moved through the crowd, marking down scores on clipboards for the show and shine contest, their impending arrival spurring attendees to polish the hood or run a lint brush over the soft top one more time.

“It's been going so great - if it wasn't so blasted hot!” said Karen Johnson of Nashville, who relaxed in a camp chair near her husband's 1954 roadster. “We come to Bowling Green frequently. We come to the (Corvette) museum several times a year.”

Dale Johnson said he bought the car nearly six years ago in Atlanta. Since then, it's been completely disassembled and rebuilt, complete with a new red paint job. Everything on the car gleamed - the paint, the windows, the chrome - including the undercarriage, which he said was as spotless as the engine.

“What it is today is a brand new 1954 Corvette, and it has 27 miles on it,” he said. “This car's much better than any car you'd get in 1954.”

The Corvette bug bit Dale Johnson more than 40 years ago, a sickness that's been hard to shake since, he said.

“I've always liked Corvettes,” he said. “I had my first Corvette in 1963. ... I ordered a new Corvette, and ever since then I've had Corvettes off and on.”

The Johnsons were invited to Bowling Green by Joe Pruitt, event coordinator of National Corvette Homecoming, and decided to come mingle with other owners and show off their vehicle, which even sports a Tennessee license plate from 1954. The couple said they were enjoying themselves even if it was a bit hot.

During the show and shine contest, the roadster, which placed first in several Tennessee shows earlier this year as well as first place in shows in Houston and Cincinnati, received another award from Rep. Jim DeCesare, R-Bowling Green. DeCesare was one of several “celebrity judges,” including Mayor Elaine Walker and Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon, who perused the cars in search of their favorites, which they presented with helium-filled balloons. Dale Johnson wasted no time in tying his to the car, where the star-shaped “You're No. 1!” balloon bobbed in the breeze.

Farther down the row, Walter Edwards stood near his 2005 coupe, polishing it with a towel. The Oshawa, Canada, resident drove the Corvette 15 hours to Bowling Green, along with 11 other members of the Corvettes of Durham club.

The story of how he got the car begins several years ago with a conversation with the woman who's now his wife. Edwards told her, “ ‘I have to get a Corvette before I get married.' ”

He continued, “So she went out and bought me one right away. Then we had to get married - there was no backing out.”

He and his wife, married in a “Corvette wedding” in October 2006, love to tour with the car - he loves “the style and the ride of it,” he said.

The trip to Bowling Green this weekend saw his first visit to the Corvette museum and the GM plant. The experience was so wonderful he plans to return next year, he said.

“The plant tour was the highlight,” he said. “That was really amazing.”

Corvette owner Carolyn Hankins of Dixon, Tenn., didn't drive quite as far as Edwards to reach Bowling Green, but was nevertheless enjoying her first National Corvette Homecoming event. She bought the 1977 car about four years ago, something her husband, owner of a 1976 Stingray, encouraged her to do.

“He said, ‘You need one to drive, too,' ” she said.

The car, with its bright-yellow paint and swirling pink flames, attracted a lot of attention and made Haskins chuckle at the memory of how the paint job came about. Her husband was driving the car at 120 mph when the front spoiler came off, breaking a fender in the process.

“He looked at me and said, ‘This is going to cost me,' ” she said. “I said, ‘Yes, dear.' ”

Hankins, a member of the Clarksville Corvette Club, said she was enjoying meeting other Corvette owners. The bond between Corvette owners is strong but hard to explain, she said - when her husband's Corvette blew its motor while they were driving along with about 40 other Corvettes last year, every single car pulled over to the side of the highway to help. It's an unwritten rule of the road, she added, that someone driving a Corvette waves at anyone they see driving a Corvette.

“It's a great event, it really is,” she said. “Corvette people are a breed of their own. They're wonderful people.”

This year's event is proceeding “very well,” said Pruitt, who along with his wife, Vera, coordinates National Corvette Homecoming, although he offers his apologies to anyone inconvenienced by a traffic backup Saturday morning.

“We had 'em I think lined up close to the Natcher Parkway trying to get them in here,” he said.

The weekend-long festivities have grown every year, Joe Pruitt said, as Corvette owners return to the city where their cars were crafted.

“We're just tickled and proud to have this event here in Bowling Green,” he said.

 

[Rob]

Vettetastic project to boost Red Cross

By RACHEL ADAMS, The Daily News, radams@bgdailynews.com
Saturday, August 11, 2007 9:10 PM CDT

The 2007 National Corvette Homecoming was the perfect backdrop Saturday as the American Red Cross' South Central Kentucky chapter announced Vettetastic, a public art project that will pepper southcentral Kentucky with smaller and funkier versions of 1957 Corvettes.

“Today is a new day in the Corvette legacy,” said Chris Allen, WBKO meteorologist and Red Cross volunteer. “This is one of those things that comes once in a lifetime.”

Similar to Lexington's Horse Mania and Chicago's Parade of Cows, Vettetastic invites people the nation over to sponsor a fiberglass Corvette - one at 1:2.8 scale that measures five feet long, two feet wide and 18 inches tall - that they may, along with the artist of their choice, decorate as they please. Come 2008's National Corvette Homecoming, the numbered collector pieces will be auctioned off, with the proceeds supporting the local American Red Cross.

Anyone can sponsor a Corvette, even if they live in another state, said Vettetastic project coordinator Sharon Durie. American Red Cross chapters in the hometowns of those sponsors will receive $400 of the $2,995 sponsorship fee.

“There has already been nationwide interest in this, so you'd better move fast,” Allen said. “Believe me, this is ... the biggest fundraiser and the biggest effort made ever by this chapter.”

Vettetastic will return biannually, Allen said, with anticipated future models being the '63 split window coupe in 2010, the '68 Stingray in 2012, the C5 in 2014 and the Z06 in 2016.

The American Red Cross hopes to secure sponsorships for the 300 available cars by Sept. 30, said Jennifer Capps, executive director of southcentral Kentucky's American Red Cross. Cars should be delivered to sponsors in early 2008, with cars returning to the region in mid-May and being displayed through mid-August.

Local residents will be invited to participate in treasure hunts, self-guided tours, a People's Choice Award and many other activities, Capps added.

Bowling Green Mayor Elaine Walker and Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon attended the news conference and expressed their excitement for Vettetastic. Walker called it “an excellent project,” while Buchanon said it was an “outstanding idea.”

- For more information, contact the local Red Cross at 781-7377.