SUMMER 2006

Every Summer is a Corvette Summer!

“Corvette Summer”…… that was the name of the 1978 movie about a teenage kid and a Corvette starring Mark Hamill before he became a big star in the Star Wars epics.
But when you own a Corvette, every Summer is a Corvette Summer.

It’s that time of the year when you can get your baby out and go places and have FUN with your fellow Corvette enthusiasts. One of my favorite places is Corvettes at Carlisle. This year’s event was no exception. Again “The Hill” was the place to be and what
a view it was from the top. Over 130 1996 C4 Grand Sports were spread out on the Fun Field below. All of you know I just love C5 and C6 Corvettes, but those C4 Admiral Blue and White Striped Grand Sports sure looked good down there! Congratulations to the Grand Sport Registry and especially John “Hutch” Hutchinson [C5R# X2701] their fearless leader. I know Hutch put a lot of time and effort into this event and it really showed in the turn out. Charter Registry members Charlie & Leslie Goss [C5R# V0040] brought their Grand Sport as well.

It was also good to see Reeves Callaway of Callaway Cars [Corporate Member# PC067] back into Corvettes big time. See Jake’s Power Chat for more details on the new Callaway Corvettes. It was great having Reeves on “The Hill” to give us an informative update about his Callaway Corvette and about the GT3 Racing Series in Europe. Check out Walt Thurn’s article in this issue, Corvette Z06.R, A World Class GT European Race Vette, about the GT3 series. The GT3 series has proven to be a very exciting venue for the Z06. The races take place in Europe under the auspices of the FIA and these are the same people who bring you Formula 1 racing. It’s called the GT Championship there, and in the GT3 class Corvette Z06.R (as it’s referred to) competes against Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche, Ascari, Maserati and Lamborghini…… the world’s best sports cars competing for European dominance! Make sure you catch Walt’s article on page 16 because it’s great! Another source of information about the GT Championship is on the Corvette Europe’s race site www.corvette motorsport.com then click on Z06.R. Our hope is to bring you race updates from time to time on this series in the newsletter and on the website. The Z06.R teams are privateers as are all the other teams. So it’s real grass roots racing European style.

Year after year the Registry has put on dinners at Corvette shows around the country for our members and guests. Judging from your responses, your favorite dinner is the one at Corvettes at Carlisle and your favorite speaker is Wil Cooksey, Plant Manager of the Bowling Green Corvette Assembly Plant. This last dinner was no exception. In fact it was the best dinner yet! Wil was in great form as usual and the crowd loved him! His topic for the evening was “If you want it, we’ll build it!” He talked about how the Plant and Corvette really try to give
the customers what they want. He asked for some frank input about what we would like to see for Corvette in the near future. We talked about option packages and colors. One of the things Wil mentioned was that he hoped all new Corvette owners would fill out the J.D. Powers surveys when they receive them. It seems that you have to have a minimum amount returned and because the number of Corvettes built is much less than other makes and models, every survey is important.

Wil is definitely the Corvette hobby’s best friend. It never fails to impress me how his people take their personal time off to come to Carlisle. Now you have to remember that they aren’t compensated for this and they are taking weekends away from their family and friends just so they can be with you, the Corvette customer. The same could be said about engineering. At the Birthday Bash, all those engineers have taken weekends away from their families so they could hear what the Corvette community has to say about their product. It’s one of the things that makes Corvette such a great brand.

I enjoy reading and monitoring the C5/C6 Net. One of the things I like best about it is members sharing about the different trips they’ve taken in their Corvette. One of the trips I really enjoyed clicking onto was Chaz & Gael Cone’s [C5R# W0526] website on their trip to the Rockies with Buzz & Jackie Nielsen [C5R# W0492] in their 1953

Commemorative Edition Corvette. Joining them for the ride were Robin and Ron Floyd [C5R# X2186] in their 2006 Monterey Red C6 Coupe.If you have a chance, check it out in this issue on page 18 or on the website Chaz set up for it at www.chazcone.com/corvette/votr. There is no doubt in my mind that they had a blast going to the Vettes on the Rockies show. For more on the show don’t forget to read Janet Curran’s Way Out West article in this issue on page 24.

A little earlier I talked about racing in Europe. The pinnacle in European racing is Le Mans. Corvette Europe is putting a lot of effort into spreading the Corvette name around the world. They are the driving force behind Corvette’s participation in the GT3 series and also a major source in our participation in Le Mans. They have a great website that you need to register for. It’s all
free and is loaded with a lot of great information about Le Mans and Corvette. The website is www.corvette lemans.com. If you like Corvette and you like racing, this is definitely a site you want to visit. The powers that be at Corvette Europe base their decision on supporting the European Le Mans racing program in part on the number of hits on this website and the number of people following it. So I registered, and I recommend that you register at this site for Le Mans updates as they become available in 2007.
The other European news is that we are working to put together a trip to Le Mans for June 8 - 20, 2007. Because of 9-11 restrictions, it has become too difficult to ship our Corvettes to Europe and back. So this time we are going to try to rent Corvettes in Europe for our adventure. We will be looking at flying into Europe and renting a Corvette for 12 days in June culminating with a trip to the famous Le Mans 24 Hour race. If you are interested in going, I urge you to send an email to the C5/C6 Registry office at c5dan@c5registry.com and express your interest. We will be starting an email list of members interested in the trip and we will contact them first. As the details become available, we will let you know. But the whole trip depends on our availability to rent Corvettes in Europe which is still up in the air.

As you’re reading this newsletter, the leaves should be starting to turn and a Fall road trip should be in your dreams. If you’re planning on taking a road trip in your C5 or C6, I would strongly recommend that you post it to our C5/C6 Net and you’ll be surprised at how many other Corvette enthusiasts might want to join you or meet you along the way. This always struck me as one of the really great benefits of the C5/C6 Net, that you now have member enthusiasts in almost every major city in the country. So as you drive on that Fall road trip, check in with some of your Corvette Registry buddies along the way. And you also may want to let us know here at the Registry office because your road trip just might turn up as a future story in the Registry newsletter. Our newsletter is about what’s happening in the Corvette hobby, but more importantly I try to make it about what’s happening with our members. It’s real hard to do that if we don’t hear from you and we don’t know what’s going on with all our members. So if you’ve had an exciting Corvette experience, please let us know and our experienced staff will be glad to help edit your story.

So when your Corvette is tucked away in its garage this winter, I hope you’ll have great memories of your Corvette Summer to keep you warm and toasty.


C5Ya! Dan