Y'all need to make it to the Forum Cruise In next year!!
06-06-2006, 11:29 PM
#1
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Y'all need to make it to the Forum Cruise In next year!!
Little late posting this....but I've been recuperating from one of the funnest weeks there ever is!! The annual Corvette Forum Cruise In!!
For those of you that have never been...let me tell you a little about it.
First, I've met who knows how many new friends right here on the Forum. My job has me traveling a lot so I often look them up when I'm in their neighborhood. This has led me to meet Mark (ML67), Nick (Vettemaniac), Marcus (Zwede), Buddy (Budman), Joe (Devildog), Patrick (Pef427),Lars (Lars!) and the whole Colorado crew, Steve (632C2), Olivier (Grandsport C-3), Travis (Tshort), Doug (Snowman), Steve (Plum Crazy) and who knows how many others...but you get the point. These are all people I would have never known if it wasn't for this site.
Four years ago, my old High School buddy Donny and I decided to drive his '65 convertible up to Bowling Green from TX. My car was scattered and we decided at the last minute (literally) to go. He had motor out of his and he went to the garage and started picking up pieces from various motors and stuck them all together the weekend before and made a 327 out of it. We left on Wed. It had pistons from one motor, block from another, heads from another etc etc. All old used parts. He had about 20 miles on it when we left TX that night. The plan was to drive halfway...but we started BS'ing and cruising with the top down all night. Next thing we knew, we were in Nashville! Had a great time. Only issue was a broken 40 year old valvespring that we changed in the hotel parking lot. We watched the drag races since we weren't sure about that valvespring deal..then we did the plant tour and the Museum. We started the tradition of free Jack Daniels in the TX area of the Hampton parking lot! That year we had a great time with the crazy Canadians and some folks from Alabama!!
The next year, I had mine together and Donny and I drove up with our cars with Nick in his 540" C-3 and Zwede in his 454" EFI C-3. We had a lot of fun and the only issue we had was one car had a brake caliper leaking in Texarkana. I had a buddy that lived there and he let us use his garage and tools to get it going again. We drove straight through and made great time. The neat part was the editor of Corvette Enthusiast was there and couldn't believe we drove them that far. He shot some group shots of us and put them in the magazine and then he shot full features on my car and Marcus' for the magazine!! How cool is that?
Then last year....we aquired a few more to the group. I had met Joe (Devildog) recently with his 283/270 '61 that he has owned for almost 40 years! He travels to Moscow for work regularly so we never got a chance to actually meet and plan things before the trip. But Joe heard me talking about it and took a giant leap of faith and literally flew in the night before, met me at Mcdonalds the next morning and off we went!! We drove across TX and met up with Patrick (Pef427) and off we rode again! Meanwhile Nick had talked his old college buddy Dixon into flying to Dallas from Baton Rouge and driving to BG with him. So they met us in Texarkana again. This time we stopped in Memphis for the night to go spend a little time on Bealle St listening to Blues Guitar music and eating and drinking. We made it to BG the next day and to the drag races and ran our cars, Joe ran the AutoX and got his picture on the front page of the BG newspaper in the middle of a masterful turn!! All those cool new bad boy Vette's and the '61 Devildog is the one they put on the cover. Style counts!! We did the road trip drive..the plant tours, the chassis dyno and the Museum. Plus a whole lot of parking lot BSing!! We had a couple of little mechanical issues on one of the cars on the way home. but nothing we couldn't handle. As usual, we traded out riders around all the cars so everyone got to hang out with each other.
This year we were at it again. We had some doubts right up to the last minute with who could make it. There were High School graduations, motors still apart, people who wussed and that kept others from being able to have a group to run with from other parts of the country. But again...we picked up a few newbies. I trailered mine up this year because I wanted to take it in *race mode* and we would have a support vehicle to haul stuff. Joe's was all ready to go, and he picked up a new convert...Rob with his beautiful '70 350/350 car. Rob worked like crazy the week before to install a TKO tans for the trip! We also got Travis (Tshort) to bring his 12 sec '69 with a 4 speed and 3.70's. Nicks and Patricks cars were waiting on motor parts..so they rode up with us. We also got an old friend of mine...Paul ....who is building a '66 convertible....to meet Nick and we would all ride up together. Then Dan came along with his C-5 just to show off his A/C to the crowd!! Mark couldn't make it from New Hampshire (motor parts too!) but he had picked up another convert. He had met a guy that was building a 540" motor a lot like his and we convinced him to interrupt a family reunion he was attending to come hang with us for the weekend. So even though Rick owns a '57 Chevy..he flew all the way from California to hang with a bunch of Vette folks he never met before..just on the net! THEN we had another Paul and his girlfriend Christine jump in their private airplane in Houston and fly up to BG. Paul has a ZR-1, a C-3 and a Z06..he just wanted to fly up! How cool is that? Buddy(Budman) left a day after us...but had his LS-1 powered C-3 flying low and was there with us all weekend. THEN Joe's nephew and his wife drove down from Indy to meet us too!
So after we gathered up the whole bunch...we drove to Memphis again. We had it arranged at the hotel to allow us to park under the drive up canopy for protection. They got us a cab and off we went to Bealle St. It was a little slow there on Tue night...but we still heard some great music, had a few drinks and did some serious eating.
The next morning I had a tour set up for us at Comp Cams. We drove over and they were great folks. They spent several hours with us giving us the whole tour from the loading dock to the cam cutting to the *secret* room where they are preparing the cars for Power Tour and where they were about to dyno the brand new LS-1 heads. The dyno guy opened up his log books and showed what had done what....and he even went through his computer files showing us neat stuff. Then he showed us some prototype electronic timing stuff they were working on! Neat place!!
Then we drove on into BG on Wed. We weathered the storms of Wed night and Thursday AM.....and finally got to drag race during the afternoon. It was hot and muggy..but we had a great time flogging the cars!!
On Friday morning we did the AutoX again and Joe showed them all how to work a C-1 around the cones!
Some of the group went to the Assy plant in the early afternoon.
Friday afternoon we had a tour set up at the Holley plant on BG. This was our second time there ( we went the 2nd year too) and once again they were great. There were a lot of new folks with us and they took the time to show us everything. Got to wander around the *back rooms* there too and see lots of cool stuff!
On Sat we went to the Museum...then we put 3 of the cars up on the chassis dyno to make some noise.
Throughout the weekend we squeezed in LOTS of parking lots BSing, BBQ with Roscoe, put the Russian MiG helmets we brought with us on every head we could find and had a heck of a great time! We went through several gallons of Jack Daniels...but no one went thirsty down in TX land!!
Nick and Patrick needed to head home early, so they hitched a ride with Paul and Christine in the airplane and flew back. How's that for service? Paul stopped at the nearest airport to their cars and they were all set.
The rest of us headed out Sunday AM. We stopped in Longview TX and had some great Mexican food and Margaritas and rested up.
So it was a GREAT week and I've only touched on a few of the highlites....but you get the idea. There are lots of other things we didn't get to. For four years now we've been driving these old C-1, C-2 and C-3's on a 2000 mile roundtrip. Half the fun IS getting there because the cars always bring out great conversations when you stop for gas or food. We've had a few mechanical things happen along the way, but nothing we weren't able to fix without too much grief! There's safety in numbers!!
All you folks need to mark you calendars and start planning now how you can get your buddies to link up and make the trip. It's a heck of a fun way to spend the week and there are lots of things you can do along the way. The best of which is to meet new friends and reaquaint yourself with old ones!
Get to work on those cars now so you can be ready!!
JIM
For those of you that have never been...let me tell you a little about it.
First, I've met who knows how many new friends right here on the Forum. My job has me traveling a lot so I often look them up when I'm in their neighborhood. This has led me to meet Mark (ML67), Nick (Vettemaniac), Marcus (Zwede), Buddy (Budman), Joe (Devildog), Patrick (Pef427),Lars (Lars!) and the whole Colorado crew, Steve (632C2), Olivier (Grandsport C-3), Travis (Tshort), Doug (Snowman), Steve (Plum Crazy) and who knows how many others...but you get the point. These are all people I would have never known if it wasn't for this site.
Four years ago, my old High School buddy Donny and I decided to drive his '65 convertible up to Bowling Green from TX. My car was scattered and we decided at the last minute (literally) to go. He had motor out of his and he went to the garage and started picking up pieces from various motors and stuck them all together the weekend before and made a 327 out of it. We left on Wed. It had pistons from one motor, block from another, heads from another etc etc. All old used parts. He had about 20 miles on it when we left TX that night. The plan was to drive halfway...but we started BS'ing and cruising with the top down all night. Next thing we knew, we were in Nashville! Had a great time. Only issue was a broken 40 year old valvespring that we changed in the hotel parking lot. We watched the drag races since we weren't sure about that valvespring deal..then we did the plant tour and the Museum. We started the tradition of free Jack Daniels in the TX area of the Hampton parking lot! That year we had a great time with the crazy Canadians and some folks from Alabama!!
The next year, I had mine together and Donny and I drove up with our cars with Nick in his 540" C-3 and Zwede in his 454" EFI C-3. We had a lot of fun and the only issue we had was one car had a brake caliper leaking in Texarkana. I had a buddy that lived there and he let us use his garage and tools to get it going again. We drove straight through and made great time. The neat part was the editor of Corvette Enthusiast was there and couldn't believe we drove them that far. He shot some group shots of us and put them in the magazine and then he shot full features on my car and Marcus' for the magazine!! How cool is that?
Then last year....we aquired a few more to the group. I had met Joe (Devildog) recently with his 283/270 '61 that he has owned for almost 40 years! He travels to Moscow for work regularly so we never got a chance to actually meet and plan things before the trip. But Joe heard me talking about it and took a giant leap of faith and literally flew in the night before, met me at Mcdonalds the next morning and off we went!! We drove across TX and met up with Patrick (Pef427) and off we rode again! Meanwhile Nick had talked his old college buddy Dixon into flying to Dallas from Baton Rouge and driving to BG with him. So they met us in Texarkana again. This time we stopped in Memphis for the night to go spend a little time on Bealle St listening to Blues Guitar music and eating and drinking. We made it to BG the next day and to the drag races and ran our cars, Joe ran the AutoX and got his picture on the front page of the BG newspaper in the middle of a masterful turn!! All those cool new bad boy Vette's and the '61 Devildog is the one they put on the cover. Style counts!! We did the road trip drive..the plant tours, the chassis dyno and the Museum. Plus a whole lot of parking lot BSing!! We had a couple of little mechanical issues on one of the cars on the way home. but nothing we couldn't handle. As usual, we traded out riders around all the cars so everyone got to hang out with each other.
This year we were at it again. We had some doubts right up to the last minute with who could make it. There were High School graduations, motors still apart, people who wussed and that kept others from being able to have a group to run with from other parts of the country. But again...we picked up a few newbies. I trailered mine up this year because I wanted to take it in *race mode* and we would have a support vehicle to haul stuff. Joe's was all ready to go, and he picked up a new convert...Rob with his beautiful '70 350/350 car. Rob worked like crazy the week before to install a TKO tans for the trip! We also got Travis (Tshort) to bring his 12 sec '69 with a 4 speed and 3.70's. Nicks and Patricks cars were waiting on motor parts..so they rode up with us. We also got an old friend of mine...Paul ....who is building a '66 convertible....to meet Nick and we would all ride up together. Then Dan came along with his C-5 just to show off his A/C to the crowd!! Mark couldn't make it from New Hampshire (motor parts too!) but he had picked up another convert. He had met a guy that was building a 540" motor a lot like his and we convinced him to interrupt a family reunion he was attending to come hang with us for the weekend. So even though Rick owns a '57 Chevy..he flew all the way from California to hang with a bunch of Vette folks he never met before..just on the net! THEN we had another Paul and his girlfriend Christine jump in their private airplane in Houston and fly up to BG. Paul has a ZR-1, a C-3 and a Z06..he just wanted to fly up! How cool is that? Buddy(Budman) left a day after us...but had his LS-1 powered C-3 flying low and was there with us all weekend. THEN Joe's nephew and his wife drove down from Indy to meet us too!
So after we gathered up the whole bunch...we drove to Memphis again. We had it arranged at the hotel to allow us to park under the drive up canopy for protection. They got us a cab and off we went to Bealle St. It was a little slow there on Tue night...but we still heard some great music, had a few drinks and did some serious eating.
The next morning I had a tour set up for us at Comp Cams. We drove over and they were great folks. They spent several hours with us giving us the whole tour from the loading dock to the cam cutting to the *secret* room where they are preparing the cars for Power Tour and where they were about to dyno the brand new LS-1 heads. The dyno guy opened up his log books and showed what had done what....and he even went through his computer files showing us neat stuff. Then he showed us some prototype electronic timing stuff they were working on! Neat place!!
Then we drove on into BG on Wed. We weathered the storms of Wed night and Thursday AM.....and finally got to drag race during the afternoon. It was hot and muggy..but we had a great time flogging the cars!!
On Friday morning we did the AutoX again and Joe showed them all how to work a C-1 around the cones!
Some of the group went to the Assy plant in the early afternoon.
Friday afternoon we had a tour set up at the Holley plant on BG. This was our second time there ( we went the 2nd year too) and once again they were great. There were a lot of new folks with us and they took the time to show us everything. Got to wander around the *back rooms* there too and see lots of cool stuff!
On Sat we went to the Museum...then we put 3 of the cars up on the chassis dyno to make some noise.
Throughout the weekend we squeezed in LOTS of parking lots BSing, BBQ with Roscoe, put the Russian MiG helmets we brought with us on every head we could find and had a heck of a great time! We went through several gallons of Jack Daniels...but no one went thirsty down in TX land!!
Nick and Patrick needed to head home early, so they hitched a ride with Paul and Christine in the airplane and flew back. How's that for service? Paul stopped at the nearest airport to their cars and they were all set.
The rest of us headed out Sunday AM. We stopped in Longview TX and had some great Mexican food and Margaritas and rested up.
So it was a GREAT week and I've only touched on a few of the highlites....but you get the idea. There are lots of other things we didn't get to. For four years now we've been driving these old C-1, C-2 and C-3's on a 2000 mile roundtrip. Half the fun IS getting there because the cars always bring out great conversations when you stop for gas or food. We've had a few mechanical things happen along the way, but nothing we weren't able to fix without too much grief! There's safety in numbers!!
All you folks need to mark you calendars and start planning now how you can get your buddies to link up and make the trip. It's a heck of a fun way to spend the week and there are lots of things you can do along the way. The best of which is to meet new friends and reaquaint yourself with old ones!
Get to work on those cars now so you can be ready!!
JIM
06-07-2006, 07:37 AM
#3
Racer
Jim: It was good meeting all you guys and listening to your tales.(sure I believed every one!). I just e-mailed Joe in Moscow to get your reservations done for next year as the rooms at the Hamton are going. If I traveled with you guys, I could get you to fix anything breaking on my '61. I knew I liked you guys when I found out the high-beams on Joe's '61 are landing lights from a Lear jet! Damn, I like that. Bert.
06-07-2006, 10:14 AM
#5
Race Director
Glad you had a little fun 
06-08-2006, 04:46 PM
#8
Team Owner
And I promise next years Drag Racing will be better than this years event. More cars, more prizes and even more fun.