My wife and I returned from Effingham this evening. It was a great time and one heck of a value at $25. I was glad to support a great event.

We did the Fun Ride at 4PM Thursday. Two hundred Corvettes lined up behind Mike Yeager's stretch limo C4. The tour went through some rolling hills and twisty township roads. At one point in a park by a subdivision built around a man made winding lake we looped around and every car pasted each other. All were waving. Some had huge white Mickey Mouse gloves. I waved at more Corvettes than I have in my four years of ownership and driving.

The state roads had Illinois State Troopers for traffic control. I wondered what each of them thought about all the missing front plates and loud exhausts.

Upon returning to Mid America, Mr Yeager stood along the drive and shook each drivers hand as they slowly passed by. A young lady handed out a Fun Ride pin to each driver.

Free soda and pretzels were served. Those that wanted to could get a tap beer for a buck.

My wife really liked the ride.

I attended the first auction which had 41 cars. All had reserves and about 60% sold. The one's that did not sell were in the car corral the next day. Most went for fair prices. The ones that did not sell were mostly C3's that had way higher reserves that current market conditions could support.

I think the auction should grow over the years to come.

I did many seminars and will post on a couple. I was very interested in the one on storage of the Vette.

Friday was low attendance, but it is always low. This year was less than last year I think. Saturday was very good. The Vette clubs showed up in strength. The Forum members area had about the same number as last year. My best guess is that this year was about 10 to 12K. That is down from the last two years which I think hit 15K.

The GM presentation on the Grand Sport and launch control was impressive.

The Calloway presentation was way too long as it covered every car it made from day one and lasted over an hour. But I think for me having the 606HP Calloway based on the Grand Sport is more interesting than the ZR1.

Even though it rained Thursday, Friday and Saturday, my wife and I had a great time. Again, it was worth many times the $25 ticket.

 

Sounds like a blast. I was planning on making the trip down today but got called into work at the last minute for a problem.

 

Thanks for the report . . . . look forward to the storage info!

 

We have gone to Funfest many many times. Always had a good time and have made many new friends staying in the same motel year after year. We just didnt get around to it this year. I heard about the rainy weather. I was wondering what the attendance would be this year based on the rain and the Admitting charge per car.

 

Thanks for posting the report.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience, obviously you had a good time.

 

I plan putting this on my schedule for next year

 

same here.

 

We wanted to go but waited to long and could not get reservations.

 

Three of us drove up yesterday from So Indiana. Fun trip and great day of visiting vendors, and the exhibits. Loved the Pratt/Whitney exhibit. There were a few good buys to be had. The museum was interesting as usual. Walking the parking areas and viewing all the interesting mods and different generations of Vettes was great fun. Best of all, we got on the road about 15 minutes before the storm hit. I would not have wanted to be on that grass field when that storm hit. We ran through a hell of a storm in So Ill on I 64 . Got back to the Louisville Ky area about 8PM.