7 cars from our club in NE Illinois drove down to the NCM Birthday Bash in Bowling Green on Wednesday, home on Saturday. My impressions:

Traffic on I-65 in Indiana and Kentucky was even more awful than normal. Coming home, we used secondary roads to get to I-57 in Illinois, much more relaxing and overall time was similar. Using back roads to go around the west of Indianapolis was pretty. One of our members who has used I-65 many times before, said "Driving I-65 is like sticking needles in your eyes."

This Bash was very different from ones I had gone to in the 2001-2005 era-
The Museum is always good and I had time for several leisurely strolls through it.
Lots of help in and around the Museum, both volunteers and paid.
The StingRay Grill has lost it's '60's décor and simple menu, more modern now and I think bigger. Sometimes overwhelmed by the number of people, but that's inevitable. I'd give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Much smaller number of attendees, cars, and venders. Not sure if that's "Covid hangover" or just the new way of doing things.
This wasn't the "Birthday Bash", it was the "C8 Bash". Previous Bashes had discussions or tech sessions that were for any Corvette owner (Interior Detailing, etc), or even specific to the previous generation even though it was of course out of production (C4 sessions during the C5 era). Here, the feeling was "If you're not interested in the C8, we're not interested in you".
There were R8C Museum Deliveries going on during the Bash, that looked and sounded neat. One couple discovered that their shiny new C8 has limited luggage space, they did a lot of shifting front-back, and rearranging, before they could drive away.
The re were several new C8 Z06's parked out front that you could actually climb in and sit in as often or as long as you wanted. All of them had the top removed or lowered, but it felt to me that forward visibility was about the same as our C7, no significant improvement from the rear engine in that respect.. Cockpit seems smaller and the wall of switches between the seats is annoying. No place to put a cooler, snacks, wife's purse, etc.
The GM talk about the tornado at the Plant was interesting but could have been condensed, the Banquet was mediocre food and an hour+ of hearing about how the different groups all worked together on the design. The only interesting part came when one engineer told how the interior and color people had taught him so that "Now I can tell the difference between 'warm black' and 'cool black'. Both talks felt very much like everyone was carefully adhering to the "party line" in their comments.

Previous Bashes would get 5 stars out of 5 from me, I'd give this one 3 stars.
Other folks may disagree.

 

Thanks for your review as unfortunately I was not able to attend. Too bad that, at least in your opinion, the thrust of the entire bash was towards the C8. You would think they would have tried to have something for everyone, if possible. I know the C8 is the latest and greatest, but a lot of people still have an interest in prior generations.

 

Thanks for sharing your review, very good read and some interesting points of view.

 

Exactly which Corvette Bashes have you attended?

Was there an agenda/schedule published beforehand?

Y'all should have dropped down to I-64 on the return trip. The most beautiful Country I can remember seeing on the way to I-57.

You guys should have been aware of the best return Interstate choice to Chicago.

Do you own a C8?

 

^^^^^
[QUOTE=Skid Row Joe;1605089252]Exactly which Corvette Bashes have you attended?
As mentioned, 2001-2005 era, two others. Sorry, but I didn't keep records.

Was there an agenda/schedule published beforehand?
Yes, initially it was very thin and I had to commit well in advance. Previous Bashs had always been better than the initial paperwork indicated, this one fell short.

Y'all should have dropped down to I-64 on the return trip. The most beautiful Country I can remember seeing on the way to I-57.
Pretty country but takes longer than the route we used going home which was back roads most of the way north, and your route would be on interstates most of the way. We prefer back roads.

You guys should have been aware of the best return Interstate choice to Chicago.
Between the guys in our group we probably have 50 trips down there and back. Lots of possibilities, none of them perfect, we were very happy with the route we used going home. I'd used it before and will use it again. Googlemaps shows it as only 13 minutes longer than interstates all the way.

Do you own a C8?[
No, we use our Corvettes for very long road trips as well as AX and local. The smaller trunk space + no way to access stored items + isolated passenger; make it a non-starter for us.
For some others, it might be a great car.
/QUOTE]

 

Jim, thanks for your honest opinion

 

Thanks! Good to read. I have never been to the Bash but appreciate how you feel about an event being slanted too far to one side. Personally, I enjoyed the 50's styled diner.

 

Thanks!

 

Interesting read-thanks.

Sad to hear your comment-- if you didn't own a C8, they were not interested in you. In that case they should rename it the C8 Bash.