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.
Art
Corvette enthusiasts to converge for Homecoming
Who's guessing.
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