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The Hedges, Pages, Alan Thompson and Webers
had a great time in….

(Yes the King Was There!)

at the

NCCC WEST COAST REGIONAL CONVENTION

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AND THE WINNERS ARE……!

Dan & Kathy Hedges
Car Show – 1st Place
Class C1/C4 Modified

Alan Thompson
Autocross –  Event Winner
Class 1SF/G

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Another Road Trip…With Lots of Corvettes!

April 9-12 marked the second NCCC West Coast Region Meet in Las Vegas (the first one was in 2013.) It was a somewhat smaller crowd than the first occasion with about 250 or so cars, some from as far away as Texas and Tacoma, WA. Obviously, another change was in the number of C7s, including a ZO6, since they were not around for the first event.

The group from COTV was small and even smaller than expected with a last minute cancellation by Jim and Diane Sommars. Too bad they missed it as we missed them! However, the Pages, Hedges and Webers got there ahead of the official opening on Wednesday, April 8, and were joined by Alan Thompson on Thursday. The Silverton has been the site of both meets and it works well as you don’t have to fight traffic on the Strip, there is lots of parking and it provides easy access to both the freeway back and forth to Temecula and the road to Pahrump, home of Spring Mountain Race Track, site for the low speed and high speed autocross on Friday. 

Wednesday was quiet, with only a few Corvettes arriving in advance of the main event. The Pages and Webers had done some restaurant research in advance and found that the Towne Square mall had a huge variety of restaurants, was a short and easy 2 ½ miles away and had plenty of easy parking. Wednesday night’s choice was Tommy Bahama’s with its sort of Asian/seafood menu, which had something for everyone and was pretty tasty to boot. Thursday morning was for registration and having the cars tech-ed for the track and the rallies. Thursday was also for shopping for Marsue and a visit to the Trevi Fountain at Caesar’s for Rob and Daryl. The welcome reception was from 5-7 poolside and by then Alan had arrived to join the fun. After a few munchies, the Pages and Webers headed to Mi Casa for the “Taco Madness” special of a house margarita and 3 street tacos for $12. 

Friday came early as Steve, Rob and Alan (with Daryl along as photographer) left at 6:30 to drive the 48 miles to the track. We had the pop-up and chairs and had picked up sandwiches at Starbucks since there was no food provided at the track this year. It was a chilly morning and not the sun and heat we had expected. There was a lot of “hurry up and wait” involved in getting the first group (in which all of our cars were included as they all had street tires not race tires) and the parade laps and 3 laps on the track took what seemed like forever. The next groups were women and then the more serious racers, before they proceeded to the high speed racers in the afternoon. We decided we had had enough fun and headed back to the Silverton. Rob cleaned the car for the Saturday car show. Steve relaxed. Marsue shopped. Alan did his thing – it might have involved a Kindle. We all went back to the Towne Square for Italian food at the BRIO Tuscan Grille, a very pleasant interlude. 

There were 60 cars signed up for the show from 8-12 on the roof of the parking structure. Kathy Hedges was at the registration desk and we got settled in. The pop-up came in handy this time as it was warmer and the sun was stronger on the roof with all that concrete and those shiny cars. The Pages came up to hang out and Marsue and Daryl put the COTV car show flier on all of the parked cars, showing or not. The Hedges, Pages and Alan were signed up for the rallies from 1-4, but the Webers decided to just head home a day earlier than planned since they were pretty sure that they didn’t need to hang around for the awards presentation. The Pages also planned on leaving after the rallies were done, so we left Alan, Dan and Kathy to see if there were any winners among us.

COTV members who want to meet more Corvette owners, try autocross, show their beautiful cars, get to know their fellow club members or just have a good time together, should keep an eye on the calendar for car shows, meets, and all the other opportunities to do stuff revolving around our shared passion – the Corvette.