September 2009 Newsletter
Visit DtRC on the
web at: www.downtheroadcorvettes.org
Visit the Rocky
Mountain Region NCCC at www.rmrnccc.org
Visit NCCC on the web
at: www.corvettesnccc.org
Next Meeting: 4th
Thursday of the month. September 24th, 7 PM Go Chevrolet - 7320 North Broadway near I-25 and
the Boulder Turnpike.
Guest Presenters - Limit of 2 presentations per meeting, please make
arrangements with the President at least a day in advance to be placed on the
agenda and to see if the limit has been reached for this month.
2009 Down the Road Corvette Club Officers
|
President |
Mike Davis |
Vice President |
Bill Schultz |
|
Treasurer |
Gail Krusen |
Secretary |
Nancy Keyser |
|
Governor |
Nancy Burritt |
Board Members |
Mike Kelley |
|
Newsletter Info (Deadline the 15th) |
Official Club Address |
A few words of
wisdom from the Prez….
Well,
by the time you get this note, it will be official, summer is over. It has been
a Busy Corvette Summer. We have had particularly good Club participation in
multiple events. We have seen increased participation in Car shows, The
Caravan,
The
Convention, Rallies, Mystery Meals, and of course our Car show.
I
just have to deviate a bit, and try to understand the events of the Caravan….
First,
from what I gather, Tim B. & Richard L. went on the Caravan as sort of a
“Retreat”. Martha P. has sworn off of
“drinking”, (I wonder what she means). Gail K. had some kind of “Run-in” with
the median of the Interstate, and gas gauge issues. The only other item I’ve heard is that Dave
& Wanda C. should have checked their tires before leaving, (not much left
of the rear ones). I am envious of all the members who went, it sounds like it
was a ball, and I’m glad everyone made it back safe & sound!!
For
the First time our Car Show was at “Jays Grille & Bar”. What a host & sponsor!!!! It seems
every-one enjoyed themselves and we received many, many Congrats for a well
organized event. My personal THANK YOU to all of the members who helped make it
such a success!! As Tim B. has said, it
is not the (quantity, but the quality, speaking of the show). It is SAD that
DtRC supports many other Club’s events, but, they do not want to support DtRC
events!!!
There were many members who took it upon
themselves to go the extra mile to make this Car Show an Extra special event!!!
Don’t
forget, at this months meeting, nominations are still open for next years
Officers and volunteer positions, be sure to put your choices into the hat!!!!
Mike
Miscellaneous ramblings from
the Editor:
Well, as I write this, summer will officially be
over in two days. That doesn’t mean that the Corvetting season is completely
over, but the list of events is shrinking rapidly.
What an odd season it has been too.
Participation level in events this year has been totally unguessable. It seems
you are either swamped or alone and there doesn’t appear to be any reason for
either direction. Not that I believe in this stuff, but astrologers will tell
you that Mercury is in retrograde for a significant part of the year and as a
result, people become flakey, confused and irritated. Maybe just, there is
something to it. I certainly like that excuse far better than poking at other
clubs for lack of participation. I’m not aware of any quid quo pro agreement
between clubs and I would certainly never hold low attendance at our events
against other clubs. We’re out to have a good time and if others just aren’t up
to it, well, it’s their loss and our gain. After all, who wants to have an
event where people feel their obligated to attend. There is enough negative
energy in the world as it is without trying to concentrate it at an event where
we’re having fun.
One thing that this year has brought into
clear focus is that you do the best you can with the planning, you do your best
to involve others, you put on the very best event that you can and you accept
that whatever happens is what there is to have happen – or as I’ve started
saying, “it will be whatever it will be”. One thing that we must never lose
sight of is that no matter what we do, we had better be having fun at it or we
should be questioning why we’re doing it.
At the car show yesterday, we had very few
cars, but the cars that we did have represented the best selection of cars that
I’ve seen at any Corvette show in recent memory. Percentage wise, we had a far
better selection of Corvettes at our little show than LGCA had at VOTR and they
had more than ten times the cars we had. Even better, at least for me, was the
opportunity to meet new faces and share our club’s enthusiasm with them. I am
absolutely certain that we as a club made positive impressions on every single
participant at the show. Every single one of them will remember our little show
and our hospitality for the rest of their lives and will judge every other car
show they attend against the exceptionally high standards that we demonstrated
yesterday. We also involved the participants in the show and made them feel
that they were a part of the event.
One last thing I’ll point out from the car
show is the club participation. Show me any other Corvette club in the area
that consistently turns out 90% of its members for events. There is only one
way to do that and that’s by having a good time. We’re masters at that.
Don’t forget about the mystery meal on
Saturday the 26th. Richard and I have pulled in some favors from
good friends outside the Corvette community to create a triple header mystery
meal that you will thoroughly enjoy. You might even consider bringing a camera.
The mystery meal will end with a late lunch at an outstanding highly awarded restaurant
with reasonably priced down to earth cuisine that has just a bit of an
attitude. After all, what else would you expect when Richard and I get our
heads together? We hope to see you there.
One final thing: the main reason our club has
continued to be successful is that we are never happy with the status quo. We
are always upping the game because we always embrace new leadership. With the
annual officer elections just around the corner, now is the time for all of you
to think about what you might have to contribute to the club as one of the
leaders. Please consider tossing your hat into the ring for one of those
leadership positions and remember, the club is always there to support you.
Tim
Minutes of August 27, 2009 Meeting
Guests: Chavah &
Ahron Brewer,
Quorum was present.
Member introductions were made. The August newsletter was approved.
The local
Chevrolet marketing group donated money toward the caravan event at the
Treasurer’s Report: Approved as given by Gail K.
Governor’s Report:
1.
Attendance at the National Convention in
2.
3.
Zach’s Legacy scavenger hunt benefiting autism is
scheduled for
4.
The Pagosa Springs car show is set for
5.
The
DtRC Car Show:
1. DtRC Car Show is on
2. A sign-up sheet for volunteer workers is
available. Workers are requested to
arrive at
3. Cathy S. will provide ballots & dash plaques, John M. registration forms & waivers, Mike D. trophies. Jay’s is providing tables, chairs, tents, & 20% food discounts.
1.
Mike &
2.
The 2010 show will feature Corvettes with Will
Cooksey (manager of the Corvette factory) the featured speaker.
Autocross:
Frank A. will approach the owner of the IMI go-cart track about its use next summer.
Membership Committee
Three
prospective members are expected to pay dues after
Social Committee
1.
Don & Tanya R. are hosting a drive to
2. Nancy A. won the raffle prize (C5 BBQ set)
3. Reminder - 12/12/09 is the date of our club’s holiday dinner at Old Neighborhood. Gift exchange is limited to $20/person or couple.
4. Nancie A. will provide snacks for the September meeting.
Officer Nominations
1. Mike P. was nominated for president, Richard L. & Dave C. for VP, Gail K. for treasurer, & Bill S. for secretary.
2. Nominations will be accepted at the September & October meetings. Voting will occur at the October meeting.
3. Tim B. will bring Board of Directors’ term information to the September meeting.
Meeting was adjourned.
Submitted
by
Club News:
October Birthdays:
Mike Kelley -
8th
Cathy Schultz - 12th
Jackie Malouf - 26th
MaryKay Kelley - 28th
Nancy Keyser - 28th
Martha Palomar - 28th
Tech Tips with Bill!
By Bill Schultz
Talking to many
people, listening to even more and doing in-depth research have taught me one
thing. This topic of TIRES is every bit as controversial as Obama’s
“Nationalized health care plan”.
Everyone, it
seems, has a different opinion on tires. All season, snow, rain etc. everyone
has their own experiences and opinions. To keep this article as brief as
possible, I am going to focus on the tires most of us Corvette owners are
interested in. Good traction, decent wear, speed rating and so forth.
Tire longevity is
rated from 100 (Control tire) to 600 (very hard high mileage).
I have found that depending on your Corvette, the oem tires such as
Goodyear F1 supercar tires are usually rated from 200 to 300. 300 is the most
common as these tires add good control as well as decent wear. For general
everyday driving (Gail), you should consider a tire with a 300 rating. For high
speed cornering or driving (Richard, Fancy, Roger, Tim, Wanda and almost everyone
else I know) you should consider 200 or lower rated tires. These tires are
produced with a softer more pliable tire that offers more grip at the sacrifice
of miles.
Tread pattern is
usually selected by people such as myself that like the looks. While appearance
is very important, there are other items to consider. The tread pattern in many
high performance tires is very important depending on your type driving. Once
again, oem tires on the Corvettes are for general high performance. They are not
the best but they are very, very good. The Goodyear F1 and F1 Supercar tire
tread designs are meant for high speed driving in most conditions. They are
designed to run cool and funnel water away from the tire. You can imagine these
wide tires on wet roads without this tread design. These tires are rated by
DOT, consumer reports etc. as one of the best for preventing “hydro planning”
at high speeds.
The speed rating
is very important on a high performance Corvette. You can buy a less expensive
tire for your car that has a speed rating of 100 mph. This is not to say that
the tire will explode above 100 mph, but it will probably “deform”. The tread
depth and material of these tires will actually swell with the centrifugal
force produce by high speeds. I would suggest never putting a new tire on your
Corvette that is rated less than 180 mph.
The air pressure
is extremely important in all tires but especially when on a high performance
car. Old school told us that if the center of your tire was wearing that you
had too much air pressure and if the side walls are wearing, you have too
little pressure. FORGET this old rule.
The tires on a Corvette are wider than the average car tire. The air pressure
in these tires is a key item in holding their proper shape. If you have too
little pressure at high speeds, the tire will bulge in the center causing it to
wear quickly. This is in direct conflict with the old rule.
I would suggest
you fill your tires with Nitrogen. First, the molecules are larger than the molecules
in air therefore the nitrogen will not permeate through the rubber as quickly
as air. Second, nitrogen is an inert gas containing no water molecules
(atmosphere). It will not vary in pressure nearly as much as air. On a cold
morning you will not get the “low tire” message on your dash. At higher speeds
or even highway driving, the pressure will not build as much as air thus
keeping the tires inflated closer to their recommendations. With that said, be
cautious about who fills your tires with nitrogen. If the shop simply lets the
air out of your tires then fills them with nitrogen, you have wasted you money.
Because the tires have had atmospheric air in them, the nitrogen will quickly
absorb the impurities giving you a very diluted nitrogen content. Your shop
should either draw the tire into a vacuum for a couple of hours or, best yet,
they should fill the tire with nitrogen, let it sit for several minutes, drain
then refill with nitrogen. This normally will give you 90% or better nitrogen
content. I fill my own tires with nitrogen and I usually will purge them twice
before the final fill. I would be glad to help any of you change over if you
want. The nitrogen usually will run about 15 bucks or so if we do a double
purge.
Hope this helps
you somewhat. Bottom line, before buying new tires, talk to other club members,
dealers etc. Most our members have had quite a lot of experience with our tires
and can probably help more than the “tire shop experts”.
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Bill
Upcoming
Events
Rather than try to put the entire schedule in here, I’ve opted
to include items both NCCC and otherwise into a close up schedule. If you want
to see the entire NCCC schedule, please go to the Rocky Mountain NCCC regional
site at http://www.rmrnccc.org/
|
Date |
Event |
Sponsoring Club |
|
Sep 26th |
DtRC Mystery Meal |
DtRC |
|
Oct 04th |
Double Low Speed Auto-X |
CSCC |
|
Oct 9th |
Denver Dream football game? |
DtRC |
|
Oct 11th |
Double Low Speed Auto-X |
CWCC |
|
Oct 18th |
All Hallow’s Eve Rally |
TORCA |
|
Oct 25th |
3 Low Speed Auto-X |
CWCC |
|
Nov 8th |
Sno Flake Rally |
CSCC |
|
Nov 14th |
9Cares Food Drive |
CCC |
|
Nov 14th |
Veterans Day parade |
CCC |
|
Nov 21st |
Sno Big Deal Charity Show |
DtRC |
|
Nov 22nd |
Turkey Rally |
DCA |
|
Dec 12th |
DtRC Christmas Party |
DtRC |
DtRC car
show
From Richard and
Fancy Loch
Fancy & I would like to
congratulate everybody for another successful Down the Road Event. I received a lot of positive feedback from
participants on what an enjoyable show this was. We were able to speak to many
potential club members. I also got
comments from other clubs members stating they wished their club events were
this fun. Keep up the good work. This was just another case where other clubs
will be trying to live up to our high standards. Thanks for all your efforts.
From Tim and Pat Barnes
Pat and I would like to
congratulate the club on another outstanding job with the car show.
There are numerous ways to
judge the success of a car show. You could judge it by the number of cars
entered or you could judge it by the amount of money raised for the club
treasury. However, we are proud to be members of a club that judges the success
of the show by the smiles on the participants faces. We didn’t have a lot of
cars or raise a lot of money, but we had very, very happy participants. From
the comments I heard at the conclusion of the event, a significant number of
the participants that won plaques had never taken home an award from a car show
– ever. THAT is what makes our car shows so unique and satisfying for the
participants. I’m sure that there is also the aspect of meeting new friends as
well which everyone was able to do yesterday. We do those things better than
any other club in the area!
From the sponsor’s
perspective, I think the show was also a success. Not only did our participants
support our sponsor by purchasing some of the excellent food and libations they
had to offer, but the people who also wandered through to look at the cars were
exposed to our sponsor – some for the first time – which is a success from
their perspective.
There is a downside to having
such a successful show though, be prepared for next year: if we do this again,
we’ll have a lot more participants to take care of!
Thanks for everyone’s hard
work in making the event a complete and utter success.
DtRC
Club Bone-Head award
Bones, bones, has anyone seen the bones?
Committee
Updates
Social
Committee
Mary Kay, Mary and Cathy
Watch for spur of the moment events!
Governor’s
Report -
By Nancy B.
Hi Everyone,
I can't believe it has been a month already. I wrote the last report the day after returning from Convention.
First and foremost - a reminder that Cathy will be collecting dues at the October meeting. So this is your two month warning. If you aren't going to be there in October - make sure to get in touch with Cathy by the first weekend in November. I need to have all my paperwork, along with signed checks in to our Regional Membership Directory by Mid-November - so we need counts before then. To the two new members - you are exempt from the 2010 dues because you are grandfathered in with your 2009 dues as you joined after Sept. 1st. For the rest of you - the renewal dues are $50 per single and $80 per couple. That is my memory anyway - someone please let me know if I am incorrect and I'll email out a correction. So bring your check or cash to the October meeting.
Regional Calendar -
Event flyers are coming in a little slow and close to the events. There are a ton of events for the rest of September and into October and November. Plan to come out and do some playing. A few items of note: The DCA events at LaJunta the weekend of the 25/26 of September are cancelled. There is a new event on the calendar - Casper 2 Autocrosses on 10-11. Check the calendar at www.rmrnccc.org to check out the upcoming events. No flyer for the Torca rally yet - so don't know what all they are hosting. When that one becomes available - I'll drop you an email.
Regional Officer Nominations are open
At the governors meeting late last month nominations for regional officers opened. They are open for at least one more meeting. I don't remember when that meeting was scheduled for and I don't have my notes - I think it is mid-October. If you are interested in running for any of the regional officer positions - please let me know. The positions are Regional Executive, Regional Competition Director, Regional Membership Director, Secretary and Treasurer. All of the currently sitting officers have been nominated and said they are willing to run again. Treasurer is currently open and there is one region member that has volunteered to run for that position.
On a non-governor note - we
did the rods and rides scavenger hunt last weekend. At one of the stops
Dave found out about a football team he would actually like to go see play a
game. They only have 2 home games a year - one is the October 9th.
They play at Dick's stadium - so they are a real team. If we are in
town and the weather is decent we are thinking about going if we can get others
interested. That is their 2nd and last home game of the season so
opportunities are limited. We'll send out email when it gets
closer. The official website is: http://www.lflus.com/denverdream/ -
not that I can even find ticket prices on there. Check out their roster
though - it looks like they have an opening for one player if anyone is
interested.
(Editor’s note: Great tickets appear to be available on tickethorse.com and cost $29.00 each. Maybe we should stop in at Bar Louie in Stapleton Northfield for dinner before heading out to the game. The gates don’t open until 7:00 PM and the game is at 9:00 on Friday night October 9th)
We have to miss the meeting
this month - so someone make sure to give Bill a hard time for me please and
thank you. –
Nancy B
15th Anniversary National
Corvette Caravan - August 31 – Labor Day 2009
Tim B.
Thanks to all of the club
members who have worked so hard to make this event a success!
As with our car show, we must
focus on measuring the success of the event by the smiles on the faces of the
participants rather than the count of participants who chose to come out and be
sociable. I think it also fostered relationships between the Denver area clubs
by mixing club members together to achieve a common goal.
As to our club member’s
experiences on the caravan and at the Museum anniversary event, well, all I can
say is OMG/TSB and what happened in Bowling Green stays in Bowling Green. I
will say that we all had a good time, none of us wound up in jail and the
expenses of the trip were within reason – at least for most of us.
I will also say that the
remodeled and expanded Museum is truly a world class museum! The work that has
been done over the last two years has transformed the Museum to a destination
that every Corvette owner should visit. I hope that our club can continue to
find ways to support the efforts by the Museum.
Thanks again for the help
with the caravan. The event wouldn’t have been what it was without your
support.
Tim
Drag
Racing Report
Joan B.
One more to go! Let’s all
hope Joan’s car is up to the task!
AutoCross
Committee
Frank A.
No report this month.
Merchandise Report
Mike and Martha P.
Thanks to all of the members who
support the Tim’s Challenge raffle!
NCM
Ambassador’s Report
Richard Loch
For the latest news and
events at the museum go to http://www.corvettemuseum.com/.
Want to
Advertise?
If you are a member of Down the Road Corvettes, you may place a For Sale or
Wanted Ad for any Corvette related items in our newsletter for free.
Submissions must be received via E-mail to the editor no later than the
15th of each month.
Disclaimer: All prices listed here are not guaranteed. You will need to confirm any and all prices with the selling party.
Advertising
*************************************************************************************
*** Member Ad ***
For Sale:
1980 Corvette 4 Sale, Automatic, 60K miles. glass tops, Silver / Dark Blue,True Spoke wheels & new tires, + original wheels.
Original and stock. Good condition. Tell me what it's worth.
Bruce Kinney
(303) 543-1238
2009 Committees:
|
Dealer Rep |
Mike K. |
|
Membership & Directory |
Cathy S. / Nancy B. |
|
Social Committee |
Mary Kay, Mary and Cathy |
|
Merchandise Committee |
Mike and Martha |
|
Rally Committee |
Joan – Chair, |
|
Show Committee |
Open |
|
|
Richard Loch |
|
Webmaster |
Mike P. |
|
Newsletter |
Tim B |
|
Drag Racing Competition Director |
Joan B. |
|
Autocross Competition Director |
Frank A. |
|
Tim’s Challenge Representative |
? |
|
Sno' Big Deal Extravaganza |
Open |
|
Roving Reporter/Photographer |
Bill S. |