Our 1953 Commemorative Edition Corvette Story

    Chaz & Gael Cone, Atlanta, GA

Caravanning to Savannah for the "Gathering VI"

Friday/Saturday, April 4-5, 2003

This is the sixth year that the Savannah Coastal Corvettes Club had sponsored this great indoor show they call "The Gathering".  It's the first time I've been privileged to go; at the Classic Glass Valentine Cruise one of the Coastal Corvettes members, Don Tuten, suggested I bring the 1953CE down for the show.  Well; a "personal invitation" -- what could I say?!?

Gael couldn't come (that "I have to go to work" thing..) so I asked pal Pete Butler to co-pilot.  It was all set -- and then Pete went and got the flu.  So I'm on my own.

Our local club, Classic Glass, was caravanning down so I joined the gang.  There were eight cars and thirteen folks.  We met at our regular club meeting place, Sidelines Sports Bar & Grill in Marietta to form up for the trip.  Turns out only three of the cars were there and we hooked up with the rest on the south side of Atlanta.

After a minor mishap (our fearless caravan leader -- who shall be unnnamed -- OK, OK; Greg Brooks)

..was unable to get into the left lane quickly enough so some of us missed the entrance to I-75S; sh*t happens...), we were on our way:

It's about four and half hours to Savannah and the day was beautiful.  We had a pitstop at Exit 51 on I-75:

..and breezed on into Savannah around 5:30P or so.

Did I mention this was the first out-of-town 500 mile round-trip for the CE?  I was petrified the whole way down and back that something bad would happen.  Nothing did, thankfully.

The designated hotel was Clubhouse Inn and Suites on Abercorn.

When we got there a bunch of local Corvettes were already in place..

..and registration was in swing.  Free drinks from 5-7pm each evening, free breakfast every morning -- nothing wrong with this.  AND they made a hose available for washing the cars. Perfect.

The Atlanta folks planned to have dinner at the Crab Shack on Tybee Island (some fifteen miles away).  Being as Friday night is the first or second busiest nights for the Crab Shack I persuaded good friends Tony and Nancy Petrea to pull a string or two to get our mob in; here's Tony:

Tony pointed out that the Crab Shack parking lot is all dirt and rocks and invited us to park our rides at his house.  We thankfully took him up on that, parked there and walked the twenty-five yards to the restaurant.  As Tony is pals with the owner (and since Tony & Nancy live only two houses down from the restaurant) we ended up with a big table set for us when we arrived.  No waiting.  Gotta love that. I foolishly left my camera in the car; this picture of Carl and Tonie Etter at dinner I stole from Tom Wilcox:

 

After dinner Tony & Nancy invited us all in for a beer(s); they have a lovely home and we had a swell time.  But 8AM comes early so....

Next morning we were (mostly) all up for the planned cruise to -- yep, back to Tybee Island.  It took about an hour and a half and we were on some beautiful streets and roads.  Nothing bad to look at in Savannah, I'm thinking.

(Boy, would it be easier (and safer!) to take driving pictures if I wasn't the one driving!)

The cruise ended at the Savannah Convention and Trade Center across the river from River Street.  There was a minor confusion re the time (they weren't ready for us until 10am) as we arrived at about 9:40A.  No problem.  Corvette people have no problem standing around and discussing our rides!

We were admitted promptly at 10A and they assigned me a central location.  Seems that Chevy had lent them a pair of distinctive cars for the show and those cars plus the CE had a nice exhibit spot.

Just to the left was this pace car replica from some race with graphics in French (and no, it wasn't Le Mans):

And to the right a pace car from the 2002 Indy 500:

I spent the next hour cleaning everything off the car.  There on the hood is my favorite cleaner/detailer IBIZ Waterless Wash & Wax (shameless plug..):

OOPS!

This next is just too good to leave out of this story.  Both the Chevy-provided C5s had full strobe kits.  What was not well known was that, after an hour or so, the strobes will stop -- because the battery is now dead.  As in "doornail".  Here's the 50th Anniversary Pace Car getting a jump from a liberally customized '66:


It may be 37 years older but its battery still works :)

The club served a box lunch at noon and the public was admitted at 1PM.  T-shirt and drawing ticket sales were brisk:

The show went on until 6PM when a very good buffet was provided and the the program began.  Friend Tony (along with a young lady helper) was the MC for the door prize drawing and the announcement of winners:

Usually, local club members are ineligible for competition but this show had a very nice wrinkle. There was a separate competition for Coastal Corvette cars and five trophies were awarded. Then came the main competition.

There were trophies for the best C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 and Best-of-Show.  The best C1 was the only C1 present but was truly deserving:

All the cars looked great:

When the C5 winner was to be announced, Tony said that I might have won but the judges couldn't decide if the CE was a C1 or a C5 so they assigned the C5 trophy to Roman and Marilyn Sabadaszka's 2003 Andy Pilgrim Edition Z06:

I was crushed.  Until he announced that the CE won Best of Show!  Wow!

Back to the hotel, crashed, met in the lobby at 10AM and we headed home.  Not a bad outing: Two trophies out of six for the Atlanta group -- and club president Tom Wilcox won a suede Corvette jacket in the door prize drawing!  All of us arrived home safely.  What a great weekend!

Click HERE for the next chapter..