63 - 67 Sting Ray Registry
Chip's Choice Display this year featured cars from Chip Miller's personal collection, from the first three generations. Cindy and I were in the building on Wednesday when Chip was showing his latest and greatest addition to his Corvette collection to some of his friends. The C5-R chassis number 004, built in 2000 at the Pratt & Miller shop. This car finished first at Road Atlanta in its racing debut. Chassis number 004 came in second place in the GTS class at the 2001 24 Hours of Le Mans, however this car will always be known as the car that legendary NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt and his son, Dale Jr., with Andy Pilgrim and Kelly Collins drove to a second place finish at the 2001 Rolex 24 at Daytona. We were there with a handful of people to watch Chip crawl into the C5-R and start it up and listen to it run for about 30 seconds.
We spent Friday in the 63-67 Sting Ray Registry Fun Display area where we enjoyed seeing old friends of the Registry and meeting many new members for the first time. Friday evening we enjoyed dinner with some of you at the Red Robin restaurant.
Saturday morning all of the 63-67 Sting Ray Registry Fun Display parking places were filled. It was a beautiful sight to see over 40 Mid-Year Corvettes parked side by side. Celebrity Judges selected 12 of our members Corvettes this year. I picked Bruce May's 64 black coupe as my Celebrity Choice. See the pictures and Celebrity Judge comments of all the winners this year by clicking HERE. Again this year, we held our own People's Choice car show. The winners were Gary and Mary Harris with their beautiful 1967 Marina Blue Coupe with white interior. A special thanks to Dick Allyson for providing the prestigious Peoples Choice Plaque. We also gave away door prizes to some of our lucky members.
Saturday evening many of us participated in the Corvette Parade through Downtown Carlisle. I think I can still smell the rubber burning. For the first time in the last three years all of our Registry Vettes completed the Parade under their own power. Some of us went to the Hanover Grill for dinner after the parade. I think the owners and some of their other customers are still talking about us. We had an evening of good food and lots of laughter. We will do this again next year.
Sunday was a more relaxed day spent at the 63-67 Sting Ray Registry tent waiting for the awards to be given out and the Giveaway Corvette to be won by somebody in attendance.
As usual the fairgrounds were full of vendors who had just the right parts, tools or books that we needed.
Cindy and some of our ladies took advantage of the Women's Oasis that was a short walk from our Registry Tent to purchase jewelry, baskets and other girl stuff. Cindy and others got free therapeutic massages and manicures.
I want to thank all of you who helped out in the Registry Tent and a special THANK YOU to Dennis Rosenthal for working on our Corvette (and others) and giving advice and help to anybody who needed it during the weekend.
All of you are special to Cindy and me!
See you all at Corvettes at Carlisle 2004. Be sure to note on your Fun Display Registration that you are a member of the 63-67 Sting Ray Registry so that we will have a bigger Fun Display area next year. We will also be posting on the web page a basic Agenda for Carlisle 2004 so you can all plan ahead to attend one/both of the Registry dinners, Awards Ceremony and Door Prize giveaways.
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CORVETTES AT CARLISLE 2003
By: Dennis Manire