June 27th -- Nashville!
Today is the first of two days of events at the Tennessee Titans Stadium in Nashville. We met friends Fred & Fran Gunter..
Dennis & Leslie Stepanik..
.. and Jim & Shirley Hornaday:
.. at 9:30a at the Opryland Presidential Portico (finding that was a challenge; did I mention this place is HUGE?) and hopped on one of a large fleet of buses making the run from the hotel to the stadium.
The bus dropped us off right next to the parking lot reserved for those folks staying in Bowling Green hotels and "Cruiz"ing down to Nashville. I'm told that the line to get one of those treasured parking passes was the only real frustrating snafu of the whole week.
This lot was a car show all on its own; here's just one example:
And, right next to it, was 53-03CE #7; the only Torch Z06 converted so far:
Turning from the parking lot we saw that the stadium was festooned (I've always wanted to type that word) with huge banners glorifying Corvette and the 50th Celebration. Here's one that's about 50 feet square:
And here's another:
My vision of how the events at the stadium would be done was quickly corrected by a handout someone gave me. The area all around the stadium was set with tents.
Everything was outside the stadium proper and there wasn't much shade.
We ran into friends Lee Anna and Don O'Daniel:
.. and friend Jim Browning (he owns Corsa Performance). He had a couple of demo cars there; they sounded GREAT!:
Chevrolet (predictably) had all their car marques there on display and I finally got to see my first SSR. They had two there and it was nifty to see the retractable hardtop do its thing. Gael thinks the SSR is a solution without a matching problem -- and she may be right. But even at $45K I suspect they'll sell well. (No pix for some reason; sorry)
We systematically (?) wandered the entire area. There was the Heritage display of a Corvette (all stock-looking) from each model year. These cars were selected by the NCM for display here in Nashville with a caravan on Sunday down to the NCM and display there. A number of the cars were from folks we knew from last year's Historic Motorama. They all looked fantastic.
Author and photographer Randy Leffingwell was there autographing his book "50 Years of Corvette":
It was hot and the lines were long but he was unfailingly gracious and friendly to his fans. Class act. Fran and Gael each bought one for Fred and me and waited patiently:
There was a NCCC car show with some great wheels:
There was also available a '53 pedal car that you could buy for your kid for only $1000.00:
.. and this inflatable bowtie was between the NCCC display and the stadium:
The NCRS display was impressive as well:
The old cars are STILL my favorites and there were some outstanding examples.
Food service left a lot to be desired but at least the prices weren't out of sight as they often are at sports venues. Long lines but acceptable chow.
After lunch I saw Dollie Cole and she graciously posed for this one:
And then I saw friend Buzz Nielsen talking with Jim Campbell. Jim used to be the Brand Manager for Corvette and Camaro. He got promoted (Rick Baldick took his place); I really miss seeing Jim. It was good to shake his hand again!
And was this ever a great find! This is the 1953 Motorama car; the prototype for the 1953 Corvette. You can tell because this is the ONLY 1953 with the "flag" at the front of the side molding pointing "down":
Walking around to the other side of the stadium (whew!) we came upon the Le Mans C5R that placed second at Le Mans just two weeks ago (and they didn't even wash it!):
That afternoon we noticed another 53-03 Commemorative Edition being delivered:
This one (#36) was provided though Purifoy Chevrolet in Denver and was painted Anniversary Red! You can't believe how beautiful it is until you see it up close and personal. The new owners Dino and Lynn Salvatori were suitably delighted:
This is the Salvatoris along with Rollie Purifoy:
This makes five of the 53-03CE cars here for the celebration.
This evening there's to be a "open to the public" concert down by the river on a floating stage. The headliners are The Temptations". We elected to take the bus back to the hotel late afternoon and decide later if we'd return for the concert.
We "did" the whole place today and think that tomorrow we'll just go on up to Bowling Green. Chevy made it clear that Friday and Saturday were essentially duplicates of each other. On to the bus:
At the hotel (with our aching feet up) we decided we would forgoe the concert. It's a long walk from where the bus drops you at the stadium, across a bridge over the river and to the riverbank. We just bailed and had another lovely dinner at the hotel, this time at the Ristorante Volare in the Opryland Hotel. And so to bed..
