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CORVETTE TODAY #162 - A Preview Of The GM Nationals At Carlisle
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May 8, 2025
CORVETTE TODAY goes back to our friends at Carlisle Events to preview one of the largest GM shows in the country (next to Corvettes At Carlisle). Event Manager, Ken Appell, sits down with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, to preview everything going on....and there's more going on than you think! There is a multitude of things happening during the GM Nationals...Steve was truly amazed! After you hear this show, you might want to put the GM Nationals on your events calendar!
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[Music] welcome to Corvette today the podcast
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that talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett MC and DJ at one of the largest Corvette weekends
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in the country Corvette Fun Fest president of the Corvette club of Kansas City Missouri and radio disc jockey at
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the number one radio station in Kansas City for over 40 years here's Steve Garrett
0:28
thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only current
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podcast dedicated to Corvette I'm your host Steve Garrett I appreciate you tuning in Corva today is brought to you
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Corvette enthusiasts from around the world the GM Nationals are coming up at the Carlisle Fairgrounds which is home
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of Corvettes at Carlisle and here to give us a preview of the GM Nationals is events manager Ken Appel Ken welcome to
2:54
Corvette today hey Steve thanks for having us we're excited to be on the show that's great give me a little bit
3:00
of history about the GM Nationals how did it start how many years has this event been going on so this event's been
3:06
going on a little over 20 years and we started it basically in the early 2000s it kind of became a transition event
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from our summer Carlisle which was very similar to Spring and fall Carlisle from a swap meet standpoint and since then
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basically we've grown it to about a thousand GM vehicles of all makes models
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not just Corvette but everything from Camaro to fire Firebird to Fiero to
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Buick Grand National it's an all-encompassing GM event chip at the time had started very cool now what are
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the dates of this year's show and where is the event going to be held so it'll be held at the Carlisle Fairgrounds same place as the Corvettes at Carlisle event
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it's happening June 23rd and 24th and then we'll also be open on the 22nd for
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early bird shopping as well 23rd and 24th are the main show days 24th being
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the Saturday is The Big Show day and really gets a good amount of cars in that sounds fantastic Ken let's talk
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about something the special displays that are going to be there this year go over all those for us yeah so we
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actually have a number of awesome displays this year we have 50 years of the Buick Regal that's all encompassing
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from the current model all the way back to the muscle area and everything in between including the G-Body Regals
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which obviously include the GNX and the Grand National which are super super popular today we have the 40 Years of
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Pontiac Fiero which believe it or not actually at this show is actually one of the largest Gatherings of the arrows
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actually in the country each year they actually represent over a hundred some registrants at the show each year which
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is awesome to see the Mid-Atlantic Fiero Owners Association they do a great job setting up an entire weekend of
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activities for that group and this year is no different they have a ton of stuff that's coming up that's unannounced and
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we'll be featuring a number of those Fieros inside the building just like we will with the Regal so it's gonna be a
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great weekend for those enthusiasts we also have the 120 years of Buick motor company which is also happening in
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building T that's a great great display that's shaping up we have a number of different eras of Buick that will be in
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the building we also have the solid lifter showroom over in building y That's presented by our friends at Supercar Workshop they do a great
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display of yankos copos and everything basically that's a super car GM
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essentially from that time period in the late 60s early 70s we had the third gen Nationals which is happening over in
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building R towards gate two that's kind of going on the momentum that we did last year with the third gen anniversary
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which basically was a third gen Camaro and Firebird Gathering that we did those guys came back they said hey we need an
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event for ourselves so we're kind of doing a great show within the show for them there you have a number of vendors
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lined up some third gen guests some really awesome cars they're going to do a big tent as well which is a little bit
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of a unannounced thing something that we found out today huh so it's going to be a pretty cool 200 foot long tent of
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different third gen Camaro and Firebirds which will pair up with some of the vendors and they're going to have seminars and stuff like that as well so
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it's going to be a great showing there we also have the fourth gen Camaro and Firebird anniversary going on in building T so that goes along with the
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third gen stuff so definitely two things for f body enthusiasts we also have the malays era celebration it's going to be
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a great tent display that we have going on and then we also have the Corvettes for chip event that's happening in the
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showfield area so which I know we'll get to in a little bit here absolutely now you brought up something that I want to
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get a little bit better definition of talk about what a malaise era car is Ken so malays obviously is a word that
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basically came out during that period that was used by different politicians to basically describe what was going on
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in the economy the world the gas crisis all that sort of stuff but basically the
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enthusiasts of those cars of the middle 70s to late 80s have kind of adopted that term as a calling card for those
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cars it's kind of the Forgotten cars of that period it's really really really unique to see all this come together
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we've got some really really cool vehicles from laser display we have everything from a Chevette to an old
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Omega from 1981 that was actually the PPG pace car we have Oldsmobile kais we
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have a Monza Town Coupe we have a whole number of other cars that we're still yet to select for that tent display but
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it's really hearkening back to those cars that quite frankly we've forgotten from the 70s and 80s and the enthusiasts
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that own those cars have adopted the name as a malaise era of cars that's really cool I mean they're embracing
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that which is really neat to hear yeah and the Fiero celebration that we're doing and the Regal celebration with
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especially some of the 70s and 80s Regals or kind of kind of tie in hand in hand with that so we're really excited
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to see it all come together that should be really fantastic you know I noticed also that you're going to have the Nova
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Nationals which should be really cool that sounds like a lot of fun yeah so National nostalgic Nova which is a club
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and magazine they they put together a great Nova Nationals over in our Pavilion area that at Corvettes at
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Carlisle you would see as the car corral Pavilion okay at this show it's a little bit different show just like every
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single one of our shows is different from the other but that'll actually be the home of the Nova Nationals they do
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seminars throughout the weekend they do Gold Class judging for some of the top level novas they really have a great
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Gathering of about 70 80 novas usually each year that sounds like fun man that
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sounds great Ken let's take our first break when we come back we're going to talk about some of the other cars that will be on display we have Ken Apel with
8:38
us from Carlisle events here talking about GM Nationals on Corvette today we
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833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me is Ken Apel the events manager
13:07
at Carlisle Fairgrounds we're talking about the GM Nationals coming up in June Ken you've got some really cool displays
13:13
coming up talk a little bit more about those like the third and fourth gen Camaros and Firebirds yeah so the third
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gen Nationals which is basically an indoor display and an outdoor display as mentioned prior with the tent display
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they're going to do really came together as a continuation of last year's awesome third gen anniversary that we did down
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in building T basically all those enthusiasts came together and said hey we need a home for basically a third gen
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Gathering Nationwide so and that's third gen Camaro and Firebird that we're talking about so they kind of said hey
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let's get together let's create this new event called the third gen Nationals that's to have it at Carlisle and let's
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see where it goes and let's build it as something that's going to be a pillar in that Community for years and years to
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come they've built it as not only having a number of displays but having a number
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of vendors like our friends at Camaro and Firebird Central they're stepping up and doing a great showing of what they
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offer part wise Ben and his crew are going to show up and have a number of different stuff we have about 10 other
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vendors that are lining up near that area for the third gen Nationals as well that we're hoping to announce here real
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soon but that is going to be kind of the hub for everything going on for the third gen National so they're going to
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have a number of cars indoors they have fill boards in the pace car which if you know anything in the f-body community
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Phil Boris is a great author of many of the Norwood Camaro and Firebird books
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and there's some really awesome custom cars Seth Starbucks from Starbucks designs is basically bringing his 92
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Camaro that's really done up real well Bruce Hawkins uh Hawkins performance is bringing his 91 Firebird formula which
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is a very rare car as well and there's a number of other IROC Z's and Trans Ams
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and other Camaros that are going to take a display up basically in building R and then we're also going to have a 200 foot
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long tent where we're going to Showcase a number of third gens as well right next to that building so we're really
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really excited for that display and that show within a show as we call it coming up for the GN Nationals that's fantastic
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man now if somebody has a car from this era can how do they enter the car into the show so as far as that goes it's
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just just like we do for Corvettes of Carlisle we have online registration or you can call us in person and basically
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that's 717-243-7855events.com and you can get
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all the info to register right then and there there is a fee to register for the show field get you in all weekend and
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then basically you can have your car right on the show field you can go for judging and it's really really a great
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time to celebrate your car with the rest of the Enthusiast Community very cool if someone just wants to come as a
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spectator and enjoy everything that's going on that weekend at the GM Nationals can they also register online
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yeah they can go on carlautickets.com or even our carlylevance.com website and
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click through to get your tickets you can get a weekend pass you can get a daily pass or if you don't purchase in
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advance we'll take payment at the gate day of as well oh that's good yeah now we always recommend an advantage save a
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little bit of money you can also buy your parking in advance too which the nice thing about this show we do have parking on site so it's right there if
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you're going to be buying parts or just coming to check stuff out you don't after walking around all day you don't want to walk you mean blocks to your car
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you know you can just walk across the field and be right in your parking Zone that's a smart idea for sure Ken with
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most of your shows you guys do professional judging and also celebrity judging talk a little bit more about
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that and who's going to be there this year so as far as celebrity judges I can't get into that just yet most of
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them that we have for this show are different Club leaders different authors basically people that represent the GM
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Community as a whole whether they're a collector whether they're a builder whether they own a company that's
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typically who makes up the bulk of our celebrity judges as far as our main celebrity we have not announced that yet
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we are still working on that one still just a little bit too early to have that locked in and then from our professional
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judging standpoint we have a group that we hire in from e-judge that does our standard of Excellence judging which is
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limited to about 50 different cars from the GM segment basically and they're judged for either their originality or
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their customization on a scale of 100 and basically the same group actually judges the mother shine award out SEMA
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they do a number of other events and stuff like that so they're really really in tune with what's going on in the
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automotive world and then we also have our main show field judging which is based on participant ballot which is UD
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enthusiasts get the vote who has first second and third in your class now we do divide that up pretty well so that way
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there's no Club favoritism or anything like that going on which is kind of nice because when people hear about
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participant ballot that's one of the things that people frown upon but we do a really nice job to make sure that we
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split the ballot up very well so that way one club or one group doesn't control it or you don't really see a lot
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of people voting for their friends because their friends are spread out across the entire field so you really get a good base of what cars should
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actually really win in that class very nice that's a smart idea we try we try also you have Carlisle Elite talk about
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what that is and is that a new thing for you guys no we've actually been doing Carl Elite for at least on this show for
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probably about 10 years but it's been around for much much longer than that certain shows have it certain shows
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don't we do it at our import Nationals which is coming up here in may we do it at our truck Nationals in June and then
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we also do it at our GM Nationals that's basically where on Friday of the show
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our staff will go around and we'll pick 10 GM vehicles that stand out for one reason or another it could be because of
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their uniqueness it could be just a standout vehicle could be that it was preserved it could be due to a level of
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customization it's very subjective but it's basically 10 vehicles that stand out for one reason or another there's no
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real criteria to it it's just when we go around the field on Friday we'll kind of look at the different cars that are on
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the field we'll kind of go up on the hill close our eyes and all right which 10 cars stood out to you when we were
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riding around to pick those 10 winners and basically they'll get a acrylic award which is a very very nice award
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honestly it's one of my favorite ones that we give out all year they'll get a hat sticker and a shirt basically to
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signify they are part of the Carlisle Elites winners for that year we've had cars that have been rollers before that
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have won that award but no disgrace to a car being a roller but because it was so
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historic or so different and build nature or anything and everything we've had cars that are thousand Point winners
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at a show win the award so it really runs the gamut and it's really I said 10 cars that stand out for one reason or
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another man that's a unique concept I really like that that sounds like a lot of fun it truly is usually we can think
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of there's 10 cars once we go away from the show field close the Horizon say okay these 10 cars stood out for X Y and
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Z reason as I said it's not always the best car that wins an award and it's not really in a win it's more of an awarding
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of that award gotcha very cool I like that concept A lot now you talked about
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this just briefly before Kim but one of my favorite elements of the GM Nationals is the Corvettes for chip Schofield
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that's a permanent element of GM Nationals talk a little bit more about that yeah so a few years ago the
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Corvettes for chip was its own Standalone event that happened over at our Carlisle Expo Center it was run by a
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group called the York County Corvette club great supporters of the show great supporters of our company all together
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and they said Hey what if we combined this with the GM Nationals we were all
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for it we were like yeah let me really bring something for the Corvette owners to do that's a little bit above and beyond the normal show field they have
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Raffles they have their own Awards and it's basically very similar to what we were talking about earlier with the show
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within a show concept and they also have different seminars going on there they have Paul Kerner the Corvette mechanic
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come in and he does a couple seminars as well it's a really great opportunity it's also your first opportunity to buy
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your tickets for the Corvettes at Carlisle cmaf raffle car that's typically done with the Lancaster County
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Corvette club so it's your first opportunity to get those tickets as well and believe it or not one of the tickets
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that won a couple years ago was a ticket that was purchased at the GM Nationals wow very nice well Ken let's take our
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final break when we come back we'll wrap up and talk a little bit more about the GM Nationals with Ken Appel the events
21:44
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host Steve Garrett thanks once again for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything
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Corvette brought to you by wheelcraft spring is here and you want your Corvette to look its best dress it up
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833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me is Ken Apel the events manager for Carlisle events we're talking about
25:00
the GM Nationals in this third and final segment we're going to kind of wrap things up and talk about some of the off
25:06
the beaten path type stuff can anybody can become a vendor for the GM Nationals
25:11
typically what's sold in the vendor area there are GM Nationals typically what sold there's two different areas first
25:17
off there is the manufacturers Midway which is where you typically see some of the major manufacturers come in one of
25:23
our great Partners Umi runs our autocross course they're set up there usually some of the top detailing
25:29
companies in the country are set up there and usually it runs the gamut of
25:34
new manufacturers for the GM World essentially and then you also have the swap meet area or what we call sometimes
25:41
the automotive flea market the main thing is you need to be selling something that is appropriate to the GM
25:47
Market typically that's automotive parts that's Collectibles that are automotive oriented it's memorabilia or literature
25:53
that's Automotive oriented and obviously it needs to be GM for this show in particular so it's a real nice small
26:00
grouping of vendors that have everything from used parts to reproduction parts to
26:06
anything and everything in between guys that are parting out their cars or the guy cleaning out his garage or guy or
26:12
girl cleaning out their garage so it's really really a unique feature to walk through when you're here and potentially
26:18
buy things for your vehicle and you touched on something I wanted to talk about a little bit more the ever popular
26:24
always popular flea market I know it's so popular at Corvette to Carlisle it's
26:29
got to be a big thing at GM Nationals too doesn't it yeah it's a little bit smaller than what it is at Corvettes at
26:35
Carlisle but it's very muscle oriented when it comes to the GM crowd but there's a little bit of everything in
26:41
the automotive flea market which is really nice to see like I said it's anything from reproduction parts to
26:47
original NOS parts that the guy's been holding in his garage for 20 30 40 years
26:53
to used parts I mean there's always great deals down in the automotive flea
26:58
market anything from dashboards to body panels to engine compartment parts to
27:04
Glass to anything and everything in between we've seen it all here we've seen some barn finds come out of the
27:10
woodwork and be sold quite quickly typically we had a moss covered Corvette a couple years ago that sold very very
27:16
very very quickly it was a C1 one two which was quite incredible to see we've seen everything all the way up to the
27:22
latest and greatest fifth and sixth Gen Camaro parts being down in there we've seen truck beds being sold down there
27:27
which is actually a very big thing up here in PA especially with the C10 Chevy trucks becoming so so so popular right
27:35
now there's a vendor that literally brings in probably 20 30 different GM truck beds that are of the 70s 80s and
27:42
early 90s wow he does a quite a good selling of them down in the swap meet and I said that's a very popular Market
27:49
in this area and he does quite well I bet he does yeah when they're rust free
27:54
he's getting them out of Arizona which is even better yeah oh yeah so they're dry they're not this Northern climate
27:59
that we're in right now you can also buy and sell cars at the GM Nationals just the way they do at Corvettes at Carlisle
28:06
right yes sir yeah we have a car corral area that's near the food court it's ever popular as well there's always some
28:12
deals in that as well nice now there's also the car club contest too those are always fun right yeah so we do the
28:19
coolest club which is awarded to a club that has stood out from one way shape or form and that can be from having the
28:26
coolest Club tent hang out from decorations to they have a number of seminars going on to having other
28:33
camaraderie or display or something like that going on in their tent there's a
28:39
number of different criteria here we look at for that one but we also hold a thing that we have with our club challenge which is our first second and
28:46
third place clubs and that's the biggest clubs for it the past couple years we've had a pretty good battle going on
28:52
between the Fiero owners the Monte Carlo owners the Nova owners all for that top
28:58
spot but there's also usually some newcomers that come in to play in that market as well I know the Cosworth Vega
29:04
Owners Association they've competed for that as well and most of the clubs that are in top three are bringing some
29:10
really great numbers they're bringing 50 plus cars so it's quite a contest when they really start getting at it on show
29:17
weekend that's amazing now you've got a lot of contests going on at the GM Nationals like the rolling burnout the
29:24
donut contest the open autocross talk about some of the different contests that will be happening that weekend so
29:30
the rolling burnout and donut contest is something that we tried differently last year and it really really took off we
29:37
used to do burnouts at the stage unfortunately due to some insurance changes we are no longer permitted to do them up at the stage and for safety
29:45
standpoint and we don't want anybody getting hurt so we moved it back to our autocross track area which we'll get to
29:51
in a little bit here when you mentioned about the autocross runs but we do that on Saturday afternoon back at the track
29:57
when we give the person two options for doing a burnout means they have more
30:02
area than they used to up at the stage one of those methods is to do a rolling
30:08
burnout which we give you basically 200 foot the lay down one Smoky burnout or
30:13
we have basically skid pad for a donut contest we had people last year doing
30:18
both things we had people doing only a donut we had people doing a rolling burnout into Donuts we had people doing
30:24
just loud Smoky rolling burnouts it was really a great contest to see all come together our friends at atturo tires do
30:31
a great job at sponsoring that contest so we also have the rolling exhaust contest which is a exhaust contest where
30:38
somebody accelerates up our Hill over towards gate 6 and gate five and we do it to where the exhaust note is under
30:44
load nobody wants to hear an exhaust just sitting there revving we want to hear it under load to see how it
30:50
actually sound going down the road that's why we do it towards the Hill area over there so that way we get the
30:56
car under load we basically have a judging Zone where it's judged on sound quality not on loudness not on does it
31:03
pop does it crackle all that sort of stuff it's do the judges does it sound good essentially yeah they'll narrow we
31:10
have two different rounds going on to qualify they'll Nero base basically 40 cars down to 20 cars and then 20 cars
31:17
down to a top three eventually for a first second and third for that contest so it's a really really fun contest that
31:23
we do we also have the real street shootout along with our open autocross runs that happens back at the track area
31:29
that we mentioned when we were talking about the rolling burnout and donut contest the real street shootout happens
31:35
Friday night it's a competition to basically see who puts down the quickest three Laps on the autocross course and
31:41
then during the weekend we have open auto cross runs with our friends at the Cumberland Valley Corvette club they do
31:47
that throughout the weekend as well we also have Nitro Fest which is our friend Bruce Larson the former drag racer who
31:54
basically comes in brings a bunch of his old funny cars and stuff like that sets them up for everybody to hear them
32:01
cackle I guess you could say and hear them rev up and all that so it's a really really awesome event to witness
32:06
and hear to say the least boy lots of contests that's fantastic now seminars
32:12
are big too you've got lots of seminars for the GM Nationals yeah we do we have everything from installation seminars to
32:19
book signings to historians coming up we have a couple more that are to announce but we also have the ones that typically
32:26
center around whatever anniversaries we're doing or whatever show whether the shows are going on so the Nova Nationals
32:33
they hold one over in their Pavilion or actually they hold a number of them not just one but they hold seminars that are
32:39
suspension based that are paint based that are detailing based all things that basically Encompass what it requires to
32:46
have a top level Nova nowadays or a top performing Nova so they do ones over there the third gen Nationals they have
32:53
some that are historic in nature they have some that are Performance Based as well they have some detailing ones and
33:01
they also have a couple authors coming in as well that will be basically showcasing their book and doing a q a
33:06
with that the Fiera owners they're doing a couple seminars as well they're doing a couple that are installation based or
33:13
doing a couple that are walking seminars where they'll kind of go through the history of the different Fieros and then
33:19
we just have a couple other ones as well going on with a Buick Regal anniversary to be more specifically our friend
33:25
Dennis Corbin of curb and performance he'll actually be doing one on turbo Buicks and turbo Pontiacs on Saturday
33:32
and there's a couple others that are still to be announced so we're getting really excited about stuff here
33:37
naturally man there's a great lineup and there's lots of stuff to do for kids and for the ladies as well yeah so we
33:44
actually have a woman's Oasis in building Z which is under the grandstand there and that is a Oasis for the ladies
33:51
to get away from things that are pretty much Automotive based if you're not interested in that anything from sensity
33:57
to crafts to anything and everything that isn't Automotive that applies to
34:03
that lifestyle I guess you could say so it's a really unique opportunity for that we also have women's Bingo that
34:09
happens on Saturday as well and we also have a kids program that I also also includes kids Bingo a kids cash grab and
34:16
we also have kids goodie bags for those under 12 which Under 12 gets in free to our event that can be picked up on a
34:23
first come first serve basis and the guest service building it's got a coloring book it's got a typically a Hot
34:28
Wheels or Matchbox car and it's got some other cool stuff in the bag as well great opportunity for your kids and your
34:35
wife to come along as well it sounds like you got all the bases covered Ken that's for sure we try we really do try
34:41
and we have a great team here that supports everything that we do and you mean Lansing bill they may be the
34:47
founders and the owners but I mean it takes more than just them put together and our team does a really great job
34:52
from our full-time staff basically it's about 25 strong that do everything from the marketing of our events to putting
34:58
on our events I guess you could say and the financial side and everything else and our maintenance side our maintenance
35:05
guys they're Top Notch but then we also have our part-time staff that come in for the show weekend they're doing
35:10
everything from directing cars in to picking up trash to cleaning the bathrooms we really have a great staff
35:16
here and I mean kudos to all them for supporting our events we're nothing without the staff that we have
35:21
definitely one more time let's give the data the GM Nationals and where they can register online so all the information
35:28
can be found out on carlisle.com and if you go to the Carlisle GM Nationals
35:33
portion of that page the show dates are June 23rd and 24th Ken thank you so much
35:39
for taking the time to be on Corvette today I'm looking forward to the GM Nationals this year and thanks for
35:45
having us Steve we appreciate it thanks for listening to Corvette today and please be sure to tell your family friends and other Corvette enthusiasts
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