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CORVETTE TODAY #168 - A Preview to the National Corvette Caravan, Labor Day Weekend, 2024
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May 8, 2025
The National Corvette Caravan to the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green is Labor Day weekend, 2024. Your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, talks to Bill Herold, Caravan Captain of the Southwest Caravan in Southern California and Jeff "Zipity" Duda, Caravan Captain of the Atlantic Caravan about next years event. You'll learn about the history of the Corvette Caravan, the itineraries of these two groups, how you can join any of the 25 caravans that will be converging on the NCM, and what's planned for next years celebration. If you've never been on a National Corvette Caravan, be sure to check this out this show! These caravans are so much fun! You'll want to sign up immediately for next years event! Listen to the podcast, watch the YouTube video, sign up for email notifications, join the Facebook group and shop in the CORVETTE TODAY merchandise store at www.CorvetteToday.com.
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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
0:25
[Music] thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about
0:31
everything Corvette and the only current podcast dedicated to Corvette I'm your
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host Steve Garrett I appreciate you tuning in Corva today is brought to you by wheelcraft want to dress up your
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Corvette enthusiasts from around the world the Corvette Caravan to the National Corvette Museum is coming up
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next year on Labor Day weekend this marks the 30th anniversary of the museum where thousands of Corvettes Converge on
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the NCM here to talk about this pilgrimage is sectional Regional Captain Bill Harold who leads the West Coast
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Southwest delegation and Jeff Zippity Duda who leads the Atlantic section guys
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welcome to Corvette today hey Steve thanks for having us I do appreciate you giving us some time here today to reach
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out to your wonderful audience hey Steve likewise here on the West Coast and honored to be on your show guys it's
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great to have you here and it's great to talk about the Caravan early so people can get excited number one and number
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two get signed up first let's start off by talking about the history three of the Corvette Caravan to Bowling Green
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and the National Corvette Museum how did the event get started and who started it how long has it been going on yeah
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that's a great question Steve it was good to start with some history before you move forward the Corvette museum
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like many people realize in the Corvette hobby was started on the backs of the
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Corvette enthusiasts this Museum was built through the passion of Corvette
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owners that wanted to get a kind of call it like a Mecca or a Gathering Place for
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Corvette owners from across the globe they could come together and show their love for the Corvette for this
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automobile the museum opened back in 1994 over Labor Day weekend and in doing
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so there was what was called the Corvette Caravan and at the time nobody
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really realized just how big or what kind of Life of its own this thing would take on but from all points across North
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America Regional captains or vet owners were coordinating other Corvette owners to
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get together to travel down to Bowling Green Kentucky think of like a bicycle
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spoke with the center Hub being Bowling Green Kentucky and all points across
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North America driving down and as you come across the country like bills coming from the West Coast as he came
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East they're picking up other groups and getting larger and larger and they did this first pilgrimage in 1994 and now
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what they do is they hold it every five years to commemorate the Milestone anniversary of the museum and in 2024
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the museum will be celebrating its 30th Anniversary that's fantastic now that
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was what I was going to ask you guys this happens every five years is there an event at the Museum during Labor Day
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weekend that this happens during yes absolutely so every Labor Day the
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Corvette museum will host their annual anniversary celebration so for example
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this year in 2023 over Labor Day weekend they will be celebrating the 29th
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anniversary of the National Corvette Museum but there will not be a caravan leading Corvette owners in to the museum
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for that celebration fast forward to 2024 being that that is a milestone the
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30th Anniversary the Caravan is set from all points across the country for the
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week leading up to Labor Day depending on how far you're traveling from but kind of that week leading into labor day
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is when the National Corvette Caravan takes place so the Caravan is kind of
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the first aspect of it getting everybody down to Bowling Green and then once you're in Bowling Green there's the 30th
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anniversary celebration it's hosted by the Corvette museum so it's kind of like two events morphed into one giant event
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to celebrate the Corvette and the museum itself and it really is a giant event because it's every five years during
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that anniversary celebration right that is correct the only time that they didn't do it every five years was in
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2003 where they took kind of a left turn so to speak off of the every five years
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in 2003 there was something very special in the Corvette World and that the
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Corvette was celebrating its 50th Anniversary so in 99 they decided okay
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the next Caravan will be in 2003 to celebrate the Corvette itself and where
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better to do that than of the National Corvette Museum and then to get back on track to that every five-year cycle they
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went to 2009 for the next Caravan so 2003 was a special year in that it
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celebrated the Corvette as well as the Corvette museum I think the old thing I'd add I think Jeff covered it very
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well is that the event itself at the Museum is a three-day event I believe it
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yeah Thursday Friday and Saturday nice nice now guys how many different regions are there and typically how many
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Corvettes participate from each region each time the Caravan has held I believe there's in excess of about 25 plus
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regions throughout North America I can tell you based on my experience with the
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Southwest section or region in 2019 we took off from coincidentally the corner
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where they start the Rose Parade in Pasadena California nice for all you see all those bleachers that is the Elks
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Lodge parking lot and that was our staging area and we left for Bowling Green that morning with 192 Corvettes
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wow we're expecting in 2024 that number to be far above 200. that's amazing how
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much time does it take to plan this massive event like the Corvette Caravan I can speak on behalf of the Southwest
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we actually initiated our organization believe it or not the end of July of
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2021 so come this July we are organizing committee which continues to grow for
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the Southwest section literally we're coming up on our two-year anniversary area planning that's amazing in 2019
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talking about how many different Regional Caravans are across the country I was fortunate enough to be the
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national chairman of the event in 2019 and as doing so I helped the other
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captains from around the country I had 25 different Regional captains whether
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that be the New England Captain the Florida Captain then a Southeast Captain would kind of Grill it down then you've
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got North Central we had three captains across Texas you mentioned bill is in Southern California but we also had a
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captain that covered Arizona and New Mexico the Pacific Northwest so whatever region of the country you're in you can
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go to the Corvette Caravan website and find your local captain and as far as planning goes being that I was involved
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in this event in 2019 when the last one happened I knew I wanted to be evolved
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again in 2024 so the minute the 2019 event concluded I started brainstorming
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and jotting down ideas on what we can do for for the 2024 event so you could say
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it's been in the works now for coming up on four years and by the time the Caravan rolls around it'll be a full
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five years of planning to put this thing together that's amazing guys let's take our first break when we come back we'll
9:42
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and now back to Corvette today with your host and my husband Steve Garrett
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833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me today is Corvette Caravan Regional Captain Bill Harold and also
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Jeff Zippity Duda in this second section we're going to talk about how everybody can get involved in the Caravan guys if
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a Corvette owner wants to participate in next year's Caravan depending on what country they live in how do they sign up
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for their home region so that's pretty simple Steve what you want to do is you want to head out to the website and just
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find Corvette caravan.com and when you get to that website you'll see three
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little horizontal lines up in the the right hand corner click on that and it's going to find you an area that says
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select a state and then click on select a state and you've got believe it or not over 50 choices yes I know we have 50
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states in this great country but we have it broken down into multiple areas for some of the larger regions of the
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country so find the region where you live and check out that Captain's itinerary to learn more about what the
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Corvette Caravan is doing in your local market that sounds good now typically guys how long does each Region's Caravan
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take to get to Bowling Green and how much money should a Corvette owner plan on spending on fuel lodging and meals so
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Steve I think that's an excellent question obviously it's going to vary greatly depending upon how close you are
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to Bowling Green as the arrival destination point for Southern California we're one of the longest in
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terms of miles from Bowling Green in fact it's just under 2500 miles with the
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route that we're taking we're we're doing it over a seven day period there is costs associated with our particular
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Caravan that may differ slightly than some of the other captains and how they
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organize their Caravans but for the most part attendees or participants are
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responsible for their lodging and hotels which we do coordinate group blocks and
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that's all being worked on as we speak obviously they're responsible for their fuel most of their meals and whatever
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other extra activities they should do when they get to Bowling Green that sounds good and Jeff what about your
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side from the East Coast so from the East Coast the way we are starting is we are starting at the Corvettes at
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Carlisle show the largest Corvette show in the country and it just makes perfect sense because the Carlisle weekend is
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the weekend before Labor Day Carlisle is always the last weekend in August Labor Day being the first weekend in September
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we take the time to depart from Corvettes and Carlisle and then Journey down to Bowling Green Kentucky over the
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course of four days now it certainly doesn't take four days to get there but
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again the Caravan is all part of the journey and part of the experience so we
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really enjoy our time on the road and as far as a budget goes I kind of tell
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folks to think about what they tend to budget themselves for a week's vacation a good number that I like to throw out
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there is anywhere from four to five thousand dollars per couple depending on how crazy you want to go on spending
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money if you do the Corvettes at Carlisle event on the front half of our journey that's obviously an additional
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expense versus not joining us in Carlisle but I'd like to tell folks think about what you would spend on a
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week's vacation with you and your family typically that sounds about right now guys you're both obviously on opposite
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ends of the country Bill you're on the west coast Jeff you're on the East Coast each of you talk about your itineraries
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and again how many Corvettes you think you're going to be expecting along the Route by the time you get to Bowling
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Green and talk about some of the stops that you'll make along the way Steve that is again right in line with Jeff's
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comments it's about the experience and the journey you're not just getting behind the wheel and trying to get from
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point A to point B for the Southwest we have some plans that we think are going to be really exciting to participants
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starting out with the fact that we again have a welcome reception in Pasadena at
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one of their major hotels with a great experience for people arriving there the night before then as I mentioned the
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staging area the next morning right there where the Rose Parade starts every New Year's Day from there we'll go up
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over the mountains on a Scenic windy road that takes us up through the Antelope Valley and we'll connect with
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Interstate 15 heading to Vegas we'll have our second night effectively in Vegas getting up the next morning to
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head over to Pahrump are you ready for this we're going to have a total experience at Spring Mountain many
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Corvette owners are very familiar with they're going to put together a presentation for us and probably a
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little lunch and then we'll be on our road heading to Cedar City Utah for the next night from there we go to Colorado
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the night after that from there we end up in the cornfields of Kansas from there we'll end up in your neighborhood
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Kansas City Missouri although not a hundred percent Inked but we feel pretty good we're gonna have a fun event there
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at the Kansas Speedway more to come on that and then from there we'll head down to another gathering point where several
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Caravans will assemble and that's going to be at this wonderful little town I never knew existed called Cape Girardeau
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which is just unbelievable they roll out the red carpet for the Caravans coming
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into town that night and they literally shut down the entire downtown district the only people that can get in is
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Corvette owners and their cars and they've got bands and live music and all sorts of activities happening and then
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we assemble the next morning for the final leg in the Bowling Green that sounds great now Jeff talk about your
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trip down from Carlisle Pennsylvania to Bowling Green as well yeah thanks Steve and Bill sounds like he's got an
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unbelievable trip planned I actually considered shipping my car out to Southern California and traveling back
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with those guys just because it sounds like a great event and that being said like I mentioned check out your local
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area to see what your local Captain's doing but that doesn't mean you need to drive with your local Captain if you're
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going to be at Corvettes at Carlisle and you live in somewhere other than New Jersey New York Pennsylvania consider
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traveling with the Atlantic Corvette Caravan or possibly even the New England Corvette Caravan because we are both
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being that we're somewhat regionally close going to be taking similar but different routes but we will both be
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starting from the Carlisle central Pennsylvania Marketplace wow the Atlantic Caravan what our itinerary is
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set up right now is we will congregate back at the Carlisle Fairgrounds on Sunday morning and from there we're
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going to head due south right in the West Virginia to The Summit Point raceway which was a small little fun
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technical race track in the foothills of West Virginia and we'll do some nice you
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know call it aggressive parade laps let's say around Summit Point we'll have some lunch there and then from there
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we're headed Due West over to the Stonewall Jackson resort which is a beautiful five-star Resort nestled in
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the mountains of West Virginia where the National Corvette Museum has actually hosted some Museum in motion events in
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the past and if you were on the 2019 Atlantic Corvette Caravan we also stayed
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at the Stonewall Jackson so we're going back to that Resort that has a golf course Lake Sports and water sports
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plenty of hiking lots to see and do so while at Stonewall Jackson we will do a
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group dinner a banquet dinner so to speak and we plan on having some really really cool Corvette Centric keynote
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speakers at the Stonewall Jackson resort from there we're gonna do little bit of a deviation from what was done in 2019
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and we're going to go into Louisville downtown Louisville Kentucky and spend two nights at one of the nicest hotels
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the largest hotel in the city called the Galt House right on the river and we're going to take over the entire hotel and
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the beautiful thing about downtown Louisville is there's a lot to see and do such as the Louisville Slugger Museum
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is right there the Muhammad Ali museum is right there and really important to some folks is there two or three
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different walking bourbon trails that you can walk to from our hotel and being
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that we're staying there two nights you don't have to worry about being hungover the next morning and driving your Corvettes we're going to give you enough
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time to sleep off that bourbon hangover and then from there in Louisville we're going to take the short ride and arrive
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into Bowling Green Kentucky on Thursday morning to join in all the activities that the National Corvette Museum has
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planned for Thursday Friday and Saturday that sounds fantastic on both ends guys now let me ask you this how does the
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Nash Corvette Museum planned for this huge event like a caravan and where do they Park all those Corvettes so Jeff
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I'm going to defer to you okay I was gonna say I'll take that if you like that's a great question Steve and like I
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said this is now going to be the seventh National Corvette Caravan that the museum has hosted they've learned over
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the last six Caravans how to handle this influx plus they do the bash Every Spring and they get a nice influx of
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cars to come down for that so the National Corvette Museum is well versed in receiving the thousands upon
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thousands of Corvettes that come in and when the racetrack was built that added another attraction there in Bowling
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Green Kentucky not only do you have the Corvette museum you have the Corvette assembly plant and now you have the
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Motorsports Park which is right across the interstate from the museum so there's plenty and plenty of parking
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when you take into consideration what is available over at the racetrack and the racetrack is another great place the
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visit while you're in Bowling Green Kentucky because you can take your Corvette out and do some laughs and you
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can even rent a Corvette a brand new C8 and take that around Motorsports Park as well while you're in Bowling Green Man
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this sounds like so much fun you guys let's take our final break guys and then when we come back we're going to talk about what people can expect while they
23:56
participate in the Corvette Caravan that's coming up next on Corvette today
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and now back to the only current podcast on Corvette Corvette today with your
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host Steve Garrett hey thanks once again for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about
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everything Corvette brought to you by wheelcraft spring is here and you want your Corvette looking its best dress up
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chrome finishing they can refinish your wheels or do a wheel exchange and it comes with a five-year warranty visit
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wheelcraft.com today or call 833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett
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we're talking about the National Corvette Caravan coming up next year I have Regional sectional Captain Bill
27:13
Harrell from the west coast and from the East Coast Jeff zippity-duda from the Atlantic section in this third and final
27:19
section we're going to talk about how you can get involved guys first who can join the Caravan well Steve pretty much
27:26
anyone that owns a Corvette is eligible to join the Corvette Caravan you do not
27:31
need to be a member of the National Corvette Museum you do not need to be a member of a local Corvette club yes
27:38
certainly the museum would love to have you become a member that's part of the idea is to get everybody down to the
27:43
museum to see what the Museum's all about so yes museum membership is encouraged but is certainly not required
27:50
nor is it required to be a member of a local Corvette club so if you're just an
27:55
independent Corvette owner by all means please consider signing up and learning more about it from your local Corvette
28:01
Caravan captain that sounds good guys let's talk about basic rules of the road for caravanners this has got to be
28:08
really important especially with this big of a group from every section of the United States so Steve I'm going to take
28:14
that question because in 2019 I was a newbie at first time in the Caravan and
28:21
I remember in our welcome reception the night before we launched for our seven
28:27
day journey to Bowling Green they had a couple of speakers including the captain and spend a considerable amount of time
28:34
talking about the rules of the road as you can imagine when you've got 200 Corvettes and you envision just by the
28:42
word Caravan you view or see in your mind's eye this long stretch of 200
28:48
Corvettes Bumper to Bumper driving along the highway the reality is is that you've got to recognize that you number
28:54
one you're sharing the road with a lot of other cars you have to be courteous
29:00
to the other drivers you also have to recognize that there's this little thing called rubber banding you don't want to
29:06
learn the hard way when you've got a bunch of Corvettes all lined up in a row and everybody's doing 60 miles an hour
29:13
you've got one guy that kind of breaks for maybe a rabbit running across the highway you can imagine what potentially
29:19
could happen behind that car you want to travel safe distances and you want to be
29:25
courteous to the other non-corvette drivers on the interstates and highways that you're traveling that sounds really
29:30
smart all right so we've got this extensive road trip guys we've got multiple stops once you get to the
29:36
National Corvette Museum what's planned for the weekend oh my goodness the Corvette museum has got an unbelievable
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itinerary setup for everybody that's coming down to the museum if you've never been to the bash before or if
29:49
you've never been to any other Labor Day or anniversary celebration let me tell you the museum will keep you busy they
29:56
have Engineers from General Motors there going over the latest and greatest advancements in the current car in the
30:03
C8 currently they could be doing some debuts at The Bash as usually when they
30:08
debut the new colors and what's coming out for the next model year at the anniversary celebrations it tends to be
30:14
a little bit more retrospective they also have the Corvette Hall of Fame induction dinners during the anniversary
30:22
celebration but then there's also lots of seminars on site not to mention just
30:28
the museum and everything that that has going on the museum is such a wonderful
30:33
way to pay homage to the Corvette because it's not a static display every
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time you visit the museum you will see something different sure they have their core displays such as the sinkhole
30:45
display of all the Corvettes who are swallowed up in the sinkhole but they have an evolving display they had a Hot
30:51
Wheels display out there recently that is since gone and is now another display set up there so there's lots to see and
30:57
do at the Museum but there are countless seminars that are put on there are road trips that are put on by the local
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Corvette club there in Bowling Green you can take a ride out to Trooper island with the Kentucky State Police there are
31:11
all kinds of things to see and do while you're there they have vendors set up
31:17
across the footprint of the museum plus the assembly plant is now available again for tours so you can actually go
31:23
through the assembly plant and watch the C8 Corvette being built as I mentioned earlier there's also the Corvette
31:30
Motorsports Park across the street from the museum so you have lots to see and do while you're there in Bowling Green
31:36
at the Museum if I can add to that Jeff if you're really ambitious and for some
31:42
reason looking for something even more to do less than an hour's Drive South you're in Nashville that sounds like fun
31:48
guys it really does once the event is over how does a caravanner get back home does everybody Caravan back home as far
31:56
as the Southwest Caravan that's pretty much an accurate statement once we
32:01
arrive in Bowling Green and we spend our three or four days there it is pretty much up to the caravanners to make their
32:09
own decisions with respect to where they go from there what we have found is that many will continue on to another
32:17
destination possibly a visit friends or family or other points of interest in
32:22
the region there before they decide to head back to the Southern California or
32:28
southwest region we really leave it up to the part participant for them to find
32:33
their way back that sounds good now we had talked about this earlier guys but let's briefly again go over hotels
32:40
lodging meals gasoline and stuff like that while you Caravan to Bowling Green so that's always the biggest challenge
32:47
or one of the biggest challenge for the Caravan captains because when the event was much smaller was much easier to
32:53
manage now that the event has continued to grow which is a great thing because we're expanding the Corvette enthusiasm
33:00
across the normal markets the biggest challenge is the hotels there in Bowling
33:05
Green but what I like to tell folks being involved with these events since 2003 the infrastructure there in Bowling
33:13
Green is much much larger and there's so many more hotels available for the
33:18
captains and for the caravanners to secure lodging while you're in Bowling Green getting lodging during the Caravan
33:25
portion that's relatively simple because if you're pulling in with 200 people on a Tuesday night in the middle of
33:30
somewhere are in between Southern California and Bowling Green it's going to be pretty easy to get a hotel room the challenge is getting those hotel
33:37
rooms while you're in Bowling Green but most of your captains will have coordinated some sort of room block or
33:44
lodging for you and then there's still ways if you're an independent person still looking to get a hotel room in
33:50
Bowling Green the hotels are cognizant of that and have inventory held for those individuals that will be planning
33:57
on coming into the Caravan and the anniversary celebration as well nice so I think Jeff nailed it probably the
34:04
biggest challenge is Bowling Green you can see anywhere from estimates of eight
34:09
to twelve thousand Corvettes assembling on this anniversary weekend certainly
34:15
there's a great deal of planning that takes place in terms of securing those room blocks and making sure that
34:21
availability is reserved in advance of your arrival nice guys once again if
34:27
someone wants to sign up for the Caravan and the anniversary event there at the National Corvette Museum what is the
34:33
website and how can they sign up it's simple Corvette caravan.com and then up
34:39
in the top right hand corner click those three little vertical bars and there will be a drop down section there where
34:45
you can then select your state and then not only does it break it down to state but it also breaks it down into region
34:51
so find your local region and if you want to find a region that's similar or check out the itineraries of multiple
34:58
captains you don't have to drive with your group where you live if you're going to see an itinerary that looks
35:04
pretty interesting to a neighboring region consider driving with that group that sounds like fun and I also want to
35:10
do a shout out to our friend of the show John elegant from mid-enginecorvetforum.com he's one of
35:15
the co-captains in the Pacific Northwest he's from Portland so he's going to be helping with that Caravan down to the
35:21
National Corvette Museum Bill Harold Jeff Zippity Duda thank you so much for taking time to be on Corvette today I
35:28
should have you guys back because we're a year and a half out so we should do an update coming up sometime soon I would
35:34
love to do that Steve thank you Steve thank you very much I do enjoy doing this and by all means any way that we
35:39
can spread the Corvette Joy I'm happy to do it thanks for listening to Corvette today and please be sure to tell your
35:45
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you've been listening to Corvette today with Steve Garrett if you'd like to contact Steve with any thoughts on the
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thanks again for listening to Corvette today [Music]
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