Up next in 10
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 Funfest, 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
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current podcast dedicated to Corvette. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. I appreciate you tuning in. Corvette Today
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is brought to you by Wheelcraft. Want to dress up your Corvette with bright chrome or black chrome wheels? Learn
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Canadian Corvette Forum.com, welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the world. The Corvette caravan to the
2:44
National Corvette Museum is coming up next year on Labor Day weekend. This marks the 30th anniversary of the museum
2:50
where thousands of Corvettes converge on the NCM. Here to talk about this pilgrimage is sectional regional captain
2:57
Bill Herald who leads the West Coast Southwest delegation and Jeff Zippity Duda who leads the Atlantic section.
3:04
Guys, welcome to Corvette today. Hey Steve, thanks for having us. I do appreciate you giving us some time here
3:10
today to reach out to your wonderful audience. Hey Steve, likewise here on the West Coast. An honor to be on your show,
3:17
guys. It's great to have you here and it's great to talk about the caravan early so people can get excited. number
3:23
one and number two, get signed up. First, let's start off by talking about the history of the Corvette Caravan to
3:29
Bowling Green and the National Corvette Museum. How did the event get started and who started it? How long has it been
3:36
going on? Yeah, that's a great question, Steve. Always good to start with some history before you move forward. The Corvette
3:42
Museum, like many people realize in the Corvette hobby, was started on the backs of the Corvette enthusiasts. This museum
3:50
was built through the passion of Corvette owners that wanted to get a
3:57
kind of call it like a mecca or a gathering place for Corvette owners from across the globe. They could come
4:02
together and show their love for the Corvette, for this automobile. The museum opened back in 1994 over Labor
4:10
Day weekend. And in doing so, there was what was called the Corvette Caravan.
4:16
And at the time, nobody really realized just how big or what kind of life of its own this thing would take on. But from
4:24
all points across North America, regional captains or Corvette owners
4:29
were coordinating other Corvette owners to get together to travel down to Bowling Green, Kentucky. Think of like a
4:36
bicycle spoke with the center hub being Bowling Green, Kentucky, and all points
4:42
across North America driving down. And as you come across the country, like Bill's coming from the West Coast, as he
4:48
came east, they're picking up other groups and getting larger and larger. And they did this first pilgrimage in
4:55
1994. And now what they do is they hold it every five years to commemorate the
5:01
milestone anniversary of the museum. And in 2024, the museum will be celebrating
5:06
its 30th anniversary. That's fantastic. Now, that was what I was going to ask you guys. This happens
5:12
every 5 years. Is there an event at the museum during Labor Day weekend that this happens during?
5:19
Yes, absolutely. So, every Labor Day, the Corvette Museum will host their
5:24
annual anniversary celebration. So, for example, this year in 2023 over Labor
5:30
Day weekend, they will be celebrating the 29th anniversary of the National Corvette Museum, but there will not be a
5:38
caravan leading Corvette owners into the museum for that celebration. Fast
5:43
forward to 2024 being that that is a milestone, the 30th anniversary, the
5:49
caravan is set from all points across the country for the week leading up to
5:54
Labor Day, depending on how far you're traveling from, but kind of that week leading into Labor Day is when the
6:00
National Corvette Caravan takes place. So, the caravan is kind of the first aspect of it, getting everybody down to
6:07
Bowling Green. And then once you're in Bowling Green, there's the 30th anniversary celebration that's hosted by
6:12
the Corvette Museum. So, it's kind of like two events morphed into one giant
6:17
event to celebrate the Corvette and the museum itself. And it really is a giant event because
6:23
it's every 5 years during that anniversary celebration. Right. That is correct. The only time that they
6:28
didn't do it every 5 years was in 2003 where they took kind of a left turn, so
6:34
to speak, off of the every five years. In 2003, there was something very special in the Corvette world in that
6:41
the Corvette was celebrating its 50th anniversary. So in 99, they decided,
6:47
okay, the next caravan will be in 2003 to celebrate the Corvette itself. And
6:53
where better to do that than at the National Corvette Museum? And then to get back on track to that every 5year
6:58
cycle, they went to 2009 for the next caravan. So 2003 was a special year in
7:05
that it celebrated the Corvette as well as the Corvette Museum. I think the only thing I'd add, I think
7:11
Jeff covered it very well, is that the event itself at the museum is a 3-day
7:16
event? I believe it's Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Nice. Nice. Now guys, how many different
7:22
regions are there? And typically, how many corvettes participate from each region each time the caravan is held? I
7:29
believe there's in excess of about 25 plus regions throughout North America. I
7:34
can tell you based on my experience with the southwest section or region. In 2019, we took off from coincidentally
7:42
the corner where they start the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. Nice.
7:47
All you see all those bleachers. That is the Elks Lodge parking lot and that was our staging area. And we left for
7:54
Bowling Green that morning with 192 Corvettes. Wow. We're expecting in 2024 that number to
8:01
be far above 200. That's amazing. How much time does it take to plan this massive event like the
8:07
Corvette Caravan? I can speak on behalf of the Southwest, we actually initiated our organization,
8:15
believe it or not, the end of July of 2021. So, come this July, we are
8:21
organizing committee which continues to grow for the Southwest section. Literally, we're coming up on our
8:27
two-year anniversary of planning. That's amazing. In 2019, talking about how many different regional caravans are across
8:34
the country, I was fortunate enough to be the national chairman of the event in 2019. And as doing so, I helped the
8:41
other captains from around the country. I had 25 different regional captains, whether that be the New England captain,
8:48
the Florida captain, then a Southeast captain that kind of drill it down. Then you've got North Central. We had three
8:54
captains across Texas. You mentioned Bill is in Southern California, but we also had a captain that covered Arizona
9:01
and New Mexico, the Pacific Northwest. So, whatever region of the country you're in, you can go to the Corvette
9:07
Caravan website and find your local captain. And as far as planning goes, being that I was involved in this event
9:14
in 2019, when the last one happened, I knew I wanted to be involved again in
9:20
2024. So the minute the 2019 event concluded, I started brainstorming and
9:26
jotting down ideas on what we can do for the 2024 event. So you could say it's
9:31
been in the works now for coming up on four years. And by the time the caravan rolls around, it'll be a full 5 years of
9:37
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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Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette. Brought to
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them 833-639-4231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me
14:07
today is Corvette Caravan regional captain Bill Herald and also Jeff Zippity Duda. In this second section,
14:14
we're going to talk about how everybody can get involved in the caravan. Guys, if a Corvette owner wants to participate
14:19
in next year's caravan, depending on what country they live in, how do they sign up for their home region?
14:25
So, that's pretty simple, Steve. What you want to do is you want to head out to the website and just find corvette.com.
14:32
And when you get to that website, you'll see three little horizontal lines up in the right hand corner. Click on that and
14:39
it's going to find you an area that says select a state. And then click on select a state. And you've got, believe it or
14:46
not, over 50 choices. Yes, I know we have 50 states in this great country, but we have it broken down into multiple
14:53
areas for some of the larger regions of the country. So find the region where you live and check out that captain's
15:00
itinerary to learn more about what the Corvette caravan is doing in your local market.
15:05
That sounds good. Now, typically guys, how long does each region's caravan take to get to Bowling Green? And how much
15:12
money should a Corvette owner plan on spending on fuel, lodging, and meals? So Steve, I think that's an excellent
15:18
question. And obviously, it's going to vary greatly depending upon how close you are to Bowling Green as the arrival
15:25
destination point. For Southern California, we're one of the longest in terms of miles from Bowling Green. In
15:32
fact, it's just under 2500 miles with the route that we're taking. We're doing it over a 7-day period. There is costs
15:40
associated with our particular caravan that may differ slightly than some of
15:46
the other captains and how they organize their caravans. But for the most part,
15:51
attendees or participants are responsible for their lodging and hotels, which we do coordinate group
15:58
blocks and that's all being worked on as we speak. Obviously, they're responsible for their fuel, most of their meals, and
16:05
whatever other extra activities they should do when they get to Bowling Green. That sounds good. And Jeeoff, what about your side from the east
16:11
coast? So from the east coast, the way we are starting is we are starting at the Corvettes at Carile show, the largest
16:18
Corvette show in the country. And it just makes perfect sense because the Carile weekend is the weekend before
16:25
Labor Day. Carile is always the last weekend in August. Labor Day being the first weekend in September. We take the
16:32
time to depart from Corvettes at Carile and then journey down to Bowling Green, Kentucky over the course of four days.
16:40
Now, it certainly doesn't take four days to get there, but again, the caravan is all part of the journey and part of the
16:47
experience. So, we really enjoy our time on the road. And as far as a budget
16:52
goes, I kind of tell folks to think about what they tend to budget themselves for a week's vacation. A good
16:59
number that I like to throw out there is anywhere from four to $5,000 per couple depending on how crazy you want to go on
17:05
spending money if you do the Corvettes at Carile event on the front half of our journey. That's obviously an additional
17:12
expense versus not joining us in Carile. But I'd like to tell folks, think about what you would spend on a week's
17:18
vacation with you and your family typically. That sounds about right. Now guys,
17:23
you're both obviously on opposite ends of the country. Bill, you're on the West Coast. Jeff, you're on the east coast.
17:29
Each of you talk about your itineraries and again how many Corvettes you think you're going to be expecting along the
17:34
route by the time you get to Bowling Green and talk about some of the stops that you'll make along the way.
17:40
Steve, that is again right in line with Jeff's comments. It's about the experience and the journey. You're not
17:47
just getting behind the wheel and trying to get from point A to point B. For the Southwest, we have some plans that we
17:53
think are going to be really exciting to participants. Starting out with the fact that we again have a welcome reception
18:00
in Pasadena at one of their major hotels with a great experience for people
18:05
arriving there the night before. Then as I mentioned the staging area the next morning right there where the Rose
18:11
Parade starts every New Year's Day. From there we'll go up over the mountains on a scenic windy road that takes us up
18:18
through the Analopee Valley and we'll connect with Interstate 15 heading to Vegas. We'll have our second night
18:25
effectively in Vegas, getting up the next morning to head over to Perump. And are you ready for this? We're going to
18:31
have a total experience at Spring Mountain. Many Corvette owners are very
18:36
familiar with that. They're going to put together a presentation for us and probably a little lunch and then we'll
18:42
be on our road heading to Cedar City, Utah for the next night. From there, we go to Colorado the night after that.
18:49
From there, we end up in the cornfields of Kansas. From there, we'll end up in your neighborhood, Kansas City,
18:54
Missouri. Although not 100% in, but we feel pretty good we're going to have a fun event there at the Kansas Speedway.
19:01
More to come on that. And then from there, we'll head down to another gathering point where several caravans
19:07
will assemble and that's going to be at this wonderful little town I never knew existed called Cape Gerardo, which is
19:13
just unbelievable. They roll out the red carpet for the caravans coming into town that night and they literally shut down
19:21
the entire downtown district. The only people that can get in is Corvette
19:26
owners and their cars and they've got bands and live music and all sorts of activities happening and then we
19:33
assemble the next morning for the final leg into Bowling Green. That sounds great. Now Jeff, talk about
19:38
your trip down from Carlile, Pennsylvania to Bowling Green as well. Yeah, thanks Steve. And Bill sounds like
19:44
he's got an unbelievable trip planned. I actually considered shipping my car out to Southern California and traveling
19:49
back with those guys just because it sounds like a great event. And that being said, like I mentioned, check out
19:56
your local area to see what your local captain's doing, but that doesn't mean you need to drive with your local
20:02
captain. If you're going to be at Corvettes at Carile and you live in somewhere other than New Jersey, New
20:08
York, Pennsylvania, consider traveling with the Atlantic Corvette Caravan or possibly even the New England Corvette
20:14
Caravan because we are both, being that we're somewhat regionally close, going to be taking similar but different
20:21
routes, but we will both be starting from the Carile Central Pennsylvania Marketplace. Wow. the Atlantic Caravan. What our
20:28
itinerary is set up right now is we will congregate back at the Carile Fairgrounds on Sunday morning and from
20:35
there we're going to head do south right into West Virginia to the Summit Point Raceway which is a small little fun
20:44
technical racetrack in the foothills of West Virginia and we'll do some nice you
20:49
know call it aggressive parade laps let's say around Summit Point. We'll have some lunch there. And then from
20:56
there, we're headed due west over to the Stonewall Jackson Resort, which is a beautiful five-star resort nestled in
21:03
the mountains of West Virginia where the National Corvette Museum has actually hosted some museum in motion events in
21:09
the past. And if you were on the 2019 Atlantic Corvette Caravan, we also stayed at the Stonewall Jackson. So,
21:16
we're going back to that resort that has a golf course, lake sports and water sports, plenty of hiking, lots to see
21:22
and do. So, while at Stonewall Jackson, we will do a group dinner, a banquet dinner, so to speak, and we plan on
21:29
having some really, really cool Corvette ccentric keynote speakers at the Stonewall Jackson Resort. From there,
21:36
we're going to do a little bit of a deviation from what was done in 2019. And we're going to go into Louisville,
21:42
downtown Louisville, Kentucky, and spend two nights at one of the nicest hotels, the largest hotel in the city, called
21:48
the Golf House, right on the river. And we're going to take over the entire hotel. And the beautiful thing about
21:55
downtown Louisville is there's a lot to see and do, such as the Louisville Slugger Museum is right there. The
22:01
Muhammad Ali Museum is right there. And really important to some folks is there's two or three different walking
22:07
bourbon trails that you can walk to from our hotel. And being that we're staying there two nights, you don't have to
22:13
worry about being hung over the next morning and driving your Corvettes. We're going to give you enough time to sleep off that bourbon hangover. And
22:20
then from there in Louisville, we're going to take the short ride and arrive into Bowling Green, Kentucky on Thursday
22:26
morning to join in all the activities that the National Corvette Museum has planned for Thursday, Friday, and
22:31
Saturday. That sounds fantastic on both ends, guys. Now, let me ask you this. How does the National Corvette Museum
22:38
plan for this huge event like a caravan? And where do they park all those Corvettes?
22:43
So, Jeff, I'm going to defer to you on this. I was going to say, I'll take that if you like.
22:48
That's a great question, Steve. And like I said, this is now going to be the seventh National Corvette Caravan that
22:54
the museum has hosted. They've learned over the last six caravans how to handle this influx. Plus, they do the bash
23:01
every spring and they get a nice influx of cars that come down for that. So, the National Corvette Museum is well-versed
23:08
in receiving the thousands upon thousands of Corvettes that come in. And when the racetrack was built, that added
23:15
another attraction there in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Not only do you have the Corvette Museum, you have the
23:21
Corvette assembly plant, and now you have the motorsports park, which is right across the interstate from the
23:27
museum. So, there's plenty and plenty of parking when you take into consideration what is available over at the racetrack.
23:35
And the racetrack is another great place to visit while you're in Bowling Green, Kentucky, because you can take your
23:40
Corvette out and do some laps and you can even rent a Corvette, a brand new C8, and take that around Motorsports
23:47
Park as well while you're in Bowling Green. Man, this sounds like so much fun, you guys. Let's take our final break, guys,
23:53
and then when we come back, we're going to talk about what people can expect while they participate in the Corvette Caravan. That's coming up next on
23:59
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call 833-639-4231. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. We're
27:08
talking about the National Corvette Caravan coming up next year. I have regional sectional captain Bill Herold
27:14
from the West Coast and from the East Coast, Jeff Zippity Duda from the Atlantic section. In this third and
27:19
final section, we're going to talk about how you can get involved. Guys, first, who can join the caravan? Well, Steve,
27:25
pretty much anyone that owns a Corvette is eligible to join the Corvette Caravan. You do not need to be a member
27:32
of the National Corvette Museum. You do not need to be a member of a local corvette club. Yes, certainly the museum
27:39
would love to have you become a member. That's part of the idea is to get everybody down to the museum to see what
27:44
the museum's all about. So, yes, museum membership is encouraged, but is certainly not required, nor is it
27:51
required to be a member of a local Corvette club. So, if you're just an independent Corvette owner, by all
27:57
means, please consider signing up and learning more about it from your local Corvette caravan captain.
28:02
That sounds good. Guys, let's talk about basic rules of the road for caravaners. This has got to be really important,
28:08
especially with this big of a group from every section of the United States. So Steve, I'm going to take that question
28:15
because in 2019, I was a newbie, a first time in the caravan, and I remember in
28:23
our welcome reception, the night before we launched for our 7-day journey to
28:28
Bowling Green, they had a couple of speakers, including the captain, spend a considerable amount of time talking
28:35
about the rules of the road. As you can imagine, when you've got 200 Corvettes and you envision just by the word
28:42
caravan, you view or see in your mind's eye this long stretch of 200 Corvettes
28:48
bumperto-bumper driving along the highway. The reality is is that you've got to recognize that you number one,
28:55
you're sharing the road with a lot of other cars. You have to be courteous to
29:00
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
and you got one guy that kind of breaks for maybe a rabbit running across the highway, you can imagine what
29:19
potentially could happen behind that car. You want to travel safe distances
29:24
and you want to be courteous to the other non-corvette drivers on the interstates and highways that you're
29:29
traveling. That sounds really smart. All right, so we've got this extensive road trip, guys. We've got multiple stops. Once you
29:36
get to the National Corvette Museum, what's planned for the weekend? Oh my goodness. The Corvette Museum has
29:41
got an unbelievable itinerary set up for everybody that's coming down to the museum. If you've never been to the Bash
29:48
before or if you've never been to any other Labor Day or anniversary celebration, let me tell you, the museum
29:54
will keep you busy. They have engineers from General Motors there going over the
30:00
latest and greatest advancements in the current car in the C8. Currently, they
30:05
could be doing some debuts. At the bash is usually when they debut the new colors and what's coming out for the
30:10
next model year. At the anniversary celebrations, it tends to be a little bit more retrospective. They also have
30:17
the Corvette Hall of Fame induction dinners during the anniversary celebration, but then there's also lots
30:25
of seminars on site, not to mention just the museum and everything that that has
30:30
going on. The museum is such a wonderful way to pay homage to the Corvette
30:35
because it's not a static display. Every time you visit the museum, you will see
30:40
something different. Sure, they have their core displays such as the sinkhole display of all the Corvettes who are
30:46
swallowed up in the sinkhole, but they have an evolving display. They had a Hot Wheels display out there recently that
30:53
has since gone and is now another display set up there. So, there's lots to see and do at the museum, but there
30:59
are countless seminars that are put on. There are road trips that are put on by the local Corvette Club there in Bowling
31:05
Green. You can take a ride out to Trooper Island with the Kentucky State Police. There are all kinds of things to
31:13
see and do while you're there. They have vendors set up across the footprint of the museum. Plus, the assembly plant is
31:20
now available again for tours. So, you can actually go through the assembly plant and watch the C8 Corvette being
31:27
built. As I mentioned earlier, there's also the Corvette Motorsports Park across the street from the museum. So,
31:33
you have lots to see and do while you're there in Bowling Green at the museum. If I can add to that, Jeff, if you're
31:40
really ambitious and for some reason looking for something even more to do, less than an hour's drive south, you're
31:47
in Nashville. That sounds like fun, guys. It really does. Once the event is over, how does a
31:52
caravanner get back home? Does everybody caravan back home? As far as the Southwest caravan, that's
31:59
pretty much an accurate statement. Once we arrive in Bowling Green and we spend our three or four days there, it is
32:06
pretty much up to the caravanners to make their own decisions with respect to
32:11
where they go from there. What we have found is that many will continue on to
32:16
another destination, possibly visit friends or family or other points of
32:21
interest in the region there before they decide to head back to the Southern
32:27
California or Southwest region. We really leave it up to the participant
32:32
for them to find their way back. That sounds good. Now, we had talked about this earlier, guys, but let's
32:38
briefly again go over hotels, lodging, meals, gasoline, and stuff like that
32:43
while you caravan bowling green. So, that's always the biggest challenge or one of the biggest challenge for the
32:49
caravan captains because when the event was much smaller, it was much easier to manage. Now that the event has continued
32:55
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
33:13
Bowling Green is much, much larger, and there is so many more hotels available for the captains and for the caravanners
33:20
to secure lodging while you're in Bowling Green. getting lodging during the caravan portion. That's relatively
33:26
simple because if you're pulling in with 200 people on a Tuesday night in the middle of somewhere in between Southern
33:32
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
33:45
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 8 to
34:10
12,000 Corvettes assembling on this anniversary weekend. Certainly, there's
34:15
a great deal of planning that takes place in terms of securing those room blocks and making sure that availability
34:22
is reserved in advance of your arrival. Nice. Guys, once again, if someone wants
34:28
to sign up for the caravan and the anniversary event there at the National Corvette Museum, what is the website and
34:34
how can they sign up? It's simple. corvettecaravan.com and then up in the top right hand
34:40
corner, click those three little vertical bars and there will be a drop-down section there where you can
34:45
then select your state and then not only does it break it down to state, but it also breaks it down into region. So find
34:52
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-Engine Corvette Forum.com. He's one of the co-
35:15
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 Herald, 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.
35:34
Would love to do that. Steve, thank you. Steve, thank you very much. I do enjoy doing this. And by all means, any way
35:39
that we can spread the Corvette joy, I'm happy to do it. Thanks for listening to Corvette Today. And please be sure to tell your family,
35:45
friends, and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today podcast. And thanks to our sponsors, Wheelcraft. Want
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Kansas City at chevusa.com. You've been listening to Corvette Today
36:33
with Steve Garrett. If you'd like to contact Steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on Corvette
36:39
Today, you can email him at stevegared djgmail.com.
36:44
That's Steve Garrett DJgmail.com. Garrett has two Rs and two T's. Or
36:51
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36:56
Steve Garrett DJ. Thanks again for listening to Corvette today.
38:59
All
39:15
right, I'm hit. The record is on. Bill, go ahead and talk about Canada.
39:20
So, just a reminder, in addition to the 25 uh regional caravans throughout the
39:25
US, uh we also have a number of regions in Canada that also will be assembling
39:33
uh caravans and heading down for the 30th anniversary event as well.
39:40
And not only with our Canadian brethren to the north of us in North America here, there's also a contingent of
39:46
international travelers that will join the Corvette Caravan. So, if you're an international traveler and like to come
39:53
on to this event, please reach out to the local caravan captain in your market where you may be landing in the United
40:00
States and join that drive. In 2014 and 2019, I played host to three families
40:08
from the Netherlands that flew over. They rented cars. They didn't drive Corvettes, but they all own Corvettes
40:14
back home in Amsterdam. And they drove with us on the Corvette Caravan in 2014,
40:20
in 2019, and they are planning to do it again in 2024. So, if you are an
40:25
international guest and would like to come in for the caravan, please connect either with the national chairman or
40:31
possibly with the local caravan captain of the area where you'll be landing in here in the United States.
40:38
Fantastic. Hey, Jeff, that reminds me. I'm going to add this, Steve, if it's okay.
40:44
Sure. In 2019 caravan, we actually the Hawaiians.
40:50
What's that? The Hawaiians. The Hawaiians. Yeah. So that's let me add that. So
40:56
okay, go ahead. In 2019, Jeff, we actually had nine
41:02
Corvettes shipped in by boat from Hawaii
41:07
who joined the Southwest Caravan in Pasadena on our 7-day journey to Bowling
41:12
Green. Wow. So, while you're in Bowling Green and you want to play the license plate game,
41:17
you could have found all 50 states while you were in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 2019 with those Hawaiian Corvettes.