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CORVETTE TODAY #170-Celebrating 50 Years of Mid America Motorworks
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Jul 11, 2025
Mid America Motorworks has been one of the leaders in Corvette aftermarket products since it's inception in 1973. Mike Yager started Mid America Motorworks with a $500 loan and has built it into the Corvette powerhouse that it is today! Mid America Motorworks is celebrating 50 years in business this year. And your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, sits down with Founder and Head Cheerleader Mike Yager along with his son, Michael Jr, to trace Mid America Motorworks history, Yager's induction into the Corvette Hall of Fame and this years' Corvette Funfest, which is also celebrating it's 30th year in September. It's an amazing story - help us salute Mid America Motorworks with the very special CORVETTE TODAY show.
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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
0:13
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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Canadiancetforum.com welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the world. Mid America Motorworks
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has been an industry leader in the Corvette aftermarket products for a very long time. As a matter of fact, Mid
2:50
America is celebrating 50 years in business. Here to talk about Mid America Motorworks is the founder, Corvette Hall
2:56
of Famer, and chief cheerleader, Mike Jagger, along with his son, Michael. Guys, welcome to Corvette Today.
3:03
You know, Steve, this is awesome. We've been trying to do this for way too long and the day is finally here, so we're
3:10
excited. It's a sunny day here at Mid America. I'm glad to have you guys on. This has been four years in the making, so I'm
3:16
glad to have both of you here on the show. Mike, first off, let's talk about your family and your siblings growing
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up. I know you come from a large family. Tell me about that family. And was it a car family?
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Nine kids, seven boys, two girls. Wow. Of the seven boys, six of them have made
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our livingings around automobiles. As a 12-year-old in my dad's twocar garage,
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my brother Corky, who is 20 years older than me, was restoring a 28 Dodge, 26T,
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40 Mercury, 38 Hudson Terlane. And on the other side, my brother Frank, who
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had a 32 Ford pickup truck that he chopped and channeled and putting a Chevy V8 in it. So, yeah, I kind of grew
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up around cars. Talk to me about when did you get into Corvettes, Mike?
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When I was 13, my brother Frank bought a Corvette. He drove a truck at the time and we were in St. Louis and he showed
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me a Corvette. He said that silver car there right by the Pillsbury plant on US
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40. He said that's just like mine only. Mine is black. I still remember the time
4:22
of the day, the sunset, the traffic. I was heart struck. Not that I remember my
4:27
first sighting of a real Corvette knowing that soon. And that was in May on Memorial Day that year. He was
4:33
bringing the Corvette home from Florida and I was going to get to see it for the first time. That's amazing. Now, let's talk about
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your first Corvette, Mike. I know you're a young man. Tell us what it was and what year was it? Tell us all about that
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first Corvette. Well, I bought it on September 18th, 1970. Wow.
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It was a 67 convertible, Marina blue, white interior, side pipes, four-speed,
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sweetest Corvette they ever made. Just a simple, straightforward 67 Roadster.
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When I bought that car, Steve, I started really getting into Corvettes. I started a Corvette club here in Effingham in
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this region. And within a year we had over a hundred unique memberships which meant we had over a 100 corvettes in our
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club. We joined in triple C and by 1975
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I was a regional officer and by 76 through 79 I was on the national NC
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board vice president of public relations. Man, so there's a real quick condensed view
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of buying a Corvette and getting involved in the hobby. Mike, I know in 1974 you had this vision. You saw that
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there was no place for Corvette enthusiasts to get lifestyle products. Talk about the loan you took out. Who
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was it from? And what did you start selling that got Mid America Motorworks off the ground? Well, at that time I was just finishing
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up my journeymanship as a two-on die maker. Having been a regional officer
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and a national officer involved in clubs, I would travel around to club events and I thought, man, there needs
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to be a place you can buy everything you want for a Corvette under one roof. So,
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I got the courage up, borrowed $500 from my local bank in Newton, Illinois, the
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People State Bank, and started a business. My first product that I bought, Steve, was 5 in Corvette
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patches, embroidered patches, and I bought a hundred of them. Well, when you have $500 and you buy a hundred of
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something, those four packages of 25, I thought, man, if I ever sell all these,
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that's it. I'm not going to buy this many ever again. Well, many thousands later, we're still
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selling that basic same patch. That's really cool. Now, you started off with just a two-page flyer that
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eventually grew into a 300 plus page full color catalog, didn't you? see from
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that original piece printed on a mimograph machine if you can remember what the world of mimograph machine was.
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You know, that's where you cut the stencil and the last keystroke is where you make a mistake and you go, "Do I
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type do I type over this or start over again
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all the way up to doing a I think our largest catalog at Corvette was 360
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pages print at Rotor Graveier and we'd print in the neighborhood of 6 million a year."
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Wow, that's amazing. If you do the math on 6 million times 360 pages, that's a whole lot of pages.
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and images of Corvette stuff. That's a lot of zeros, my friend. That's a big grouping, that's for sure. Mike,
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how many products does Mid America Motorworks carry today? Currently, we're over 85,000. Anything
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you need for restoration, performance, enhancements, looks, styling, you name
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it, we've got it. That's amazing, buddy. Let's take our first break. When we come back, we're going to talk about your induction into
7:53
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[Music] This is the Corvette Today podcast with Steve Garrett.
12:01
Thanks for checking out Corvette Today on podcast and YouTube. It's the only current podcast dedicated to Corvette.
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I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me today is Mike Joerger, the Hall of Famer, founder, and chief cheerleader of
12:39
Mid America Motorworks along with his son, Michael. In segment number two, we're going to talk about Mike's
12:44
induction into the Corvette Hall of Fame. Mike, first of all, now Mid America Motorworks is celebrating 50
12:50
years in business. It continues to be a leader in the Corvette aftermarket industry. Steve, you brought up one of my soft
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spots, the Corvette Museum. When the National Corvette Museum was first concepted, we got involved early on. In
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fact, for a number of years, we lent them cars from our collection when they were on the annex building on Scottsdale
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Road. We supplied them with product for their retail store to help them get
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going. And lo and behold, the museum took off. I joined the board in 1996
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or seven and was a board member for six years and I had the privilege of being
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chairman of the board in 2003 and 2004. The cool thing about that was I was
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chairman at Corvette's 50th anniversary. So when I look back at my history within the Corvette world and said, "Oh my god,
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I never thought there would be a Corvette museum." That wasn't even a vision in those early years. And then
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with the birth of the National Corvette Museum. Interestingly, Michael's here
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with me today when we opened the National Corvette Museum. He was on
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stage with me when I did my presentation at the grand opening. So, the history of our family and Corvette goes back not
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only a number of years, but both of our sons grew up in the Corvette world. Grew up with the Corvette museum. You know
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what? You never do things to get something, so to speak. But I always thought, you know what, there's
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certainly the potential someday I could get into the Hall of Fame at the National Corvette Museum. That's just a
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fleeting thought. I had nominated people when I was on the board and as chairman
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involved in people getting inducted into it. One day, Michael came into my office
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and said, "Dad, Wendell Strode's going to call you." And I thought, "Wow, I'm not sure what this is about."
14:45
But kind of in the back of my mind, I thought, could this be? So to say I didn't expect it when Wendell called
14:52
would be an understatement, I guess, or maybe not a true statement. But when he told me, I had a swallow, and it took me
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seemingly minutes till I could respond. Now, here's a guy that was the director
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of the museum. I was quote his boss as chairman. I thought it was a possibility
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that would happen. But when he told me, I was so overwhelmed, it was hard to
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talk. You think about who's in the Hall of Fame at the National Corvette Museum.
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It's a pretty powerful thing to me personally. So, yeah, honored, privileged, astounded, fortunate, lucky.
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What other adjective could I use to describe my feeling about that spatial
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spatial opportunity? You want to know how I feel or should I go on? I think we got it. You know, it's like
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winning an Oscar, isn't it, Mike? Yeah, it really is. And you were inducted as an enthusiast in 2018. What a memorable
15:47
event. Michael, I know your dad said that you were there with him and I know you were on stage. How old were you and
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Blake, your younger brother, when dad got the Corvette Hall of Fame going? You know, we were lucky enough to be in
15:58
our early 30s, so certainly old enough to realize what a privilege it was for him. and having grown up in the Corvette
16:04
world really since birth. Just to see him get acknowledged for what he's done, what he's contributed to the hobby, it
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was very special to us and obviously very special to us as a family to see that special day finally come to
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fruition. And on a separate note, guys, I know that Mike, you started drive your Corvette to Work Day, too. How did all
16:22
that come about? You know, we were just thinking about every July 1st over the 4th of July back years ago, General
16:30
Motors would shut down all their manufacturing plants for 2 weeks. And we got thinking about the first Corvette
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rolling off the assembly line June 30th of 53. And we said, wouldn't it be cool
16:42
if we could just get people on the Friday closest to June 30th to take the
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Corvette out of the garage and actually drive it? As you and I both know, there's a lot of people that don't drive
16:52
their Corvettes near enough. So, we came up with that idea. It was our PR firm in
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California that helped us concept it. The first year we did it, we took four cars from our collection, the last 1999
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Corvette, 98 pace car, the first C5, and one other car. We took them over to St.
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Louis to the Art Museum. And if you've ever been to the Ark Museum, you know it's up on the top of a hill, right? And
17:17
then Forest Park is down below it. So we had all kinds of news media out there
17:23
covering it and couple of the Corvette clubs in St. Louis. We probably had 75 to 100 Corvettes there. As we were
17:30
driving home, I was in the lead. Michael, Blake, and Li were driving three other Corvettes. And I got right
17:38
beside a semi-tra and he lost his what we call an alligator. The treads on his
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tires, right? It went under my car, over the car behind me, under the Corvette behind
17:50
that, and over the top of that. We lost two faces that day. Wow.
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I mean, what can you do? You're driving what, 75, 80 miles an hour and you're out in that passing lane and that first
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car hits that alligator and it just went over, under, over, under, over.
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We actually drove the cars out of our museum. Then we had to drive them to the body shop to get new fascias.
18:15
That's crazy. What a story. You know, every Corvette owner has a story. That's a great story, Mike.
18:20
So, anyhow, it's something that we continue to promote. And in 2007, I got
18:26
the idea that I would get a US congressman to see if they could get a day of recognition for Corvette. So I
18:33
contacted John Shimus, District 19 US congressman, and told him my idea, and
18:39
he went to work, and sure enough, there was a house resolution passed making June 30th official day of recognition
18:46
for Corvettes. So that was another cool achievement. That's awesome. Well, buddy, let's take
18:51
our final break. When we come back, let's talk more about one of the biggest Corvette weekends in the country. It's
18:56
called Corvette Funfest, and it's right there at Mid America Motorworks. That's coming up next on Corvette Today.
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833639-4231. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me
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today is the founder, Corvette Hall of Famer, and chief cheerleader of Mid America Motorworks, Mike Jagger, along
22:10
with his son, Michael. In this third and final segment, we're going to talk about one of the biggest Corvette weekends in
22:16
the country. Coming up every year, it's Corvette Funfest. Guys, talk about the early beginnings of Corvette Funfest. I
22:22
know it started in 1994, isn't that correct? Started on our 20th anniversary. It was
22:28
a backyard barbecue, if you will, to say thank you to our customers. We had over
22:34
300 Corvettes our first year and around a thousand people here. And as the event
22:40
was over, we started getting thank you notes. And in the thank you notes, we sure hope you do it again next year.
22:47
This was like a backyard festival and this was so much fun. And as we started looking at the letters, we started
22:54
pulling out a common theme and that was fun and festival. So we decided we were
23:00
going to do it again in 95. We were going to call it funfest, customer appreciation party. Everything was free.
23:07
And then it kind of got on steroids as years went by. Steve, our biggest year
23:13
ever. We had over 17,000 Corvette sewer gates, over 38,000 people. It was just
23:20
overwhelming. Over the years, we went from running it on 22 acres to running
23:25
it on 195 acres. We have payroll would be over 250 260 people. We'd spend about
23:34
a million dollars a year to produce the event. We had this celebrity here one time. His name was Steve Garrett.
23:43
He You know that guy by any chance? He sounds familiar. Yes. Yeah. Sounds a lot like you. But we had
23:49
the good fortune of you and I's path crossing. And you've come over and helped us with the DJ work. You've
23:56
helped us with introductions on stage work. It's a giant Corvette party. We're
24:02
fortunate Illinois. We have Bloomington Gold. We've got the muscle car and Corvette Nationals in Chicago. And we
24:08
have Corvette Funfest. So, three major Corvette activities just in one state.
24:13
And all three of them are kind of the leader in their own individual segments. To me, you add in Corvettes at Carlilele
24:20
and the National Corvette Museum events. You know, if you're going to do anything in the Corvette world, there's five mega
24:26
events that you ought to go to. Absolutely. Right. Now, when a Corvette enthusiast comes to Funfest, talk about
24:33
what they can expect over the weekend. Lots of great Corvettes, Corvette people. You know, we do all kinds of
24:39
tech sessions starting on a Thursday night running through used to be Sunday, but Sunday's attendance got to a point
24:46
where we were here on Sundays, but it's really over Saturday evening. We have speakers, we have celebrities here. Gee,
24:53
over the years we've had George Bareris, Linda Vaughn, all people within the
24:58
automotive hobby. It's always a fun time. Yeah. You know, we started one year and
25:03
we had the Eastern Illinois University Orchestra here for a Saturday night
25:09
dinner and it went very well. It was a little more formal than what we evolved
25:14
into, but we kind of got the idea that we ought to do music entertainment. And
25:19
you know me, you don't go with the local group. Our first big group here out of the box was the Beach Boys. And let me
25:26
tell you, that was probably the best thing that we ever did and the worst thing that we ever did because it stuck
25:33
us on a treadmill that people started expecting there to be top-notch classic
25:38
rock here. So over the years we've had Ario, 38 Spatial, Don Felder, Guess Who,
25:46
Three Dog Night, Survivor, Dennis Young and the Music of Sticks, Bachmann
25:51
Turner. We've had a few groups through here. In fact, we used to rent a stage and we got to the point where we
25:58
actually built an amphitheater that would hold about 14,000 people and a
26:03
giant kick-ass stage. In fact, the Guess Who was the first band to play on that
26:08
stage and we were out for dinner with them Friday night and over perhaps a few
26:14
cocktails, we had decided that, you know, when they launch a new ship, they christen the ship with the bottle of
26:19
champagne, right? So, we decided that we were going to christen the stage with the bottle of
26:25
champagne. Sounded good at 10:30 at night over a few drinks and dinner.
26:30
Well, that night continued on for my sons till about 2:00 in the morning. I was home in bed. Well, the next evening,
26:37
the Guess Who was on stage and we were scheduled to go up there at a certain time and they handed me a double mag of
26:43
champagne. So, I carried that on the stage with me and I got up there at Derek and the front of the house guy
26:49
talked to him and his headset said, "You guys aren't going to do that, are you?" And he shakes his head yes. So, we got
26:56
people away from the stage and we just took that double mag of champagne and dropped it. Let me tell you, that thing
27:02
exploded. is like sounded so good last night to do that. How dumb were we to do it? Pretty dumb.
27:10
I still have the retainer and cork and the top of that bottle in one of my
27:16
cases in the office and every time I see the Guess Who, which is about once a year, the first thing they ask was, "You
27:24
still have the top to that bottle?" That's funny. What a great story. Now, this year's Corvette Funfest is going to
27:30
be the 29th overall. Give us the dates of that and what's planned for this year.
27:35
Actually, it's the 30th, Steve. Oh, wow. Yeah, you're one year behind. I am.
27:40
September 15th, 16th, and 17th, and we kick it off on Thursday night. Our
27:47
underwriting theme is on patriotism. Thursday night, Wes Wong, who was a lead
27:52
FBI agent at 911, obviously New York City, will do a presentation on
27:58
patriotism and just his involvement with 911 and what that date should mean to
28:03
every American. Friday just happens to be the national day of recognition for
28:09
PMIA. So, when we leave here Friday evening, we always do a road cruise and we're
28:15
going to the Effingham Performance Center. I'm going to have a presentation there by retired Lieutenant Colonel Hal
28:22
Fritz. Howal is a Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient. And again, it'll be on
28:28
patriotism within our Corvette community. We have so many veterans. I'm honored and privileged to be able to pay
28:36
back something, a little bit of respect, connection with our customers, not only
28:41
with Corvette, but through their service to our country. That to me is the big
28:46
deal for us. And I'm still working on perhaps a stage production called The
28:51
Pineapple Express. And that's our exit from Afghanistan. And a young man that
28:57
was very involved with that that got out about 3,000 of our citizens and people
29:03
who helped us there is doing a stage production called the Pineapple Express
29:08
underwritten by Gary Senise. We're hoping to be able to do that at the EPC,
29:14
which will give us three nights and cover a lot of generations of the military. To me, that's what I would
29:20
like to give back as entertainment and respect. Obviously, we've got speakers coming in Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
29:28
Chris Petus, who's going to do several seminars on LS engine swaps, which you know is a big thing within our
29:35
community. Oh, yeah. We always do a couple sessions on Indie Pace Cars and Indie Motor
29:41
Speedway and several other presenters that haven't yet 100% committed, but I know they will be here. We'll have our
29:48
fun celebrity judging and lots of good food, parts, and good deals on everything on campus.
29:54
That sounds awesome. If anybody wants to reach out to Mid America Motorworks, guys, let's give the phone number, the
29:59
website URL, and your hours of operation. Well, that's easy. The phone number is
30:05
800500-1500. That's about as simple as you can get. It's a whole bunch of zeros, but
30:11
8005001500. And our website is www.mammoworks.com.
30:20
maworks.com. We're open Monday through Saturday, 8:00
30:25
a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. to 400 pm on Saturdays. We have the My Garage
30:30
Museum that's open those same hours with our car collection and Corvette memorabilia open free to the public.
30:37
Lots of things to see in there. Lots of Corvette memorabilia. Right now, we're
30:42
really heavy on really interesting C4 developmental cars. So, if you're a C4
30:48
fan, let me tell you, there are C4s in there that will knock your socks off. Historical race cars, some
30:55
pre-production cars, just lots of cool things in there. That's fantastic. Guys, thank you so
31:00
much for taking the time to be on Corvette today. Looking forward to Corvette Funfest coming up in September.
31:06
Steve, it was a pleasure being on here. I respect what you do and wish you continued success and good luck within
31:13
the Corvette community. Thanks for listening to Corvette Today. And please be sure to tell your family, friends, and other Corvette enthusiasts about the
31:20
Corvette Today podcast. And thanks to our sponsors, Wheelcraft. Want to dress up your Corvette with bright chrome or
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black chrome wheels? Visit wheelcraft.com to learn about their advanced PVD chrome finishing. They can
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purchase with the new promo code CT111 at aerolari.com. And Hendrickk Chevrolet
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in Kansas City at chevusa.com. You've been listening to Corvette Today
32:05
with Steve Garrett. If you'd like to contact Steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on Corvette
32:11
today, you can email him at stevegaredjgmail.com.
32:17
That's Steve Garrett DJ atgmail.com. Garrett has two Rs and two T's. Or
32:23
connect with Steve on social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram using stevegared.
32:30
Thanks again for listening to Corvette today.
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