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Corvette forum welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the world. My guest on today's show is a return guest
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to Corvette today. He appeared way back on episode number 40 in mid January of
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2021. He's the proprietor of Bloomington Gold. And today we're going to talk about the show and the exciting new
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location they have for this year's event. So, please help me welcome back Guy Larson to the show. Guy, welcome
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back to Corvette Today. It's been way too long, my friend. Well, thanks, Stephen. and it is good to be back and reconnect with you and give
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the folks an update on the Corvette world. Yes, we've got a lot to talk about here for Bloomington Gold. Guy, before we get
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into this year's event, let's talk about the history of Bloomington Gold. Yeah, I think what you have to do is to
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think of the history of Bloomington Gold and how it started. I would ask you to remember that there was no eBay at the
4:31
time. There wasn't internet. People couldn't buy things from Amazon. So at in the early 70s, what people did is
4:38
they'd get together, really actually get together with each other. Think about that. Wow.
4:43
So they started convening in Bloomington, Illinois with a Corvette corral. You know, they just guys got
4:49
together, showed their cars, and they brought parts that they didn't need and they wanted to sell to other people, and
4:55
people bought parts back and forth. That kind of took off really quick. So in the early 70s, the Corvette group just sort
5:02
of honed in on getting together in Bloomington and exchanging parts and such. Then in the later 70s, the
5:09
founders of the group came up with a judging system for judging cars. Where it came from was back then at that time,
5:16
you'd go to local car shows and you'd enter a show and one guy won and everybody else lost. Yeah. And they
5:22
didn't really understand, you know, how you win and my car is better than your car and I don't know why they picked
5:27
that one. So they came up with a system of judging that became Bloomington Gold certification eventually, but the
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concept was that every car competed against how the car was built originally.
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Mhm. So you're not competing with the guy next to you or three doors down or the car that spent $50,000 more than you
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did. You're just competing with how correct your car is compared to how it was built. Over the years, grown to call
5:53
that typical factory production, TFP. Gotcha. The judges always refer to TFP.
5:58
That alternator is TFP. That seat cover is TFP. And they can go into more depth
6:04
explaining, but when you get that in your head and you think, you know, that's really what judging is about is comparing it how how it was done at the
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factory. So that took off and between the people bringing parts to sell and people bringing their cars to get judged
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and know that they were right, Bloomington Gold really sprung into becoming a big national Corvette show,
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you know, and it's really nice because that way you aren't judged like a typical show and shine, which is what a
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lot of people put on these days. Like you said, this is going against how that car came out of the factory, which is
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really cool. Yeah. And nowadays, you know, if you go to other events and you see a car and it
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has on it that it was Bloomington Gold certified, the people who understand that think, "Wow, that means that car is
6:45
really right." Yeah, absolutely. They don't just see a trophy from, I don't know, the Springfield Bear that
6:51
somebody got a first place doesn't tell them much. And it's even grown into extending value to cars now a day. You
6:58
know, if you go to the big auctions and you see collector Corvettes for sale, the really important ones, many, many of
7:04
them have been Bloomington Gold certified to show that they are authentic. Yeah, we're going to talk about that in just a little bit. Bloomington Gold has
7:11
been in some really great places in the past. Talk about some of the different places that you've had the show.
7:16
Oh, yeah. So, it started out in Bloomington. It was there for a lot a lot of years and it moved to
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Springfield, Illinois to the fairgrounds for a few years. That was a transition where it went into ownership. Dana Mikum
7:29
from Mikum Auction owned Bloomington Gold at that time. Gotcha. And he moved it around and he found a
7:35
place up in the Chicago suburbs called Feeasant Run and moved the show up there
7:40
right around the year of 2000. And so the show went to Feeasant Run on a golf course and that was really, really
7:46
pretty. People still talk about the show at the golf course. So that was pretty neat. Unfortunately, the golf course
7:53
fell into financial trouble and was closing down. So, we moved around from there. A few years later, we struck a
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deal with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That was really uh amazing that we went there and we rented the
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whole Speedway. The show was growing and it was really pretty neat. Unfortunately, again, you can't control
8:11
everything. In 2020, I guess it was, COVID hit. Yep. Co just caused everybody to stay home
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and not go to shows and events. And heck, people didn't even go to movies or go out to eat. Remember?
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Oh, yeah. The show had to downsize, so we had to move out of the speedway. We hunted around. We moved back to Bloomington,
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Illinois for a few years at the college campus, which was pretty neat to be back in the old home grounds, but people were
8:36
telling us, you know, we really like the track. We like driving our cars around the track, and that was more fun. We got
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to use our cars, not just walk around and look at cars. So, this year in 2025, we're going back to a track. We're going
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to the Worldwide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois. We're pretty excited about it.
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Absolutely. And congratulations are in order, too, because in 2022, Bloomington Gold celebrated the 50th year of
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existence. That's pretty darn awesome. Yeah, we are the longest running all Corvette show. So, that's kind of a neat
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thing to hang your hat on. We call ourselves the granddaddy of Corvette shows. And you are absolutely.
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Guy, let's talk more about Bloomington Gold Judging. We talked about that just a little bit, but talk about what sets
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it apart from other shows. I know it differs from regular car shows. I brought up the Show and Shine shows.
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Talk about how it's the crown jewel of authentication judging. I know that even European collections like Ferrari, they
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don't even judge in detail like Bloomington Gold does. That's correct. Yeah. So, Bloomington Gold in certification judging, we'll
9:38
talk mostly about certification. That's where you enter your car and it's judged in four different areas and they compare
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it to how it would have been done when the car was built. Like I said before, typical factory production. So in the
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exterior, interior, chassis and engine compartment. Those four sections, they
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judge a number of components. It could be anywhere from 30 to 50 components. They judge that those components
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compared to how they were when the car was built. I give you a few examples. In the engine compartment, they can judge,
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everybody kind of knows what an alternator is. So, they judge the finish of the alternator, the dating on the
10:14
alternator, the configuration, which means the shape and how it's mounted and all that. They look at that item and
10:20
they determine is that how it was when it was new, and they check that it is, or they determine in what extent is it
10:27
not as it was when new. That's an engine item. An easier one for folks to understand is let's say tires on a car.
10:35
A lot of people don't think very much about the tires, but you know, if you've got a 1967 Corvette, it came with a
10:41
certain size tire, a certain diameter tire, and a certain manufacturer and tread pattern and so on and so forth.
10:47
So, the judges know this stuff and they don't look it up in a book. They just know what the tire should look like on
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that car and they'll look at the width of it. Is it a black wall? Is it a raised white letter? Is it a white
10:57
stripe or a gold stripe or a red stripe? And certain cars had certain tires. They evaluate those things and if it is not
11:03
quite as it would have been there is a deduction taken or what we call a deviation from what it would have been.
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So the judges go through those four areas and they do that component by component by component. And in order to
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get a gold certification the car has to attain 95% of those components being
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correct or easily undetectable is what we call it. They look like they were as
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they car was built. Gotcha. And let's also talk about why it's so important to get your Corvette
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certified at Bloomington Gold. We touched on that, but really elaborate on that. Well, yeah, there's different reasons
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people do it. One is self-satisfaction. They own this car. They fall in love with the car. They know that things are
11:44
correct on the car. They correct things that may not be. They may refinish different pieces. They may repaint the
11:50
whole car. They may take the car apart all the way down to the frame and put it back together to make it as it was. and
11:56
getting a gold certification is their reward that they did that correctly. So that's probably the first driving reason
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why people do it is self-satisfaction. A more practical reason is if you make the
12:07
car correct and you get a gold certification, it enhances the value of a car. The cars that are really
12:13
collectible that collectors look for certain specific cars that are rare. If they've been certified, the buyer knows
12:20
the car is pretty correct. Right. Right. They want those cars over the ones they don't know are correct. The
12:27
easy example is a collector is looking for a 1969 L88 Corvette, which are kind
12:33
of expensive and rare and hard to get your hands on one. And if there's two or three of them in the marketplace for
12:40
sale and one of them has been certified and the other ones have not, the certified one is more desirable to
12:46
buyers. Yeah. You know, they know that that car has been done correctly. Yeah. Absolutely right. Guy, let's take
12:52
our first break. When we come back, we're going to talk about this year's show that's coming up next here on
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at 833-639-4231. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me is
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Guy Larson, the proprietor of Bloomington Gold. We've got some exciting news about this year's show. Guy, let's just jump right into it. We
16:56
have a brand new venue this year. Give me the dates and location again of this year's show.
17:01
Sure. The dates are June 5th through 7th. It's a full show on the 6th and the 7th, Friday and Saturday. The 5th on
17:09
Thursday. The beginning of the day is really more like a setup day, but later in the day we do have a gala event which
17:16
is an introduction of the gold collection cars. We have gordur and drinks and a ticketed event that you can
17:23
come and see these cars and walk around. This year we're actually opening up the judge cars will be on display right next
17:30
to the gold collection cars. So, there's going to be somewhere near a 100 cars to look at that evening at the gala and
17:36
that's going to be from 5 to 7:00 p.m. that evening. That'll be nice. Yeah. The other half of your question is
17:44
where is it? So, it's at the Worldwide Technology Raceway, which is in Madison,
17:49
Illinois. And to put that into terms, we're about 5 to 10 minutes away from St. Louis. So, we're on the Illinois
17:55
side of the Mississippi River. In the evening, you can go over to St. Louis and see the arch and do things like
18:00
that. But during the day, we're going to be at the racetrack having fun. That'll be a great location. And the cool thing is Corvette owners can drive
18:07
their cars on the Worldwide Technology Raceway. Talk a little bit more about that. And I know there's also some
18:13
carting opportunities, too. Right. So, the driving on the track, some folks might remember we did that at
18:19
the Indie Motor Speedway. And so, we're doing it here at technology also. So
18:24
they're going to be cars will go out in groups of up to 20 cars at a time.
18:29
They'll go around and do several laps. It's sort of a time factor how long it takes and how many laps you get to do,
18:35
but they'll get a good amount of time and be able to run around the track. They do curtail the speed. Everybody
18:41
kind of goes, oh, so the speed is curtailed at somewhere near 65 miles an hour. They might go a little quicker
18:47
than that. And people say, I do that on the highway, right? Well, try doing 65 miles an hour
18:53
around the bank turns of a mile and a quarter track. It's going to be a little different. So, people are going to have
18:58
fun. All in all, they get to have their car on a racetrack is a fun thing you get to go away with. So, that's the
19:04
track time that will be done on Friday and Saturday. Some of the cars that are
19:09
getting judged Thursday, we're going to do a private little session for them to take their cars out, but the public on
19:15
Friday and Saturday can take their cars. You can sign up online for this ahead of time or you can show up then and do it.
19:21
But you're better to sign up ahead of time and get in a time period that you know you're going to be there and you
19:26
want to do it. Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk a little bit more specifically about the racetrack. Tell me how big it is and who
19:33
races out there. It's a mile and a quarter track. They have indie car racing. They have NASCAR
19:39
racing and they also have an NH strip that they do racing on that too. I
19:45
believe it's the only facility that has all three types of races like that. So, it's a pretty versatile place and pretty
19:52
well used. You know, lots and lots of racing going on all summer at this facility. That's amazing. Let's talk a little bit
19:59
more about the judging that goes on during the show. Tell me how long it takes to be judged, what Corvettes are
20:04
eligible, and what levels of awards they can win. Okay, so you know, people are sometimes taken back when they ask me, "How long
20:11
does it take to judge my car?" And I say, "Well, our answer is 36 minutes." And they're like, "What?" Where that
20:17
comes from is we can do about 10 cars in a judging group, and 10 times 36 is 360
20:24
minutes, and that's a full day for the judges. Their goal is to do one car every 36 minutes. So, one car might be
20:32
done in 34, one might be done in 38, but all in all, they got to get through that group of 10 cars in 36 minutes. Now, the
20:39
way that that's done and what surprises people until they see it in action is a team of four judges walks up and even as
20:47
they're walking up to the car, their eyes are looking at things. They're taking things in and they do not use
20:52
reference books for the most part. They just know the product. So, you have one judge who judges engines and he knows
20:59
everything about the engines on that specific year or the couple years that he may cover. For example, we have
21:05
judges who only judge 1967s. We have judges who judge only 70 to 72. The
21:12
reason there sometimes they judge a few years span is the cars stay pretty much the same in that time span, but they can
21:19
walk up and open the hood and they know all the different engines that are in a 70 to 72. They know what carburetors are
21:26
on the car. They know what the air cleaner looks like. They know all these things. And what the judge does is he
21:32
looks at a section and in his mind he takes in four or five different items and immediately says those are all as
21:39
they should appear on a car that is as done at typical factory production. So
21:44
they can process that quickly. So they walk up and they say yes that appears undetectable or no I see something that
21:50
my mind tells me look further. So they may look at a individual component in there and determine that let's say the
21:57
finish of a component is a little different than it should be. It's painted in glossy black and it should be
22:02
matte black and they find that immediately and they mark that down. That's how they do it in the 36 minutes.
22:08
Now the level of awards I said earlier to get a gold certification you have to attain 95% or higher. The award just
22:16
beneath that is a silver award which is 90 to 95 and a bronze award is 85 to 90.
22:22
In our world, everybody wants first place or the top award. But you also have to understand that getting a bronze
22:29
or a silver is still quite an accomplishment to get a car that's 40 or 50 years old and to get it to be 80 some
22:36
percent as compared to when it was built is quite a challenge or 90%. So all
22:41
those awards are important and valuable. But those are the different levels of certification.
22:46
That's cool. I like that because that way you can work back up. You can go to the next year if you have a bronze certification. you can work up next year
22:53
and get maybe a silver or a gold the year after. Right. That's right. And many of the people do that. You know, they get the sheets and
22:59
we encourage the judges to spend time with them after they're done judging and help them a little more on what their
23:05
deviations may have been. The owner can go home and improve things. So, let's say, like I talked about earlier, tires.
23:12
They didn't know that the tires they have on the car are not quite correct. So, they might go find some original
23:17
tires that are correct and purchase those and get them for their car. or they may redo that alternator that I
23:22
talked about that may not have been quite correct. You know, they go home, they perfect it, they come back and go for the gold is what we call it.
23:28
That's awesome. And you also this year have some really good looking Corvette displays. Talk about the Corvette
23:34
displays that'll be there. I know that this year's gold collection, the theme is called Generation Finalees. That'll
23:40
be interesting. Yeah. Every year we do a special collection. To me, this is one of the
23:45
most important parts of the show because the cars that we have in the collection, many times you never see these cars
23:51
anywhere else. I mean, they're just rare special cars. And each year we pick a different theme. You know, we have done
23:57
Z06 displays, we've done ZR1's displays, we've done display of all Stingray
24:03
Corvettes. So this year's display as you said is the finales of the generations meaning the end of each generation of
24:10
Corvette from the first generation C1 to the current generation of the C8. So we
24:15
will have the cars at end each generation. And the reason I came up with that idea was in each generation
24:21
General Motors Chevrolet perfected the cars. They had improvements. They had more features and the last year or two
24:28
of each generation are the best of what they produced in that generation. So, that's how that came up. This year's
24:34
card, and I'll tell you a few of the examples that we have, we have a gentleman bringing the last C1 Corvette
24:41
produced. Wow. 1962, the very last serial number made of that generation before it became the
24:47
C2. So, that's a collectible car, and as I said, you're not going to see that at car shows. We have a 67 L88 race car.
24:55
It's called the Le Man race car. In 1967, Chevrolet built 20 of these L88s.
25:01
There are 17 in existence. This car was a Le Man racer car. Extremely rare,
25:06
extremely valuable, and as I said, not normally seen. And then you jump, we have a 2019 ZR1, limited production,
25:14
manual transmission, 750 horsepower, I believe. Pretty rare car that will be on
25:20
display. So, we have a whole range of different cars and they go from the old old ones to we will have some C8s and
25:26
we're hoping we'll have one of the C8 ZR1s, but we haven't got our hands on one of those yet. Yeah, nobody has, but we hopefully will
25:33
get some soon, that's for sure. Well, guy, let's take our final break, my friend. When we come back, we're going to talk about how you can get registered
25:39
and attend Bloomington Gold this year. That's coming up next on Corvette Today.
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like-minded people. NCRS means excellence. NCS trains some of the best and most educated judges and informed
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owners in the car collector world. NCRS means inclusion. Owners of both classic and new Corvettes are welcome. We offer
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flight and concourse judging for 53 through07 model years and sportsman awards for Corvettes ranging from 53
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through 2025. NCRS means leadership. With over 10,000 members, NCRS
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researches, writes, publishes, and distributes tech manuals and judging guides for the 53 through07 Corvettes.
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No other Corvette organization does this, and they're available for purchase. Members also receive the
27:01
bimonthly and award-winning Restore Magazine and Driveline magazine throughout the year. We also host an
27:07
extensive technical discussion board at ncs.org. Finally, NCRS means value. Many of our
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prestigious awards can and often do increase the value of the cars that achieve our rewards. Whether you own a
27:20
53 Corvette or the latest 25 model, the NCRS has a place for you. Check us out
27:25
at ncs.org. When you want to buy a Corvette or any Chevrolet for that matter, get yours
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from Hendrickk Chevrolet Shauny Mission located in Kansas City. Hendrick Chevrolet is the largest Corvette
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equipped to take care of your every need. From sales to service to collision repair, Hendrickk Chevrolet has you
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covered. Visit chevusa.com or call 913841550.
28:05
Hi, I'm Mark Falter, host of the Retirement Income Hour podcast and Corvette enthusiast. I know when I
28:11
bought my Z06, I was thinking two things. One, these cars are incredible.
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And two, man, are they expensive? Owning a Corvette isn't just about driving fast. It's about living life in the fast
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financially and literally investment advisory services offered through Mid American Wealth Advisory Group, an SEC
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833-639-4231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is
29:33
my buddy Guy Larson who owns Bloomington Gold. We are talking about this year's show at the new venue guy. Before we get
29:40
into that, you know what? I forgot. We haven't even talked about the survivor and benchmark awards that you can win
29:46
during Bloomington Gold. Talk about that real quick. Yeah, we got to get to that. But you know, before we go into that, I forgot
29:52
to bring up that not all the world knows that we also certify Camaros. You're kidding. We do that same kind of judging that we
29:59
do for Corvettes on the first generation of Camaros. No kidding. That is awesome.
30:04
Yeah. You know, the Camaro's always been like a cousin to the Corvette. True. Little brother or something. And for
30:10
years, I would know people who own both. And I thought, you know, the judging sheets we have, you could take those judging sheets and walk up to a Camaro
30:17
and judge them almost. Sure enough, a friend of mine, Bill Nichols, who's been a judge for Corvettes for a lot of years
30:23
and is a retired Chevrolet engineer. He and I met up with some guys who did Camaro judging at a parking lot at an
30:30
event. We took our judging sheets out to a Camaro, went through them with these Camaro experts, and you know, we said,
30:35
"Well, you know, the batter is in a different place, so we got to take it from being in the interior of a Corvette, it's under the hood of a
30:42
Camaro, so you got to move it to that portion of the judging sheets." And it was a matter of no time, we had the judging sheets redone, and we started
30:48
judging Camaros. Amazing. Camaro lovers, come to Bloomington Gold. That's awesome. All right, let's talk more about Survivor and Benchmark, then.
30:55
Sure. Survivor is another type of judging that we do. Actually, I hold the trademark for the word survivor. What
31:01
survivor judging is is a team of judges going up to a car and determining how much of the car is not been restored,
31:09
how much of it is as it was original. These are cars that have not been repainted, have not had the engines
31:15
redone. These are cars that are still pretty much as they were and haven't been tinkered with too much, you might
31:21
say. So, much like the certification judging, we have three different levels of awards. We have a bronze, a silver,
31:29
and a gold. And they in the same way they go up to the car and they look at the four different sections. But instead
31:35
of one judge doing one area and one judge doing another, they do it as a team. So the whole team, they can walk
31:41
around the exterior of the car and determine how much of the exterior is unrestored. So they might find that most
31:48
of the paint and fiberglass has not been any work done to it, but they may find one section that some years back may
31:54
have had a repair. So that's a bit of a area that's a percentage of the area that's not original or unrestored.
32:01
Eventually what they're determining is is this car 80% or more unrestored.
32:06
That's what you have to hit to get a gold. Wow. That's a high mark, Steve. If you had a 1965 Corvette, that car is now 60 years
32:14
old. And they're judging the car and saying, "Okay, 80% or more of the paint has never had anything done to it."
32:20
These survivor candidate cars are just amazing. But, you know, we can learn so
32:25
much from them because nobody's redone the things. You know what you're looking at. For the most part, all the pieces of
32:32
it are as they were supposed to be. Mhm. That kind of leads us to benchmark, our
32:37
highest award. Benchmark is given to a car that attains a survivor award and a
32:42
gold certification award in the same weekend at the same event. Oh. So a car is judged for certification
32:49
and the judges have said, "Yeah, this car 95% of it, all the components are correct." And then on the next day, the
32:55
survivor judging team goes around and says, "It's not only correct, but more than 80% of the car is as it was built.
33:03
It's not been restored." If a car hits those two levels and then meets another criteria, and that is the
33:10
majority of the finishes are still there, then it can be a benchmark car. And a benchmark, what it means is it's a
33:18
benchmark for other people to use when they're restoring their car. Gotcha. That makes sense.
33:23
So the car has all the right parts according to certification and according to Survivor, they've not been messed
33:30
with. Yeah. You could say. So they're authentic. And if you're restoring a car, that's the car you want to look at when you say, "Well,
33:36
I don't know. How should the widget on my engine, how should it be mounted?" Mhm. and you look at a Survivor
33:42
benchmark car and you say, "Wow, okay, now I know what I got to do." Yeah, that's how benchmark cars are. And
33:48
there's very, very few of them. There's only several hundred of them over the many years that we've done it. If you
33:53
have a benchmark car or you see one, stop and take some time on that car and look at it. Definitely. All right, Guy, let's talk
33:59
about where you can purchase tickets and what the pricing is for the show coming up this year at Bloomington Gold.
34:04
Sure. It's easy to purchase tickets. You go to our website, which is bloomingtonold.com.
34:09
Across the top of the site, there's several pull down menus, and you'll find one where you can go to our store and
34:14
buy tickets. Tickets are $30 a person per day. There's discounts. If you buy
34:20
them in a package for both days, there's a discount. If you come as a club with 10 or more cars, there's a discount.
34:26
Nice. And you get special club parking inside the track, by the way. That's awesome. That's pretty cool. You can also
34:32
purchase lap time like we talked about. We don't have the cart racing times up there yet, but we will have that in the
34:38
coming weeks. And you can also purchase club parking like I said. So if you're a part of a club like Steve, I know you
34:44
are. You can get all your buddies and say, "Let's 10 or 20 of us go and we'll get a discount. We all get to park
34:49
inside the racetrack, not on the outside in a parking lot." I will talk to everybody at the Corvette Club of Kansas City. See if we can put
34:56
something together. That'll be fun. Yeah, that's a neat thing to do. You actually park on the inner raceourse,
35:01
not on just a piece of pavement. So it's going to be pretty cool. Very cool. Also, you've got seminars
35:06
coming up this year, too, don't you? That's right. And our friend Steve here is going to do a seminar. We have other
35:12
seminars. David Burroughs, who's one of the founders of Bloomington Gold, is going to do a seminar on a system that
35:18
he does called Prove It, where he proves that a car is what it is said to be.
35:24
Like if it was a rare rare race car and everybody sees it, but they're not quite sure, is this really that car? He did a
35:31
prove it project on a Mickey Thompson race car. But interesting enough, he's going to talk about how he can do prove
35:37
it on anything. He could do prove it on your mom's dresser that came from France. He could do a prove it project
35:44
and prove that it is or isn't what she's always told you it was. That's a seminar that will be interesting. We've got
35:50
another fellow doing a seminar on C1 engineering and C1 components. That's
35:55
the older first generation cars. Nice. We'll have some more other seminars. We usually have them on some aspect of
36:02
judging. We're hoping to have somebody there on performance of the C7 and C8
36:08
cars. Performance enhancements he could do to those cars. That'll be fun. Yeah. David Burroughs was on Corvette today. He was number 58.
36:16
That show came out at the end of May of 2021. So, if you want to check out that show and check out what David Burroughs
36:22
does and prove it, you can listen to that episode. That was pretty cool. Well, you know what, Steve? That's probably one thing I did before he did.
36:28
Yeah, exactly. And I am going to do a seminar on Corvette today at Bloomington
36:34
Gold this year. So if you do come to the show, make sure you stop by and say hello. Guy, you've also got a terrific
36:40
array of vendors for the show. Who's going to be there this year? Oh, yeah. That's pretty neat. So I'll rattle off some names and some different
36:47
companies. We always have companies selling apparel. Of course, you can find t-shirts and polos and stuff with
36:53
Corvettes on them. And we have our own brand of Bloomington Gold apparel that will be on display. Corvette Central is
36:59
a sponsor of us. Thank you. And they will have a tent and display. They're a catalog company. You can order parts for
37:06
any generation Corvette and get them through Corvette Central. Mother's polish company will be there and they're
37:12
going to be doing some demos on different things you can do in polishing and correction of scratches and things
37:17
on your car. Nice. I think we're going to have a fellow who does dry ice blasting, which
37:23
is a newer technology on how you bring back the finishes of an engine or a
37:28
frame without destroying the original paint. That'll be cool. Yeah, we'll have some car dealers with
37:34
cars for sale. We have DNA Restoration always has a display and I think Dick
37:40
Fernando has been an exhibitor for 51 years or something like that when we've been there. Dick sells restored cars and
37:47
he also will build a car to what you want if you want to do a modification on a Corvette. Nice.
37:52
They'll be there. Oh boy. On and on. Dana Forester, one of your friends in your car club. Dana Forester is a known
37:59
artist that does images of Corvettes and different settings. Very famous for the brick building pictures with Corvettes.
38:06
Dana always has a display there and he'll be selling his wares. Yeah, Dana was on show number four of
38:11
Corvette today. That was in the middle of May of 2020. Listen to that show.
38:17
Dana's Prince and his Corvette stuff is just world famous. It's really, really good, guy. We also have hotel
38:24
information on the website, too, don't we? Yes. You go to the website. There's several different hotels that are
38:29
available. I mean, you could go and try to hunt them down on your own, but there's actually a lot of things going on in the St. Louis area that same
38:36
weekend, including the Cardinals baseball game. So, we've got hotels listed where we know there's
38:41
availability. Great. And once again, give us the website for Bloomington Gold and any social media that you've got.
38:48
Sure. Bloomington.com is the website. On Facebook, just type in Bloomington Gold and it will take you
38:54
right to us. The dates again are June 5th through 7th. It's open to the public. I should have said that much
38:59
earlier. People sometimes think you have to be part of our club or something or you have to own a Corvette. Now, you
39:04
could just kind of like cars and come and enjoy the day there. That's awesome. Oh, and children under 12 are free.
39:10
Excellent guy. Thank you so much for being back on Corvette today. It's been way too long, but I'm looking forward to
39:16
Bloomington Gold this year. Thanks for having me, Steve. It was a pleasure and hope everybody has a great summer with their Corvettes.
39:23
Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today. And be sure to tell your family, friends, and other Corvette
39:28
enthusiasts about the Corvette Today Show. And thanks to our sponsors, Wheelcraft. Want to dress up your
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Also, Aerolari wheels. Get $100 off your purchase with the promo code CT111 at
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aerolari.com. Mark Valter with the Retirement Income Hour podcast and Hendrickk Chevrolet in Kansas City at
40:19
Chevyusa.com. Thanks for checking out Corvette Today on podcast and YouTube. If you'd like to
40:26
contact Steve with ideas for Corvette today, you can email him at stevegared djgmail.com.
40:33
Garrett has two Rs and two T's. That's Steve Garrett DJ@gmail.com.
40:39
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40:45
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40:52
DJ. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette today. [Music]