My first time trial series ended up pretty well however. I posted a ten mile time of 25:58 and 23.10 miles per hour speed which was almost 2 minutes faster than my first ever attempt last season. This could very well have been due to the good weather and calm winds durng the event. Hopefully some of the effort was a result of the time trial training I did over the winter.

I rode my Scott S20 with Shimano 550 wheels. Not exactly the optimal bike setup for time trials but I had to race what I brung. (that’s an old NASCAR phrase.). Now that I have picked up a few sponsors and a primary sponsor in the means of my dear wife, I will be showing up with a little better ride come next week.

I scored a great deal with the help of Cool Breeze Cyclery in Mooresville, NC. They set me up on a Cervelo PS2 Time Trial Bike. We fixed it up with some Vision Aero Bars, Look Pedals and an American Classic AC 420 wheelset. The Cervelo is much lighter and more importantly more aerodynamic than my Scott road bike. The crew at Cool Breeze was very helpful with setting me up and I highly reccommend my readers shop there if they are in the area.

OK, so now I have bought some speed. Now I just need to show up and mash the throttle (in this case the pedals). I look forward to wearing the Corvette Jersey once again next week and posting some better results. Keep an eye out for the Yellow Cervelo and the Red/Yello Corvette Jersey. If for some reason the biker is going slow, YELL AT ME. I’ll need all the help I can get.

Look forward to some videos and pics next week as well.

http://carolinatt.org/v3/assets/uploads2006/4-9_official_overall_r1_1.pdf

I snapped some photos with my little Sony Digital camera and wanted to share them with the readers of my blog. I hope you enjoy!

This years Food Lion Auto Fair was wet, muddy, cold and windy. The weather was everything but what we all really wanted. In fact, the speedway even pulled out their “rain plan” and had most of the car clubs park their cars under the Front stretch grand stands.

Saturday was a special day for me. I had the pleasure of taking my 8 year old nephew to the car show. He spent the whole day with me. However, I’m pretty sure after about 3 hours, he was a little bored. The rain didn’t help matters. He was a good sport about it and we really enjoyed the day together.

I gave Will a good idea before we went to the car show and suggested that we make a field trip out of it. This meant that he would be able to take pictures of cars. More importantly I wanted Will to take notes about each car that he had his picture made with. Will did a great job and came home with a lot of notes. The cool part about it was that he actually learned a little bit about each car. I’m sure he will have lots to talk about when he goes to school on Monday.

Will even managed to find a car smaller than him.

Thanks Will!

John

The only problem is it that it will be some very slow lap speeds. When I’m not out enjoying driving one of our Corvettes, I’m usually behind the computer or out riding one of my bikes. This year I am riding in 10 events at the Lowes Motor Speedway. These events are called Time Trials. Believe it or not, anyone can actually come out and ride their bike around the speedway for about $20. This is not a race, however most cyclist do race against the clock. There are cyclist of all levels from recreational to serious cyclist. The events consist of riding ten miles as hard as you can go. That is right at six and half laps around the track.

Shortly after buying our new 2008 Corvette fro Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet, my wife bought me a Corvette Racing cycling jersey. The jersey is quite colorful and does a great job of attracting attention to the Corvette name. I highly doubt I will be receiving a call anytime soon about a real sponsorship. So for now we will consider this free advertising in the name of Chevrolet and Corvette. Then again, if you want to throw some bones my way in the way of sponsorship, I will be happy to accept and work out the details.

The first event is scheduled for April the 9th. The week following the Food Lion Auto Fair. I’m gonna be spending a lot of time at the speedway that week, for sure.

I’ll try to do a race by race resuts post from my laptimes if anyone wants to follow along.

See you at the track!

John

We plan on having both Corvettes at the car show. The 1977 Corvette is FOR SALE. The 2008 Corvette is for show and fun. Auto Barn Classic Cars confirmed today that they are reserving a spot for the 1977 Corvette. It should be in the inner track area whereever the Autobarn reserved spots are located. Please stop by and check out the car if you are interested. I will be on site all 4 days and The Autobarn will be ready to sale the car on my behalf that weekend.

We will enter our 2008 Corvette for show only on Saturday and Sunday. We are joining the Generations Corvette Club of Charlotte, NC for two days of Corvette display and social fun. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the 2008 Corvette yet, swing on by. The Generations Corvette Club members have some very sweet Corvettes to show off. Pay a visit to the Club website. There is an awesome picture taken in front of the Biltmore House and Gardens. Fancy Corvette cars and an amazing historical mansion in the background. Pretty Cool!!!

If anyone is reading this website and you do come out to the Food Lion Spring Autofair, and you just happen to spot my cars, please don’t be shy. I meet a lot of people at car shows and it’s pretty neat to learn how many of them have read my Corvette website.

Hope to see you at the Car Show! Be safe and have a great time.

John

Looks like I’ll be buying two parking passes this year. One for our new Silver 2008 Corvette and one for our Silver 1977 Corvette. The plan is to find a buyer for the 1977 Corvette during the four day show.
In the meantime our 77 vette is still at the Auto Barn in Concord NC.

To get ready for the Food Lion Auto Fair, I threw together a photo slide/video today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0ZLvHqJUKU

Come see it in person at the Auto Fair.

see ya there.

I decide to go with Auto Barn because of their proffessionalism. The business marketing is second to none. They have excellent four color brochures, a very clean business like website and most importantly put a lot of focus on the cars. Upon visiting their showroom, I couldn’t help noticing how shiny clean everything was. They definately take after many of the top notch Nascar teams. Maybe that’s why team owners like Rick Hendrick choose to store their race cars there.

The Auto Barn houses some of the finest classic cars I’ve seen around Charlotte. Once I recognized several of the cars and knowing who built / restored them, I knew I couldn’t go wrong by listing my car with Auto Barn.

If you have a genuine interest in owning a classic 1977 Corvette, I invite you to visit the Auto Barn today. The Auto Barn staff will handle your request and provide information as needed. They will even handle shipping the 1977 Corvette to any where in the world that you wish. In fact they just shipped out another Corvette to a new owner in Dubai. Imagine that!

One hint, you might want to act fast. The Auto Barn has buyers all over the place and they don’t seem to waste time getting things done.

JF.

We stopped by Parks Chevrolet on a Sunday afternoon. Yes, the dealership was actually open. We briefly looked at the 2008 Corvette and tried to explian to the sales guy and sales manager that were indeed serious about the car and wanted to test drive it. We sorta figured we would get the “No” answer and be asked to make and offer or something to prove that we were serious.

The sales guy comes back and gives us the same story that most any dealer should give on the new Corvettes. “We usually don’t allow test drives of the new Corvettes, without an offer, and most people want to buy them with ZERO miles.” OK, we sorta figured that. So we informed the dealer that we just finished test driving a new 2008 Infiniti G37 and wanted to rule it out. Well this perhaps got their attention a little. The dealer runs over and checked with his sales manager working that day. When he came back, he informed us that he was going out to the lot to grab a used one to let us test drive it. I’m sitting there thinking , cool, maybe it will be a 2007 and at least some what comparible. NOOOOOTT……The guy comes back with a 2004 Corvette.

Once, he pulled up to the door, I asked what year, and he told us. I spoke up and said this deal needs to end right here. Exactly how is someone supposed to drive a 2004 Corvette and compare it against a new 2008 Corvette. Sure it’s a Corvette but any car has changes from year to year. I thought for a moment and figured, it couldn’t hurt to at least let them take my wife for a ride. She agreed and went for a spin. When they came back we told the dealer that there was no way we wanted to buy a 2008 Corvette without at least test driving it. Back to the “make us an offer story they went”.

Monday morning comes along and banging on the internet for 2008 Corvette Coupes. Eventually I stumbled on to the Chevrolet web site and found a build your car page. I plugged in the options we wanted, what we were willing to pay as a down payment and at the end was presented prices and better yet a way to submit my request for quotes to over 10 different local Chevrolet dealerships. The ironic thing was that Parks Chevrolet in Huntersville was the first dealer listed. I proceded to post my details to each of the dealerships. It seemed like 10 minutes later, the general sales manager of Parks Chevrolet was calling me about the request. I filled him in on Sunday and he seemed to know a little about it. He wanted to know why we put 50,000 as a down payment when the car wasn’t actually that much in price. Without going to deep in to conversation, I basically told him we were interested in buying a new 2008 Corvette LT2 Coupe and wanted to make sure that each dealer took us seriously. Obviously he wanted us to come back up and talk.

It didn’t take much longer for other dealers to start calling. After talking to a few, I asked one sales guy, “What would it take for us to drive the car, especially if we were going to drive 45 minutes.” The dealer replied, just show up and I’ll let you take two rides. Obviously, it seems this dealer was willing to take us seriously.

The next phone call was back to Parks Chevrolet in Huntersville. I asked for the general sales manager and explained to him what transpired on Sunday. To his defense, he reiterated their general policy about test driving the new Corvette. I replied that we understood and at the same time informed him that several other local Chevrolet dealerships had invited us to come and drive with no stipulations. The next response was “What time can you be here? Call me at least 30 minutes ahead of time and we will back the car out of the showroom and have it ready for a test drive.” Fair enuff! We drove up to Parks Chevrolet, Huntersville on Monday after work, talked to the general sales manager and each of us went out for a quick test drive.

One general rule of thumb on buying cars from dealers is to not show them your excitement or emotions during or after your test drive. Let me tell you now, this rule can not apply to a 2008 Corvette Coupe with 436 horsepower under the hood. Holy cow!!! It will get your blood moving in a matter of seconds.

After the ride, we pretty much said we wanted to go home and discuss it. I give the sales manager credit, He seemed very laid back, plugged us for some information but pretty much laid off from the sales pressure mentality. Many of the dealership will do their best to not let you leave the lot. That’s their job and their game.

Discussions went good and we started pricing the car on Tuesday morning. I called Parks… and tried working out a deal on the showroom 2008 Corvette. the interior wasn’t exactly what we wanted. The car came with only the glass top option. Unfortunately, I also noticed a pretty good size scratch in the driver side door. The dealer insisted they would do their best to take care of the scratch and proceed to give us the best out the door price on the Corvette.

At this point we had two options. 1. Work out a good deal on this car and take a chance on the scratch coming back and live with black interior and a glass top. 2. Special order the 2008 Corvette with Grey / Titanium 2 tone interior, split 5 spoke wheel painted carbon grey and the two top package option.

The out the door price on that showroom Corvette came back at 48,300 and change. Not bad for starters and for a car that was part of existing inventory. We thought about it for a bit and just couldn’t agree on the black interior, the scratch and the glass top only options. Later that day we decided to special order the car, take our chances on the UAW strike, and wait 6-8 weeks on the exact car that we wanted.

Back to the pricing table we went. This time we explained the options and I made sure the sales manager knew that I would take his price and then call 5 other Chevrolet dealers and have them price out the car as well. The quote came back from Parks Chevrolet, Huntersville at 51,200 and change. We immideately started calling other Chevrolet Dealerships, banging on the internet pricing sites and exploring options.

Tomorrow I will post quoted prices on the same 2008 Corvette Coupe LT2 specs. More importantly, you will see why it is so important to make dealerships work against each other and how the phone and the internet can help you do it without ever leaving home.

Meanwhile, we are waiting patiently today to get confirmation that our order allocation is in place. Wish us luck.

JF

Why you may ask? Why would you even think about selling a “classic”? A few reasons that I came up with is:

1. It’s hard to enjoy: Try driving something out in public that is a restored classic car. It’s nerve racking to say the least. There are some pretty idiotic drivers out there that could give a rats ass less what you might be driving. Even on Sunday mornings when people are on their way to Church. Heaven forbid, someone miss the first prayer of the morning service.

2. Never exactly confident about the mechanical condition: Yes, the car is sound and restored well. However, I’m always worried that something will break and cause me to have to sit on the side of the road or pay some part time wrecker service to tow my car in to a shop.

3. It is still taking up garage space: Sure I could build another garage, buy another house, or pay for storage. Does this solve the issue? I suppose but it is kinda like putting a bandaid on a deep gash.

4. I’ve always wanted a new Corvette: Enuff Said!

5. The new 2008 Corvette LT2 are pretty sweet and affordable too.

This past week we went to a Chevrolet dealership in our area to look at the 2008 Corvettes. We were actually more interested in the new 2008 Infiniti G37S coupes. However after test driving the Infiniti we were least than impressed. When we left the Infinit dealership, my wife suggested we at least stop next door to see the Corvette. Little to my suprise she loved what she saw sitting on the showroom floor. Heck, I didn’t even think she liked the new Corvettes.

The 2008 Corvette LT2 that Parks Chevrolet in Huntersville had was Machine Silver (almost the exact color of my 77 Corvette). The silver and black tint on this car made it stand out in a crowd.  We were not granted the opportunity to test drive the Corvette and that is most likely the norm. to any Joe Blow walking in off the street.

What really impressed us was the sticker price of the 2008 LT2 Corvette. The price was just over 49,000 with one added option. Seems like the new models in 2007 were a bit higher when we looked last year. We pondered for a bit and considered the possibility of buying the 2008 Corvette. I’ve always stated the only way that I would sell my 77 Corvette was if I could buy a new one. Apparently my Wife hasn’t forgot that either.

Long story short, it actually makes alot of since. Sell two cars that are fully paid for, get garage space, less insurance bills, less license tags and more importantly a car we can enjoy and use.

Stay tuned tomorrow and find out how we go about test driving the 2008 Corvette. Then we will share with you how we took 5 different dealerships to wage a little cut throat pricing war to get the best “Out the Door” price on the 2008 Corvette.

JF

Unfortunately, I have to wait for the inmates at the state prison farm to hammer out the official tag. For now, I have a basic issued NC tag. The NCDMV website actually lets you create and preview specialized tags. The real tag image is over to the right.

Stay tuned for photos. I’ll take a few once the 77VT.com tag is mounted to the corvette.

BTW, VT does not stand for Virgina Tech. At least not in my neck of the woods.