THSCC Forums

Maggie Valley/ Cherokee area is AWESOME. Mountain roads, incl. Blue Ridge Parkway & the road over to Gatlinburg. Waterfalls. Hiking. White water rafting (but not for me). We have annual Subaru meets at Fontana Lake (because of The Dragon) - maybe we should have a THSCC weekend over there...

edit: Memorial Day weekend would be my last choice for the date, though. There are billions of tourists up there at that time.

Miles/Scott,
If it works out for THSCC to do it, Carl & I would be interested in helping & a quick check of our calendars indicates we would likely be available Mem Day weekend (no Petersburg ProSolo indicated that weekend this year ).

To others who may not have volunteered for one of these events before,
Having been part of a fair # of these THSCC "run the show" events, Carl & I both enjoy helping out with this kind of event whenever time permits. It's always great to get some runs, but we enjoy the hanging-out part & the part where you get to see a bunch of other folks having a good time discovering autoX. The club has previously provided autoX assistence as far away as Atlanta for the Miata Games. Of course, I had a special interest in that one (see avatar) , but it was fun to go even that far away just to help out & hang out with the other THSCCers who went.

So, I totally agree with Miles' that the #1 reason to go help out is that you think it will be fun to do it. Call us crazy , but, if we do it & don't get a single run, pretty likely that Carl & I will still think it was fun weekend. You just have to look at more meanings of your definition of "fun". Caravan anyone?

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OK. This should be viewed as strictly a FUN weekend. A chance to spend a few bucks on a 3-day sojorn to the mountains. The opportunity to autocross and show the folks in the Corvette Clubs how a REAL event is run.

We'd be interested in participating, as long as the expenses were not astronomical. A room in Maggie Valley on Memorial Day Weekend, with a few hundred Corvette club'rs already confirmed could drive room prices into the mid-100's. 10 hours of towing, 1/2 of it in the hills, will create a dent in the wallet as well.

Not looking for any reimbursement, but my interest would be higher if we could be assured that we'd get PLENTY of passes on course.

Also, remember, the Casino is DRY!!! Lemonade, anyone? Gotta go to Waynesville to get a beer

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Brad

honestly, i'm not old enough for the nickel slots yet. Maggie Valley is beautiful in May. there are some tourist type attractions i beleive i just don't have any specifics. i do know it is about an hour to an hour and a half from the Gatlinburg TN area, and i frequent Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg has an artist/craft community, some very good restaurants and an immense outlet mall. Ashboro and the Biltmore are not too far away either. and i hear tell of a road called the dragons tail, which is frequented by bikes, Miatas, and semi-trucks. i personally would rather visit the mountains than do 24 hours in Greenville, but thats just me.

I think it’s great for us to consider opportunities like this. If all the details can be worked out (get good participation from THSCC members, make some club money at the expense of non-member Corvette drivers, come up with a good format, etc) it would be great way to continue to show club leadership and maybe open up a new site worthy of NCAC/divisional/ national events. I’m glad we’re looking into it and trying to address the major questions.

I have a major question. Do we know of any real evidence that this event will get good Corvette participation? Is there a corvette group backing it? I did some quick looking on the Corvette forums. Under Southeast events a found a reference to “Vettes in the Valley”, scheduled for May 28-30 in Maggie Valley. I am assuming this is the event that we are trying to support. The original post was made January 14 and to date there has only been one response to it. In addition the annual “Corvette Forum Cruise-In” to the Corvette museum in Bowling Green, KY is scheduled for May 26-28. This is considered a national corvette event and they are expecting “hundreds” of cars. In addition to visiting the museum, the event has scheduled drag races, an autocross, dyno session, scenic roads tour, maintenance seminars, etc. If so many Corvettes are going to be in Bowling Green, KY, how many are likely is to attend the event in Maggie Valley? (Unless we could somehow capture all of the Corvettes from the southeast returning from Kentucky on Sunday or Monday). Is there any commitment on how many Corvettes will show?

I have always enjoyed the EV Challenge and the Viper schools. It was fun and benefited the club. But to be thinking of holding an event that requires 2-3 nights lodging, 10 hour round trip on Memorial Day weekend is nuts.

Persoanlly, if I was going to spend that much money I would save it for the SEDiv's. At least you are in a real competition. If the site is any good, helping to host a SEDiv would be more beneficial to club members than puttting on a Corvette event.

I would like to see the effort on getting a site that is closer than 90 minutes to the center of Raleigh. And not putting on a dog and pony show 5 hours away...

Just my .02 worth....flame away!!!

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

i personally would try to combine this event with a vacation in Gatlinburg. but Jim is right, crowded and expensive come to mind.

I guess what would really sweeten the deal for me, and probably some other folks, is if we could get a hotel with a decent rate. That's probably unlikely, but if the Corvette people can pull some strings for us that would be great. By this I don't mean the club reimbursing us but trying to actually get good rates.

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'90 Miata A-package, Floats like a butterfly and buzzes like a BEE with loudspeakers.

Hotel Rates:
Comfort Inn-Maggie Valley: 2 Queens---$67.99, King---$76.49
Quality Inn-Maggie Valley: 2 Doubles---$75.84, King---$84.34
Holiday Inn-Cherokee: 2 Doubles---$72.00, King---$81.00
Days Inn-Waynesville (Cherokee sold out): 2 Queens $83.70, King---$88.20

Not an endorsement of doing the event, just an update to my previous post.

The more I ruminate about this, the more I'd rather drive 5 hours to Charleston for oysters & beer at Tommy Condons!

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Brad

9 hours to St. Augustine for bloody marys and oysters,shrimp and crawfish at Scarlet O'Haras.

The feedback is appreciated guys. Sometimes in the past, THSCC has committed to events and then asked for volunteers. This time, for a variety of reasons, we wanted to get feedback before committing to this. Personally, I can see pros and cons. I don't even know if I'll be able to go. But some people think we should and some people do think we're all insane. There is no reason to flame anybody's feedback on this topic right now. When I get more details on the perks, I will post them. Maggie Valley is working on a list of things they can commit to providing to us as "incentives." It remains to be seen if it will enough to make it worthwhile. "CHEAP" hotel rates is on the list of things that should be coming..... we'll see.

More later,

Miles

Are these the same Corvette people that put our site at Sanford in jeopardy due to their excessive noise for *days* straight and had the cops called on them more than twice?

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Wes, I suspect that this is a much broader group. This program has been marketed to Corvette Clubs, which are generally more show and shine variety. Though some experienced autocrossers may show up, depending on what type of events we do, I'll bet that a great majority of the people that come to the programs we put on will have never done this before. That all partly depends on exactly what kind of program we decide to put on too.

if the site was good and it was a definate of more than 4 runs.. and was slated to be a "good time" for the weekend (especially with slot machines close by).. i would be willing to go and work to get more seat time at autox.. but in this specific event I wont be able to go because the bmw 5er Fest (e12 and e28 five series) event is memorial day weekend at the spartansburg plant.. but if some part of the event was on that monday I will already be down there and would be willing to help/drive on monday..

A few things.

Maggie Valley/Cherokee, like Kevin said, awesome area. We've been there a few times and stayed up in the mountains for a week once. Probably the most peaceful week I've had in the last 10 years.

If the club could actually rent that site for a weekend for the club to do a weekend getaway event as a totally FUN thing that would be cool. I'd consider that for sure as something totally different. But not on a major holiday.

A few things I see that Rick and Miles mentioned. There is no buzz on the CorvetteForum or CorvetteActionCenter. CF being the biggest forum with at least 10,000 Vette owners.

All the NCCC clubs already have events planned. NCCC uses the 3 major 3-day weekends to run events. Memorial Day, The 4th, Labor Day. These are posted in Dec/Jan. So I doubt this would sway them. Also the Corvette Forum annual Cruise-In is a big sell out. Bowlng Green will be mobbed with Vettes that weekend. I've never been but it is a great event from what I have heard. The Maggie Valley event will not get those people to switch. That has been planned for a year.

I'd like to hear that the event person up there actually has real GM sponsorship. I'm sure local dealers would be happy to bring out C6's to parade around as a sales pitch. I'll be surprised if GM offers up a C6 for us to play with. The C6-Z06 ain't gonna happen Miles. I'd say if you want to see something like that car you better go with the CF folks to Bowling Green.

I would guess that the Vette owners who do go to Maggie Valley would happen to be going there for a vacation anyway and would go to the show. I'm sure you could generate interest on the idea of a lap/$ or half-day thing. Especially if you were offering a school. But it remains to be seen if the event will get 500-1000 Vettes given the other Vette events they are competing with that weekend. And those are very well established.

Graham

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