For most of the year, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is little more than another small and sleepy community-albeit with its own offramp-along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That all changes very dramatically each year over the last weekend in August, when Carlisle and every other municipality for miles around is inundated by thousands of Corvettes, their owners, and tens of thousands of rapt devotees of America's Sports Car. What else could we be talking about but the annual Corvettes at Carlisle show?
Corvettes at Carlisle is one of the oldest and largest Corvette events in existence, and each year it just gets bigger! The 2000 edition smashed every previous Carlisle record, including more Vettes overall, more cars (2,244) on the show field, and walk-in attendance (55,745 people). The show field included NCRS and NCCC competition as well as the Mid America Designs-sponsored Fun Display, which alone attracted 1,970 Corvettes. The Fun Display is just that; a place for Vette owners to show off their personal pride and joy, hang out with hundreds upon hundreds of like-minded enthusiasts, and maybe become one of the select group whose car receives a highly coveted Celebrity Pick award from a Corvette notable or member of the media. This year's Corvette celebrities included Elfi Arkus-Duntov, current and past Corvette Chief Engineers Dave Hill and Dave McLellan, Bowling Green Plant Manager Wil Cooksey, several members of the Corvette brand management team, C5 chief designer John Cafaro, historian Ralph Kramer, Dick Guldstrand, and tuners Chuck Mallett and Doug Rippie.
This year's "Chip's Choices" featured nine one-off Corvette concept cars, ranging from the 1959 CERV I (the only privately owned-by Mike Yager-example there) and Sting Ray, the Manta Ray, the mid-engined Aerovette, CERV III, and the fabulous '92 Sting Ray III. These exotics shared space in Building T with "tuner" C5s, including a Callaway C12, a Mallett 435 and the Mallett "one Lap" C5s, Doug Rippie's 495-horsepower DRM C500/RSR, a Specter/Werkes GTR wide body, and one of John Lingenfelter's incredible twin-turbo C5s.
All 3,300 swap meet spaces were sold out, and you could be fairly certain that if it was for a Corvette, you'd find it somewhere amongst the cars, parts, accessories, and, well, stuff that was up for grabs. (I found an unopened '76 Corvette model, which I'll build into a 1/25th scale replica of the "C5 Shark," but struck out in my quest for 1976 and 1977 issues of VETTE.)
The car corral, the area set aside specifically for Corvettes that were up for adoption (hey, that sounds better than "for sale") was packed with hundreds of Vettes of nearly every vintage and description, from early solid-axles through C5s. The cars ranged from barely-suitable-to-be-parts-cars to exquisite restorations and wildly modified examples, and the prices ranged from quite reasonable to utterly ridiculous, which is typical.
There was the usual array of other Corvettes at Carlisle activities. The benefit auction raised $15,385 for the American Cancer Society. Corvette experts like Dick Guldstrand and Gordon Killibrew presented seminars, and the Kids Corvettes at Carlisle (sponsored by VETTE) offered a full slate of activities for the younger set. Dirty old men of all ages (yours truly included) thoroughly enjoyed the annual Miss Corvettes at Carlisle beauty contest, which was won by Christina Gower of nearby Harrisburg.
The Women's Oasis, which debuted last year, was back, bigger and better, and again proved to be extremely popular. A Carlisle tradition is the Fashion Show, which drew a standing-room-only crowd to the Hospitality Tent. Sandy Rogers of the Corvette Club of America is responsible for this event and does a great job. This charming southern lady manages to sweet talk, cajole and, in some cases badger or embarrass quite a selection of Corvette celebrities like Dave McLellan and Wil Cooksey into being models. Sandy deviated from her usually impeccable taste by conning me into parading down the runway this year.