<VV> Seth's Personal Convention Report - longish

[Sethracer at aol.com]

For those of you unlucky enough to have missed the  Detroit  convention, I 
thought I would lay out my adventure. My wife, Barbara, and I flew  into Detroit 
from San Jose, Ca on the Saturday before the  convention. This day-early 
arrival was an outgrowth of the Waterford Hills time  trials and the switch in the 
day of the event. It did, however give us time to  spread out our Museum 
viewing. We spent Sunday viewing Greenfield Village and the Ford Museum. Did 
anybody remember to view the  extra Corvair taillights they had on display there?  
The 1960 lights were  installed – as they were in 1967 – on the back of the 
LeMans winning Ford GT40  racecar on display – The car had the Gurney bubble on 
top, extra clearance for  the helmet of the 6’4” tall driver. A plain Jane 
1960 4-door Corvair was in a  display nearby.  Many other great exhibits as  
well. 
Monday allowed some move-in time for my Silicone Wire  Systems Vendor area, 
but with Tuesday being spent primarily at Waterford Hills,  I didn’t want to 
leave much out without being able to answer questions. I do  want to thank Clark 
Hartzel for helping me get a couple of boxes full of parts  to the hotel.  
Tuesday was Waterford Hills for the time trials – Rick  Norris kindly allowed 
me to share his Mark Donahue Sunoco tribute car. We both  had some good 
practice times in the morning, but I’ll bet I had more laps than  Rick. Since Bob 
Marlow was unavoidably detained by business commitments, NECC  needed a lead 
car for the “Taste of the track” lapping.  I aired up the  tires in my rental 
Mercury Grand Marquis and led a group of five or six drivers  for 15 minutes or 
so of “warm lapping” in the morning, prior to the race cars  practice, and 
again, just before final timed runs in the afternoon, slightly  hotter laps. 
For that session, I carried 4 passengers in the Cruiser, and cooked  it a bit 
harder through the turns. I can see why the police like the big Ford  Crown Vic 
(brother of the Grand Marquis) The car never put a wheel wrong,  handled great 
and retained braking and steering power well into the “Pursuit”  mode. That 
was my driving swan song at the event, because Rick’s car sprung a  small but 
stubborn oil leak, and we had to opt out of the timed runs. The other  drivers 
should be thanking us for not greasing down the track. Thanks, Rick, for  the 
time on track. The laps I did run were great and the car as stable as ever.  
While Barbara worked with the timing gang, I returned to the hotel to try to  
salvage a few Tuesday wire sales. Oh yes, we attended the “Welcome” party.    
Wednesday was the Heritage day. The visit to the  Heritage  Museum was one of 
the  highlights of the convention. At about noon, I abandoned my wife at the 
sales  booth. Besides selling my wiresets, she was also selling her hand-made 
earrings,  advertised as “Cheaper than most Corvair parts!” and took the 
shuttle over to  the GM warehouse that doubled as the heaven on earth for the car 
guys! Others  have photos and descriptions, my only contribution was getting 
the GM guy to  open up the Monza GT’s rear compartment. The car appears much 
smaller in person.  Where did they get those short models for the published 
photographs?  I  resisted the urge to just hop into the driver’s seat. I probably 
would have been  strung up immediately - but it would likely have been worth 
it.  Wednesday  night was movie night, we attended an early one and I hit the 
rack for an early  start to “Thursday”, also known as “Autocross day”. For 
the Autocross, Dave  Edsinger had graciously offered a trade. In 2008, the Corsa 
Convention moves to  California and  he will get to drive my race car. His 
1966 Yenko is a little bit more than a  race car, though. On Wednesday, he had 
competed in the Concours (for real  judging, not in car display) and was 
destined to move into the Seniors grouping.  But this was Thursday, and it was time 
to gas ‘n go! I tripped a couple of cones  on my first two runs. (Ignore the 
listed DNFs – they were incorrect) and  smoothed it down on my final run, since 
I needed a clean time and you only get  three official runs. Dave got a 
re-run for a timer error, and several others of  the “fastguys” scored additional 
runs for one issue or another. The gravelly  course bit more than one fast 
car, though, and many folks ended up with cones  added to their times. I ended up 
with the fastest “clean” run, with Dave just .1  second (That is one tenth 
of a second) behind me for second. It was close! It  was a day where the widest 
tires weren’t the fastest. I helped Dave do a few  chores, then I headed back 
to the convention vendor area.   
Friday was Rally day, and since I didn’t rally, it was a  good sales day for 
me. I was able to show off several new products and sell some  of them. Friday 
night was the unofficial GoKart racer shootout. A track just  north of the 
hotel provided the venue and the guys and girls attending provided  the 
adrenalin. The sixteen Corvair folk were more than could be handled in a  single race, 
so qualifying times split the groups into A and B mains with the  two races, 
complete with Formula 1 red light/green light starts, becoming the  highlight 
races. I’m not naming names, but a certain lightweight child was  kicking the 
butts of the older experienced drivers. As much fun as it was, and  even after 
coming in fifth (from the back after being punted), my old bones are  still 
feeling the effects of the Kart. Perhaps doing this more than once a year  
would be a better plan!  
Saturday was Econorun day, as well as healing day (for  me) and the final 
sales day for vendor merchandise. We had to close out the  vendor area early, as 
the ballroom would be performing dual usage as the awards  banquet location. 
The actual banquet got off to an early start, moved along  quickly and was 
completed shortly after 9 o’clock, certainly a modern record!  Winning the Don 
Yenko award for Fast Time of Day replaced the Heritage tour as  my Convention 
highlight. We even got back to the hotel in time to open a bottle  of Champagne  
in celebration. I thought about shaking the bottle up and spraying the other  
drivers, F1 style, but settled for drinking it instead!  Sunday was final  
packing and departure day. Our flight out of Detroit to San Jose, wasn’t  until 6 
PM, so we backtracked a bit and visited the Automotive Hall of Fame,  located 
near the Ford Museum in Dearborn. This was a real eye-opener for a car  guy. 
It covered the people who made the car industry what it has been and  
continues to be, an amazing economic powerhouse that continues to generate jobs  and 
income around the world. Last names like Spicer, Dana, Bendix, Rockwell,  
Bosch, Champion – we know the names as products, but before that they were  people, 
industry giants who built companies to feed other companies, and an  
industry, in the Spirit of innovation. This museum is worth a visit. Well we  finally 
arrived home at 11PM (California time) on Sunday night. I am mostly  
recovered, but sobered to the fact that next years convention is only a short 11  
months away! – Seth Emerson  



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