<VV> 2004 Corvair Gathering - Mesquite, NV

[Jim Steinborn]

Just wanted to report that we had a great time at the Corvair Gathering
in Mesquite. Many, many thanks to Ray Bagley and all the other members
of the Bonneville Corvair Club for doing an excellent job putting on
this event.

This was the first Corvair event we've attended (other than Rocky
Mountain CORSA club meetings and this past New Year's Day brunch). We
had planned to attend the Gathering last year, but the 36 inches of snow
in my driveway the morning we were to leave (and the fact that none of
the mountain passes to the West were open) was a bit of a barrier.

This was also the first major road trip since I got the 66 Monza coupe
in November of 2002. 2100 hundred miles in a 38 year old car and no
troubles! The odometer turned over 28000 miles on our way home ;-)

We arrived a day early and spent Friday driving through the Valley of
Fire State Park (NV's first state park), along Lake Mead and to the
Hoover Dam for a tour. There was a lot of traffic, none of it helped by
road construction. They are laying the ground work for a tremendous 4
lane concrete arch bridge bypass that will span Black Canyon a short
ways downstream from the dam.

The Show and Shine on Saturday was a lot of fun. It was great to walk
around and see the other 28 Corvairs that showed up as well as the
several other cars. A lot of people have done some tremendous work
restoring their cars Sure made my unrestored Monza look pretty plain!

I did get to show off the Westach dual CHT gauge that I'm going to
install as well as my "tiny VDO tach mounted in the Monza clock blanking
plate" project - not yet completed.

The "funkhana" was a real hoot, too. I watched for a long time trying to
decide if my ego could handle the battering it was going to get before I
finally decided to participate. THe club had laid out a nice course in a
side parking lot which involved driving through narrow gates, parallel
parking, backing around cones and into an angled parking stall and a
slalom section. 

At the back of the parallel parking stall was a cone with a ball on it.
The object was to back until your bumper bent the cone over and dropped
the ball in the bucket next to it. If the car approached the cone at an
angle, the ball would miss the bucket. Very tricky.

We got one practice run, then one timed run. Pity my practice run didn't
get timed, because it went better than the timed one. I managed to get
the ball in the bucket (judging from the cheers) and didn't have any
other penalties on the practice run. Oh well, it was a lot of fun just
the same.

There was also a burnout competition. An early 1940s Ford hotrod and a
Nova sedan were the main competitors. Several Corvairs entered too, but
it's hard to get a Corvair to "sit and spin" - too much traction! There
was also a Mustang passing by that entered the fray. Lots of smoke!

Bob Helt spoke about the adventures involved in writing and publishing
"The Classis Corvair" and Lon Wall spoke about driving and caring for
Corvairs.

I even left Mesquite with a door prize - one of the 10 table
centerpieces that was made for the event. These had a Yat Ming 1:18
scale Monza convertible mounted on a wooden plank decorated with
flowering cactus, lizards and a placard commemorating the 2004
Gathering. Very nice indeed.

This was a really first class affair. I can hardly believe all the care
and hard work that went into putting it on. Thanks again to the
Bonneville Corvair Club!

Jim

-- 
Jim Steinborn	Fort Collins,CO		http://www.steinborn.org/jim/