The Corvette Club of South Australia held their annual big summer event, Corvettes Rock the Bay” on Sunday 11th February, 2024 at the Wrigley Reserve, Glenelg, SA. The event was superbly run as usual, with a team headed by Peter McBride, who must be congratulated for his ongoing role in bringing this very special event to Glenelg every year, on the second Sunday of February.
CCSA had organised a large table of their members and our visiting group for Saturday night dinner at the Watermark Hotel in Glenelg. The hotel was right next door to the Wrigley Reserve, and was just close enough for the fit members of our group to walk to and from our motel, the Adelaide International. A couple of members of our host club also stayed at this motel, so it was quite a social occasion. The pool was quite popular, as were the garden tables where the smokers regularly gathered!
CRTB again managed to crack the “100 Corvettes” barrier, with 102 being the official count. But do the math: Remove the 4 Corvettes we VICS contributed to the number, and what do you get? Ninety-eight Corvettes is what you get – two short of the magic 100! Thank God for the VICS. As a reward, old friends Rhonda & Rob, who traveled to SA with our group, won the trophy for “Best C1”. Congrats!
We finished off the weekend with an invitation to the McBride household where we socialised with other CCSA members, checking out Peter’s impressive man-cave and his brutal Dodge Hell Fire with 100 HP upgrade kit! Betty was even able to sit in the car and start it up. She had to begrudgingly admit it had more “growl” than her blown V8 Jag.
Getting to the McBrides’ home proved difficult with a group of two-seater C8s required to transport an uneven number of people. At one stage Jade took off his shoes and was trying to fold himself into a C8 rear trunk. Thankfully we found a better (and legal) solution.
After a few drinks and a serve of take-away Chinese, we headed back to our motel to recover from our big day out.
As we have planned to do every second year, a group of Surfcoast Corvettes members, plus a couple of friends of the club, made their way across to SA to join the CCSA at the event. In total we organised for 5 Corvettes to make the trip, plus another group of people who, for various reasons, came without their Corvettes. There was Jenny & Stu, Maria & Rob, Betty & Mark, Chris & Graeme, Fiona & Jeremy, Jade, and Peter.
We did lose Peter’s car on the way, due to brake problems -as in, who wants to drive down the Adelaide Hills with dodgy brakes? Not me, and obviously not Pete! But he got safely home, although he was told it was fortunate he turned around! However, we did eventually contribute 4 Corvettes to the show which, as it turns out, was very important to the event.
Several of us stayed another day to explore Glenelg and chill out with a nice, quiet day. We finished our stay with dinner at the Stamford Grand Hotel where we were again joined by the great friends of our club, the McBrides. Thanks Lyn & Peter for making it a great weekend away!
