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ACES "Muscles In" On Music City |
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ACES "Muscles In" On Music City |
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No doubt about it, Nashville, Tennessee was the place to be the weekend of May 29-31!!! Over 100 classic Chevelles and their enthusiastic owners converged on Music City to strut their stuff...some from as far away as New York, California, and Washington state. They all came to be part of the ACES CHEVELL-abration '97, and to earn bragging rights for "being there for the FIRST one!"
Each entrant received a special commemorative CHEVELL-abration T-shirt, and goodie bag filled with catalogs, coupons, and other useful items.
With the Mid-South Chevelle Club as hosts for the event, participants registered all day Thursday, and spent time making new friends, visiting with old ones, and cleaning their Chevelles for Friday's show.
Although rain was falling on Friday morning, it didn't
dampen anyone's enthusiasm as the show got into high gear.
By 10 o'clock, the sun was peeking through and everyone had
their Chevelles show ready! The swap meet held plenty of
great bargains on hard-to-find parts, while Hinshaw's
Chevelle Parts did a brisk business at their display. Rod
Madiros and Chuck Finch were there, too, promoting their
American Plastic Chrome service. Why, even the local PBS
camera crew taped a segment that will be syndicated on
Public TV in the Southeast! Several ACES members had their
chance at stardom, but last we heard, nobody had signed any
contracts...yet.
To promote a more relaxed event atmosphere, only
participants received and filled out judging ballots, with
the top three vote-getters in each category gaining
recognition. Classes were broken down by year, with only two
sub-categories: Stock and Modified. And, Stock Chevelles
could have up to three changes (ie: headers, AM-FM cassette,
& wheels) before moving into the Modified ranks. There was
also a Survivor class for unrestored, all-original
Chevelles. Everyone seemed to like the show format, and an
astounding 92% of the participants took the time to look at
all the Chevelles and cast votes for their favorites. One
participant commented that, "It may not be scientific, but
it sure takes the stress off, and gets rid of the cut-throat
competition you see at other shows." We couldn't agree more.
We, too, prefer the friendlier, more laid back attitude ACES
members exhibited for the weekend. Still, with the high
quality of Chevelles in attendance, making decisions and
casting votes wasn't easy.
Throughout the day, we gave out over $10,000 worth of
donated door prizes, as our announcer/DJ Hal Hailey kept
everyone involved with his antics.
By 6 o'clock Friday, the
show was over and more than 40 cars took part in a Cruise-in
at John Andretti's Car-B-Que. According to reports, there
were occasions when tire smoke was thicker than that coming
off the grill! Who'da thought that so many nice Chevelles
would all suffer from the same "stuck throttle" syndrome?
An informal "Show &Shine" and seminars were scheduled for Saturday. But with a steady rain falling, the indoor seminars were very well attended and only the most hard-core braved the Tennessee liquid sunshine outside. Seminar topics/presenters included "Chevrolet By The Numbers" author Alan Colvin; Upholstery how-to by James Hinshaw; Handling & suspension by Scott Gillman of Hotchkis Performance; Weatherstripping by Chris Sondles of A&M SoffSeal; Window seals by Harvey Clark of Repops. Everyone learned a lot from these educational (and sometimes lively) discussions.
The awards banquet Saturday evening was attended by an overflow crowd of over 200 A-body aficionados. We filled the hotel banquet room to capacity, and, unfortunately, had to seat almost 40 folks in the hallway. Our apologies to those seated out there, and thanks for being so gracious about the accomodations. After all the other awards and door prizes were handed out, we only had the GM Performance Parts 300-horse 350 to give away. With the odds of winning at about one-in-a-hundred, everyone was on the edge of their seats as a young volunteer from the audience pulled a name from the box. That name happened to be Pete Zerillo, and he carted the engine back to Michigan where it'd been shipped from only a few days earlier. If we'd have known he was gonna win, we probably could have saved the freight charges!
Were we astounded by the number of Chevelles showing up for the Inaugural ACES CHEVELL-abration? Yes! Were we blown away by the quality of each and every Chevelle on display? You bet! Did the CHEVELL-abration live up to our expectations? Absolutely..and more! Would we do it all again tomorrow? Unquestionably!!!!
In fact, we're already laying some of the groundwork for CHEVELL-abration '98, and guarantee it'll be even bigger and better, with many ideas derived from feedback we got at this year's event! We'll begin breaking some of the details in the next issue of CHEVELLE WORLD... so stay tuned, and get your Chevelle ready!
Scott Gilmann brought his rare '64 two-door wagon to the event...all the way from California. He also drove the 502-urged grocery-getter the entire distance of the HOT ROD Power Tour.
Of only 201 built, a pair of '65 Z-16s showed up at CHEVELL-abration '97. Both were incredible cars!
'64 Stock & Modified
Pete Zerillo, James Barrett, Scott Gillman, Brent Haire
'65 Stock
Mickey Hale, Richard (Chris) Fudge, Ron Howard
'65 Modified
Russ Almand, Tom Doty, Claude Hailey
'66 Stock
Wayne Henderson, Randy Kirker, Larry Richardson (N/P)
'66 Modified
Dennis Jellison, Dennis Reeves, Rod Madiros
'67 Stock
MikeWomack, Nick Hedgecoth, Skip Cain
'67 Modified
James Hammond, Neal Reid, Jr, Russ Almand
'68 Stock
Russell Stults
'68 Modified
Keith Pope, Bob Wilcox, Jerry Bethke (N/P)
'69 Stock
Mark Hassett, Jimmy Vaughn, Bryan Goth
'69 Modififed
Judy Snyder, Joe George, Thomas Walker
'70 Stock
Charlie Asberry, Roger Swaney, Don Crowe
'70 Modified
Shaun Will, Bill Kupiec, Doug Lamothe
'71 Modified
Thomas Morris, Gary Chmielewski, Randy Lindquist
'72 Modified
Frank Bishop, Ray Deason, Charlie Jackson
Survivors
Chuck Criner, Ron Moe, Ray Roberson
Longest Distance Driven
Marty Allen 2651 miles
Hard Luck
Jimmy Vaughn Filled tank w/diesel
A&M SoffSeal Attention To Detail
Wayne Henderson'66 SS396
ACES President's Pick
Mark Hassett '69 SS396 w/L89
Trim Parts People's Choice
Randy Kirker '66 SS396
GM Performance Parts Grand Prize
Pete Zerillo (L) presented by Tom Doty & Chuck Hanson
