Our Trip to the Eastern National Meet

By Ken Bounds

Early this year, several members indicated that they planned to attend the Eastern National Meet in Concord, NC.  As it turned out, only Carolyn and I drove from here.  Our long-distance members from Tulsa, Rick & Marisa Claybaugh also attended with daughter Kim.

Our convertible ran fine on the recent trip to the Spring Fling in Kansas and everything started out great on this trip.  We drove 681 miles on Saturday, June 6, stopping for the night in Wytheville, VA.  We averaged over 19 mpg!We had just a short run Sunday morning of 130 miles to the meet hotel.  The trip was much more pleasant (and uneventful) than the similar trip in 2010 since the temperature was about 30 degrees lower.  We spent the day working with National Chief Judge John McBurney on judging teams and meeting V-8 friends as they arrived from all over the country.

On Monday we completed meet registration and found some gems at the swap meet.  We drove over to nearby Dennis Carpenter Industries and took a terrific tour of the manufacturing plant.  What an operation!  They make over 23,000 parts in that plant.  We decided to drive to some nearby NASCAR race shops, but the convertible began sputtering.  This would be an intermittent problem right up to our trip home.

During the week we had some great meals with many of our friends and were able to spend quite a bit of time with the Claybaughs.  We also did plenty of tire kicking in the parking lot.  On Tuesday we made it to the massive Hendrick complex of race shops and museum and had a fun time.  After the President’s meeting and the Owners/Judges meeting, we attended a very nice cookout and tour at Dennis Carpenter’s museum.  We had a great time talking with many good friends.

Wednesday was concourse day, held on the grounds outside Charlotte Motor Speedway.  Carolyn spent the entire day at the media center doing touring tabulation; Marissa worked with her to learn the operation of the tabulation room.  The concourse was filled with some really outstanding Early V-8s.  A real highlight of the meet was when we were allowed to drive our cars four laps on the 24-degree high banks of the speedway.  It was a thrill, although the pace car did not allow us to exceed 70 mph.  Kim mounted a GoPro camera on their ‘34 and took a super video of the on-track experience.

On Thursday we went on a nice driving tour to the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer.  We had a great dinner and a wonderful time at the Awards Banquet Thursday evening.  National President Steve Lemmons had the crowd in stiches with a clever NASCAR-related theme as he spoke to the group.  We received a 1st Place Touring trophy for our Convertible and Rick received a 1st for his ’34 Tudor.  The hardest part of these meets is saying goodbye after the ceremony.

Friday morning we left the hotel before 6 am, ready for the 800-mile drive home.  The car did not cooperate and died as we entered the Interstate less than a mile from the hotel.  Rick rescued us with his trailer and with the help of some super local members, our problem was remedied and we were on our way.  Even though we started out four hours late, we still made it home before 10:30 after struggling through some blinding rainstorms in Indiana.  The car ran great all the way.  Now we are looking forward to the Central National Meet in Brainerd.