Street Machine Weekend, Lethbridge
- Thread starter lilredvette
- Start date
Note if you plan to show your corvette - register asap. For today's cruise registration was 4-7. I showed up at 5 and got told they all ready had " too many corvettes!!!" Totally crushing to me and the little guy who just spent the previous hour detailing! I went and watched anyway - there were a total of 3 C7's out of probably 400 cars cruising. It's a very cool display of various cars - but I'll go where appreciated in the future.
400 cars ! 3 C7s only? Yup,I'd like to hear the spin on that. As well,how the guy who had the task of telling people that,sorry,you're not welcome here felt. Thank god nobody complained of " too much blue " last month.
I don't know but,I'd almost take that as an insult. Especially if I had driven any distance to attend. Bad deal Murtro. Sorry you went through that.
Yes definitely felt that way. Yes although Lethbridge is only 200 km from home, we planned our whole week off and corvette trip of 1,500 Km to wind up in Lethbridge for this weekend for the event. There were 3 C7's 1 C6, 1 C5, 0 C4's, 7 or 8 C3's and 1 each C2 and C1 from what I saw. I guess someone decided 12 "corvettes" was max out of the ~ 400 total cars. There were no yellow C7's ( I think the C6 was yellow) nor none with the Jake mods I have done.
You are right - I'm very unlikely to make the trek again - even 200 km to "hope" for a different response next time. We cancelled our last hotel night and went home early.
However I did find out by accident that everyone cruises the evenings up and down Mayor Mcgrath drive - and lots of people with their lawn chairs out to watch the action - so although I wasn't "allowed" in the sanctioned cruise, we did get a little taste of what it might have been like regardless. I also got lots of comments from just average people at the hotel, at the stop lights, and in the parking lots - so that was fun even though my car wasn't good enough for the cruise.
We watched the 100 foot (yes you read that right) drag race today. They had lots of cars ( in 6 classes) and spectators. However it is not side by side and not based on reaction time at all as the clock doesn't start until the car moves - so its all about HP to weight ratio really. Slow times were 3 seconds and best time was 1.5 seconds. The event goes for 5 hours but we left after seeing the fastest half of the field 1 time. - about 90 min. I found it hard to get excited about a 2 second race against the clock when there is a proper quarter mile in my own town with some great events. Not for me but like I said lots of people there.
Also I found out by talking to others that there was a bike show as well as a separate low riders show. Would have been nice to know about this stuff but there is no info on these "non sanctioned" events on the website or otherwise.
Apparently this is the 39th year of this event and it is obviously very popular. However if you go - set your expectations accordingly.
The website DOES actually say that only a limited number of 2,000 and new cars would be allowed in. I guess the 3 C7's, 1 C6 and 1 C5 = 5 was the max for corvettes!
Participants
Unfortunately I feel mine is pretty unique as only 5% of vettes are yellow, and almost none of those would have all of the Jake mods I have (stinger, center wheel caps, valve stem caps, floor mats, console, and underhood bling! I didn't get asked why mine might be unique - didn't even have the chance - just straight up "we have too many corvettes already, just kidding, actually no I'm not". Yes that is actually how they told me.
I made plans with a few buddies to make the trip to Lethbridge this weekend. Five guys planned to come down from Camrose for the 6+ hour drive to Lethbridge. My buddy Ken came down on Thursday morning for a business meeting in Calgary and stayed at my place, and we headed out from Airdrie on Friday about noon. I made a last minute decision before leaving to take my Trans Am instead of the Corvette, mostly because the air conditioning works and the Vette does not, but I also knew that the Vette wouldn't be favored there because it's 'too new'.
It was 31 degrees when we left Airdrie with the Trans Am and the 70 Mustang Boss 351, and less than an hour into our trip the air conditioning in the TA quit blowing cold. >:\ I also remembered that I had loaded all of my camera equipment into the Corvette and then left without it, which was a very disappointing mistake. So my apologies to you all for only having a few pictures from my cell phone.
The temperature was 35 degrees when we arrived at Lethbridge and still climbing. While the Mustang was fine on the highway, it struggled to stay cool on the city streets. So we parked the Mustang at the motel and set out to find a solution to fix the Trans Am's air conditioning. I picked up a refill kit at Canadian Tire and we went down to the exhibition grounds to find some shade to work in and see what was happening with all the show cars. The kit didn't work like the instructions said it would (maybe I will do an article on that process), but I did manage to get it working again so we could at least be comfortable as the temperature hit 37!
We got in line and waited to register for the cruise. I haven't been to this show for several years, so this registration process was new to me. They never used to do it this way, but now they block off and shut down 3rd Street for the cruise, and don't let any other cars in. So here's a few tidbits of information for you on that stuff. Between the city and emergency services and the car club, they cap the number of cars that can participate in the cruise to 800. There is a strong preference for antiques and muscle cars, so they do indeed restrict the number of 'newer' cars that they will allow in. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when they told me that my Trans Am was 'too new', and I couldn't put my 19-year-old car in the cruise. I was also told that if I tried to sneak into the cruise that I would be given a ticket for 'stunting', which I thought was preposterous, but whatever, just let us register the Mustang and the Deuce Coupe and we would cruise in those. No can do, they needed to see the cars in order to register them. So we had to go back to the motel and get the Mustang and get back in line again, but we finally got one car registered.
Once the cruise got underway it was pretty awesome. It wasn't nearly as busy as I have seen it in previous years, but that could also be due to the fact that they were restricting the cars. The police presence was minimal and unobstructive. They still allow a little bit of playing around, short bursts of speed and power displays with small burnouts, as long as people weren't being stupid or dangerous. Props to them for that. At one intersection a new Volkswagen Rabbit pulled up beside us and I had a momentary flare-up of anger that she could have her car in the cruise, but my Trans Am wasn't good enough. She was young and cute, and worked at one of the local automotive shops, so clearly she had an 'in' and I did not.
We spent a couple of hours downtown and cruised for a bit and then parked to let the car cool and just walked around for a while. The rest of our friends finally arrived after having some car trouble with the Deuce, but Rick had come ahead of them and managed to get a cruise sticker so at least they could ride with him in the 36 sedan. The streets downtown were packed with people, and the beer gardens were so full that you couldn't hope to get into them. When we'd had enough, we decided to leave the downtown area to find a restaurant down on Mayor Magrath where we could watch the rest of the non-paying cars cruise, and see some Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs, Challengers, and plenty of the 'new' stuff that wasn't allowed downtown. Honestly, the cruising on Magrath was just as good as it was downtown, and many people had lawn chairs set up along the boulevard to watch, and it was more comfortable too with grass and trees for shade, and more space for people compared to the crowdedness of downtown. We turned in for the night around 12:30, and it was still busy outside with lots of cars still cruising.
Saturday morning we spent a lot of time trying to find a place to be able to work on the Deuce, and the boys finally managed to find some great guys at the local Bumper to Bumper who let them bring the car into a bay and got it up on a jack to pull the rear apart and find a shredded axle bearing. There wasn't much we could do, so Ken and I went to watch the 100 Footer races.
Around 3pm it was finally decided that there was no replacement bearing to be found, so the guys were hatching a plan on how to get the Deuce back up to Camrose. Nathan, who wasn't able to get his rat rod back together in order to make the trip and had instead stayed home, was now hitching his deck trailer onto the back of his truck to make the trip to haul the Deuce home. We felt bad that the guys had come all this way and then not even got to see most of the show, so we offered up our AMA memberships to get the Deuce towed at least part way back, and then Nathan wouldn't have to travel so far. At that point, we all just decided to head for home.
It was an interesting weekend, but still reasonably fun overall. Not as good as it has been in years past, but that's the way these things go sometimes.
It was 31 degrees when we left Airdrie with the Trans Am and the 70 Mustang Boss 351, and less than an hour into our trip the air conditioning in the TA quit blowing cold. >:\ I also remembered that I had loaded all of my camera equipment into the Corvette and then left without it, which was a very disappointing mistake. So my apologies to you all for only having a few pictures from my cell phone.
The temperature was 35 degrees when we arrived at Lethbridge and still climbing. While the Mustang was fine on the highway, it struggled to stay cool on the city streets. So we parked the Mustang at the motel and set out to find a solution to fix the Trans Am's air conditioning. I picked up a refill kit at Canadian Tire and we went down to the exhibition grounds to find some shade to work in and see what was happening with all the show cars. The kit didn't work like the instructions said it would (maybe I will do an article on that process), but I did manage to get it working again so we could at least be comfortable as the temperature hit 37!
We got in line and waited to register for the cruise. I haven't been to this show for several years, so this registration process was new to me. They never used to do it this way, but now they block off and shut down 3rd Street for the cruise, and don't let any other cars in. So here's a few tidbits of information for you on that stuff. Between the city and emergency services and the car club, they cap the number of cars that can participate in the cruise to 800. There is a strong preference for antiques and muscle cars, so they do indeed restrict the number of 'newer' cars that they will allow in. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when they told me that my Trans Am was 'too new', and I couldn't put my 19-year-old car in the cruise. I was also told that if I tried to sneak into the cruise that I would be given a ticket for 'stunting', which I thought was preposterous, but whatever, just let us register the Mustang and the Deuce Coupe and we would cruise in those. No can do, they needed to see the cars in order to register them. So we had to go back to the motel and get the Mustang and get back in line again, but we finally got one car registered.
Once the cruise got underway it was pretty awesome. It wasn't nearly as busy as I have seen it in previous years, but that could also be due to the fact that they were restricting the cars. The police presence was minimal and unobstructive. They still allow a little bit of playing around, short bursts of speed and power displays with small burnouts, as long as people weren't being stupid or dangerous. Props to them for that. At one intersection a new Volkswagen Rabbit pulled up beside us and I had a momentary flare-up of anger that she could have her car in the cruise, but my Trans Am wasn't good enough. She was young and cute, and worked at one of the local automotive shops, so clearly she had an 'in' and I did not.
We spent a couple of hours downtown and cruised for a bit and then parked to let the car cool and just walked around for a while. The rest of our friends finally arrived after having some car trouble with the Deuce, but Rick had come ahead of them and managed to get a cruise sticker so at least they could ride with him in the 36 sedan. The streets downtown were packed with people, and the beer gardens were so full that you couldn't hope to get into them. When we'd had enough, we decided to leave the downtown area to find a restaurant down on Mayor Magrath where we could watch the rest of the non-paying cars cruise, and see some Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs, Challengers, and plenty of the 'new' stuff that wasn't allowed downtown. Honestly, the cruising on Magrath was just as good as it was downtown, and many people had lawn chairs set up along the boulevard to watch, and it was more comfortable too with grass and trees for shade, and more space for people compared to the crowdedness of downtown. We turned in for the night around 12:30, and it was still busy outside with lots of cars still cruising.
Saturday morning we spent a lot of time trying to find a place to be able to work on the Deuce, and the boys finally managed to find some great guys at the local Bumper to Bumper who let them bring the car into a bay and got it up on a jack to pull the rear apart and find a shredded axle bearing. There wasn't much we could do, so Ken and I went to watch the 100 Footer races.
Around 3pm it was finally decided that there was no replacement bearing to be found, so the guys were hatching a plan on how to get the Deuce back up to Camrose. Nathan, who wasn't able to get his rat rod back together in order to make the trip and had instead stayed home, was now hitching his deck trailer onto the back of his truck to make the trip to haul the Deuce home. We felt bad that the guys had come all this way and then not even got to see most of the show, so we offered up our AMA memberships to get the Deuce towed at least part way back, and then Nathan wouldn't have to travel so far. At that point, we all just decided to head for home.
It was an interesting weekend, but still reasonably fun overall. Not as good as it has been in years past, but that's the way these things go sometimes.
Stunting? WTH is that?
Good write up and good for you guys for trying to overcome the problems.
Nice looking cars.
Good write up and good for you guys for trying to overcome the problems.
Nice looking cars.
'Stunting' is a bullshit charge that police can use to cover a huge range of otherwise undefined offenses. It's like the "Mischief" charge, except it's not criminal, it is specific to motor vehicles. Things like spinning the tires, revving your engine, doing a donut, or anything that might distract, startle, or interfere with other users of a highway. I've seen people get a ticket for having neon underglow. The bad part is that it can be a fine of $402, and can cost 3 demerits off your license. It most certainly is not a ticket that I would take lightly.
Didn't go Friday for the registered cruise, but as Jeremiad said, there was plenty of "unofficial " cruisng the rest of the time. So many people at the show and shine, that it was difficult to get pics of the cars without someone in the way! Damn hot, but otherwise a great weekend ....
Lethbridge "family " photos
Cousins pace car, my c6, cousins nsx, brothers c6, nephews mustang, and cousins c5
Cousins pace car, my c6, cousins nsx, brothers c6, nephews mustang, and cousins c5
Great pictures and a really good write up of the event and how disappointing it is with how they treat people with newer cars.
So, if I understand it. basically, for us folks with newer cars, either show up super early, or, just don't plan on being in the show/cruise and plan on enjoying going out in the unofficial cruise.
And, if you're female, young, and cute, show up whenever you like in whatever you have and do whatever you want.
But on a more serious note. I understand if there is limited space, that they would limit the entrance to the old stuff. However, it sounds like they suck at their execution of having to turn people away.
It should be stated that the show fills to capacity early and preference will be given to older vehicles.
And, now there are so many good newer cars, shows should look at making areas for them, and even an area for imports. The import thing is two part. a) that's what the newest generation works on and understands, so make an area for them to show off their stuff. b) make an area for them so I don't have to see that crap mixed in with the real cars.
(I actually don't mind the good imports as I like all cars and can appreciate the work put in, but it just sounded more funny to write it how I did).
Anyway, it sounds like the cruise outside of the event is just as good as the cruise within the event.
So, if I understand it. basically, for us folks with newer cars, either show up super early, or, just don't plan on being in the show/cruise and plan on enjoying going out in the unofficial cruise.
And, if you're female, young, and cute, show up whenever you like in whatever you have and do whatever you want.
But on a more serious note. I understand if there is limited space, that they would limit the entrance to the old stuff. However, it sounds like they suck at their execution of having to turn people away.
It should be stated that the show fills to capacity early and preference will be given to older vehicles.
And, now there are so many good newer cars, shows should look at making areas for them, and even an area for imports. The import thing is two part. a) that's what the newest generation works on and understands, so make an area for them to show off their stuff. b) make an area for them so I don't have to see that crap mixed in with the real cars.
(I actually don't mind the good imports as I like all cars and can appreciate the work put in, but it just sounded more funny to write it how I did
).Anyway, it sounds like the cruise outside of the event is just as good as the cruise within the event.
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