So-o-o-o-o much has happened since the last newsletter! January was our biggest membership month EVER! Over 200 new enthusiasts joined the C5 Registry - with 27 in one day's mail alone! In our next newsletter, you will find the second part of our Tuner Special. There are articles from John Lingenfelter, Doug Rippie and Myron Cottrell of TPIS. I hope you are enjoying them. Many of the Tuners will be at our Second Annual Birthday Celebration, April 16-18, 1999, in Bowling Green, at the National Corvette Museum showing off their latest Super Car creations.

Dave Hill and his engineering group have put together a FABULOUS array of C5 speakers including himself, John Heinricy (C5R Race Car Driver and Corvette Engineer), John Cafaro, and Ken Brown (the engineer who designed the C5 Chassis and is working now with the C5 Race Team developing the C5R). I have also been told that the #44 GT3 Corvette of Jack Cauley Chevrolet should be able to join us at the Birthday Bash. All of you who were at the 24 Hours of Daytona remember the #44 car as the one that lasted the 24 Hours with a wrecked front end and no rear hatch! It looked like the mighty warrior it was having been through the battles and survived the war to claim its just rewards!

This Birthday Bash is shaping up to be our best event yet! It is the only event we have each year that is exclusively for C5's. If you can make only one C5 Registry event this year - make it this one! As an added treat this year, there will be a ceremony to place C5 Registry Members' bricks on Cafaro Hill. So if you have put off buying a brick, or wish to add an additional one in this special area, do it now! Order your brick by April First - and be part of this special event! My dream is to have over 500 C5's at this year's Celebration. Commitments have been received from Dave Hill, John Cafaro, and a host of Corvette engineers and designers. Please make your reservations as soon as possible. It's easy too. Call 1-800-53VETTE and ask for Bobbi Jo. She will be glad to register you over the phone.

This is your chance to rub elbows with the people that make it happen. The engineers who designed and built your car, the people who race C5R's, the after-market manufacturers who make the custom parts - they will all be there! It will be a total C5 weekend starting early Friday morning and ending Sunday afternoon. In addition to the speakers, there will be Road Tours (one of the highlights last year), a C5 Registry 'Members Only' Plant Tour, and Drag Racing! We hope to see every one of our members there!

So much of this issue is about racing. Corvette's Return to Racing has certainly made my year very interesting. The 24 Hours of Daytona will stand as one of the greatest moments of my Corvette ownership! We got the weekend off to a great start with another famous C5 dinner. Over 135 Members enjoyed a great buffet, music, meeting and greeting C5-R Drivers, the Chevy Brand Team led by Jim Campbell, and John Cafaro at a Country Club near the Track. This year with the cooperation of Chevrolet, we had two C5 Corrals - one inside the track in the infield and one outside next to Chevrolet's giant display. They arranged for us to take a Parade Lap around the famed Daytona Tri-Oval track 1/2 hour before the start of the Race. I can not fully express the thrill of driving my 1999 C5 with the top down around the Daytona track to the wild cheers of 100,000 envious fans! Then again, maybe this photo taken by my wife, Peta will give you a clue! It was an experience I don't think I will ever forget and one that I only wish could have been experienced by EVERY C5 Registry Member - not just the 150 lucky ones there. What a site we were! The Vipers were there too, all four of them! I guess the rest were in the shop… Oh yeah, last year's Champion - GT2 Viper - put in an appearance and then went kaput after only four hours of racing…

Following our Parade Lap, Chevrolet treated us to a bird's eye view from the Skyboxes above the Super Stretch. No one else was allowed in the super stretch stands or Skyboxes except for C5 Registry members and their guests. While in the Skyboxes, we were visited by Dave Hill, chief engineer of Corvette, several other plant engineers and Jim Campbell, brand manager for Corvette/Camaro as well as the brand team. What a weekend it was! What a spectacular place from which to view the start of the race! We enjoyed snacks and beverages compliments of Chevrolet. It was an honor to which C5 Registry Members were treated during the official return of Corvette to road racing! The Twin Black and Silver C5 GT2 cars were quite a site to behold as they began the race side by side cruising down the backstretch! What a treat to own a C5 at the same time that Corvette returned to racing! I was feeling fine driving through the Daytona Infield in my C5. Passing the Porsche corral, knowing that we too had cars in the race, I realized that those Porsche owners just didn't look as smug to me anymore!

Then there was Kent Cartner [C5R #W1092] and his wheel -  [CLICK HERE] - our members are the best! Every time we conclude an event, I wonder how can we top our next one. Members make the Magic that makes each event more exciting than the last! So don't just sit there alone - join your friends and make new ones at a C5 event soon! Yield to your doubts, grab the keys, fire up your C5, flip on the radar detector and GO to the next C5 Registry event! I promise you good times, good friends and great memories!

Switching gears here . . . I want to encourage all C5 Registry Members who have e-mail to join the C5 Net. There are over 600 C5 members currently logged on. It is in a News Group format and is definitely worth your time. For those who don't know how the Net works, let me try to explain. When you send an e-mail to the C5 Net (say a question on your car's performance), it is automatically relayed to all 600 members on the C5 Net. The response to your e-mail can be relayed to all 600 members or just to you. This has helped so many members not only solve problems but also get a TON of valuable information. Chances are, any question you have someone else has had also. That was a major reason for starting the Registry in the first place... to give C5 owners and enthusiasts a chance to share information with each other. I urge you to join the C5 Net. There is no charge. Go to our web page:
http://www.c5registry.com/Members/C5Net/C5Net.htm and follow the simple instructions on the screen. You will need an e-mail address and your C5 Registry Membership Number. The C5 Net has been responsible in large for our success as a Registry. It allows us to communicate with our members practically instantaneously. It also enables members to get together themselves and set up local events. I highly recommend it. If you want to get the most out of your C5, this is the place to be!

Bob Hardt [C5R #V0022], our National Corvette Museum Ambassador, has two great articles in this newsletter. One is on the NCM Land Drive and the other is one the 1+1 Membership Campaign. If you enjoy your Corvette and the Corvette lifestyle, the NCM experience is a must for you. The NCM is something we need to nourish and help flourish so those future generations can continue to enjoy the Corvette experience as we do today. If Corvettes are your world, the NCM is the center of your universe. Which brings me back to where we began - our Birthday Bash at the NCM. All proceeds benefit the NCM. So when you come, you are lending support while having a super time!

There is so much being planned for C5 Registry Members. We have something for everyone at these upcoming events. I encourage you to attend as many as you can. The Route 66 Corvette Show in Joliet, IL, June 10-13; Corvettes at Carlisle in Carlisle, PA, August 27-29; the Fifth Annual Labor Day Celebration at the NCM, September 3-6; Road Atlanta's 12 Hour Petite LeMans, September 17-18; and a first for us to join our West Coast members at the San Diego Grand Prix on November 7^th.

These are just the highlights for our coming year. I am especially happy about the San Diego Grand Prix. We will finally have a C5 Registry event for our West Coast members. We hope to have a great turnout of C5's. We are trying to arrange a Parade Lap and will definitely have a C5 Corral there. There will be a "famous" C5 Registry dinner along with a designated C5 hotel. Any member on the West Coast willing to help with this event, please send me an e-mail to c5dan@c5registry.com. I hope this will be the beginning of a West Coast C5 tradition!

C5Ya! Till Next Time……DAN
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