Everything went off just great!!

From Dale's arrival time at the airport to his arrival at the NCM and then his departure, everything went off according to plan.

Dale Earnhardt fans begin gathering when we first opened.   There was not the rush that we had last year as we had previously sold all the autograph tickets.

With the weather being in the 70's and sunny, the event was held outside. General admission tickets went on sale at 8 am. At 3 pm all the activities became Dale Earnhardt activities.

Corvettes Limited (from Bowling Green) provided about 20 volunteers,  River Cities (Louisville) and Music City (Nashville) Corvette Clubs also provided much needed volunteers. Richard and Susan Clark arrived on Wednesday to help in preparation for both the Earnhardt and C5 Birthday celebration event.  They worked hard both days and the last time I saw them, they were sweeping the front of the museum bricks at about 8 pm last night.

Earnhardt arrived in a motor home (courtesy of the Matuska's - Corvettes Limited).  We had used the motor home so Dale could sign a lot of merchandise for the NCM and not take up valuable time needed for autographs.

Earnhardt addressed the crowd upon his arrival on a PA system and all could hear him. We then took a few minutes for the press to ask him questions. Promptly at 5:15 we began the autograph session. Autographed ticket sales had been limited to a number that we could accomodate and be done by 7 pm.  We finished within about 3 minutes of 7 pm.

Autographs were given in ticket number range sequence.   The first 25 were by exact sequence and then we expanded to ranges of 100. Many of you will remember that in 1997, there were about 300 that did not get an autograph.   We had worked with those folks during the year - providing them free tickets to this years event including priority autograph tickets.

Several of those folks looked me up to express their appreciation for the manner we had worked with them. The museum staff worked hard and I was very proud of the total Team effort.

The financial results will be available in a few days.   It was a success, but with the limited number this year and free tickets to several it will not be the success that last years was.

Now on to the C5 Birthday Celebration and Active Handling seminars and demonstrations.

Wendell