Updated 30-Jan-2007 - Copyright (c) 2007 Corvairs of New Mexico. Enchanted Corvairs Newsletter - Corvairs of New Mexico A Chartered Chapter of CORSA - The Corvair Society of America Volume 30 - Number 10 - October 2004 - Issue 349 EDITOR: Jim Pittman NEXT MEETING: Wednesday 6 October 2004 at 7:30 PM Galles Chevrolet, Lomas & University THIS MONTH: Dues Due Dave Huntoon September Meeting Notes Jim Pittman September Board Meeting Chuck Vertrees CNM Birthdays Sunshine Committee Rebuilt & Restored Mark Domzalski State Fair Report Robert Gold Calendar of Coming Events Everybody Card from Ben Ben Benzel Seven Years Ago Jim Pittman Car Council Reports Robert Gold Tech Tips: Lube Points Steve Goodman You won't believe: no Turbo Steve Goodman La Ventana: Martineks Heula Pittman Dummy of the Month Larry Blair Trip to Kansas Dennis Pleau PPCC Martineks' Dinner Jim & Heula COVER: Mary Lou and Mark Martinek go to Washington =CNM= MAXIMS FOR THE INTERNET AGE From: Joe Walters (jtw AT rt66 DOT com) 1. Home is where you hang your @. 2. The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail. 3. The journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click. 4. You can't teach a new mouse old clicks. 5. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone. 6. C:\ is the root of all directories. 7. The modem is the message. 8. Too many clicks spoil the browse. 9. Fax is stranger than fiction. 10. Modulation in all things. 11. There's no place like http://www.home.com 12. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks. =CNM= DUES EXPIRED OR DUE OR APPROACHING DUE: EXPIRED: Mark Morgan 2004-Jun Dwight Simmons 2004-Jul Steve Johnson 2004-Aug Jacob Schlessinger 2004-Aug THIS MONTH: Steve Gongora 2004-Sep Joe Ashton 2004-Sep Sally Johnson 2004-Sep Lee Olsen 2004-Sep COMING DUE SOON: Jon Anderson 2004-Oct John Stichman 2004-Oct John Topp 2004-Oct Bill Reider 2004-Oct Robert McBreen 2004-Nov Del Patten 2004-Nov David Huntoon 2004-Dec Walter Huntoon 2004-Dec Roger Pape 2004-Dec Wendell Walker 2004-Dec If your membership is due or has expired, please send your dues to: Wendell Walker, CNM Treasurer, 301 Utah Meadow, Rio Rancho, NM 87124 Note: the Club will mail in your National dues when you renew, but only if you send us the renewal form from CORSA Communique =CNM= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- FOR SALE: 1962 coupe (model 927) Spyder with turbo. White. Fancy rims. $5500 or best offer. Call Mike Ridley 842-1118 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =CNM= Enchanted Corvairs Newsletter is published monthly by Corvairs of New Mexico, a chartered chapter of CORSA, the Corvair Society of America. Contents are copyrighted in the names of the authors and CNM. Articles may be reprinted in any CORSA publication as a service to CORSA members provided credit to the author and this Newsletter are clearly stated. All opinions are those of the author or the editor and do not necessarily reflect endorsement by CNM or CORSA. Material to be published should reach the editor by the 15th of each month. Submit material in ASCII TEXT format via e-mail to ( casa AT unm DOT edu ) or in ASCII TEXT format on Apple II, Macintosh or MS-DOS disk, or submit a readable manuscript. Thanks to icWord 3.0, I can easily read MS Word documents. Photographs (prints or digital JPGs) are welcome too! (Does anyone read this?) This newsletter was produced in a Microsoft-free environment using a 1998 Macintosh G3 with OS 8.6, AppleWorks 5, ProTERM Mac, Bernie To The Rescue 2.6, Photoshop 6.0, Pagemaker 6.5; a 2003 Macintosh G4 PowerBook with OS-X; a 2003 iMac with OS-X and InDesign 3; and a 1989 Apple IIgs with GS/OS 6.0.1 using Addressed For Success, ShadowWrite 1.3.4, Platinum Paint 2.0, Pointless and Harmonie. Printing via Apple IIgs, HP LaserJet IIp and Apple LaserWriter Pro 630. Technical details available if anyone is interested. Transportation provided by Albuquerque Suntran, 1965 Corvair Monza, 1990 Honda Civic, 1996 Mazda Miata and 2003 Honda Civic. When I'm 64, I'll get by with a little help from my friends. =CNM= SEPTEMBER MEETING NOTES Jim Pittman The September 1st meeting was called to order at 7:32 PM by president Mark Domzalski. Secretary Chuck was away so your editor was ready and willing to take notes. Some of the notes were typed in live and some are being regenerated with the help of the editor's somewhat fragile memory. The other officers and quite a few members were present. We had one guest: Red Badgett from the San Diego Corvair Club who was visiting in Albuquerque and thought he'd stop by our meeting. He is the editor of the San Diego club newsletter. He looks forward to seeing many of us at the fan belt toss later this year. Announcements: tickets for the Santiago auction were available - see Mark Domzalski if interested. A gala fund raiser on October 16th for the Wheels Museum was announced - see Mark Domzalski if interested. Robert Gold provided a handout on the swap meet in Los Lunas. Is the club interested in reserving slots as a group? They have people to man the gate and do other chores but may need backups. See Robert if you'd like to volunteer to be a backup for a 2-hour shift. Note that LeRoy Rogers already has two slots - it may be that he can share his slots with some of our members. We are organizing a Farewell Dinner for Mary Lou and Mark Martinek. It will be at 6:00 PM on Saturday September 11th at their favorite restaurant: Papa Felipe's at 9800 Menaul NE; that's just behind the Walgreen's at the corner of Menaul and Eubank. A sign-up sheet was passed around and we may telephone local members who were not at the meeting. Questions or confirmation of your reservation - call Heula at 275-2195. The Martineks are nearly ready to depart for their new home in Vancouver, Washington. That's just across the river from Portland, Oregon and there was some discussion of how many CNMers they could put up during next year's convention. Mark hinted that they'd keep their CNM membership, joining many others who have left New Mexico but who could not bear to leave CNM. Last month's minutes were approved so any errors will perforce become truths. Wendell provided a treasury report and said we had $369.27 in the bank, $2148.81 in our GMAC and a total of $2618.08 in monetary assets. Membership report: Dave Huntoon said he had received email from someone (Allen Taylor?) interested in our club but didn't have an address yet. Perhaps by next month. Of course the State Fair and the Swap Meet may provide opportunities for lost Corvair souls to learn about us and join up. Our elections will be held at next month's meeting and Mark served notice that he would not be present to conduct the election, and furthermore he would not accept a draft to be a candidate for another term as a CNM officer at this time. He planned to contact certain unnamed members (and presumably apply Sylvan's patented arm-twisting tactics) on the notion of running for office. We don't know if Chuck wants a break from the secretary's job. We assume Wendell wants to keep the treasurer's job. Sally may be in the city for another year and may want a second term as VP. So for sure we need a nominee for president. The Sunshine Committee's report included the dinner for the Martineks and news about Larry Blair's kidney stone which is a still painful and unresolved issue at this time. Note to the committee: Dave Huntoon says the post office has some neat Purple Heart stamps which would be appropriate for our get-well cards!! Awards Committee report by Sally Johnson: it was a lovely meeting and we formalized quite a few of the guidelines for the awards. We'll start passing out forms for nomination for the awards soon. We'll put together our notes and bring our suggestions on criteria for awards to the membership. Awards will formally fall under the responsibilities of the vice president's office. There will be another committee meeting later this month in hopes of getting more ideas from the old timers in the club. Steve Gongora suggested that a button on the web site may be a mode of getting or posting information. Car Council Report: Robert Gold said he thought he may as well make copies of the NMCCC newsletter to bring to our meetings as a way to help get information out to our members. One example of controversy at NMCCC meetings: some people apparently represent more than one car club and some of them think the representative should have a vote for each club. Robert disagrees and thinks there should be one vote for each person who shows up at the meeting. What do you think? Let Robert know. Our next Saturday breakfast will be September 18th at Mi Casita - it is the old Andy's Restaurant. (Where is it??) The next day, Sunday September 19th is the State Fair car show and Robert promises that EVERYONE who brings a Corvair will get a prize of one kind or another. He says, bring your own lawn chairs. Also, don't forget the September 23-24-25 Swap Meet in Los Lunas. Our next Old Route 66 Cleanup Party will be Saturday morning October 9th starting at the usual place at 9:00 AM. The "usual place" is the pull-off area nearly a mile east of the Chevron station at Central and Tramway. You'll know you are at the right place because you'll see either Corvair vehicles or Corvair owners. Tarmo reported on possibilities for this year's "Aspencade" tour - in the past we have had many tours, mostly heading north. Some have been quite pleasant but the driving time is pretty high. We often miss the best autumn colors but often find nice restaurants for lunch. We fondly remember the Salman Ranch visit and our lunches at Rancho de Chimayo. This year some wanted to go south along Old Route 14 and the vote of those present was to go south this year. That could be to Quarai or Fourth of July Canyon or Mountainair or Gran Quivera. The date will be Saturday October 23rd and we'll meet at 8:30 AM at the Smith's Grocery at Central and Tramway. There will be more on this later. Tarmo added that we have picked up several new members since our last Aspencade and he'd like to encourage all new members to attend. It's a great chance to meet everyone and have a nice tour at the same time. OLD BUSINESS: Steve Gongora modeled the "finest CNM clothing" for us and we immediately thought we did not like the blue colors! We liked the "stone" color. See Steve to sign-up to order shirts. NEW BUSINESS: Larry Hickerson said he drove a Corvair to a meeting for the first time. We all approved. Mark Martinek told us a little about their new house in Vancouver, Washington. He said it was over 100 when they were there and the day they left it commenced raining and hasn't stopped yet. They are vacating their Albuquerque house on September 23. They have been in Albuquerque 18 years. Who knows, after a few months of continuous rain they may be ready to come back. Or, they may recruit all of us to move there. =CNM= SUNSHINE COMMITTEE The meeting was adjourned at 8:15 PM and we apparently had no speaker tonight. Three CNM Members celebrate birthdays this October, and they are: Sylvia Goffe John Myers Bill Reider The Club wishes each of you a big Happy Birthday! Sunshine Committee, 275-2195, Heula Pittman =CNM= SEPTEMBER BOARD MEETING NOTES Chuck Vertrees The September board meeting was on 9/15/04 at 17:00 at House of Covers. Your Secretary had returned the day before from a long trip, and still being tired I forgot to list the members present. From memory they were, Mark Domzalski, Sally Johnson, Wendell Walker, Joel Nash, Steve Gongora, Jim Pittman and myself. I apologize if I forgot anyone who was there. In some of the mail received it was announced that the Autocross in Palm Springs has been canceled. In reports, Mark had nothing to report. Sally said that the program speaker who was scheduled for the September meeting, although he was called the day before, forgot to come. There were several suggestions about how best to remind our speakers in a polite way. There is nothing scheduled as yet for future meetings. However, Geoffrey is planning an engine re-ring job on the 9th of October and is willing to also have a Bar-B-Q at the same time for those who want to come. This is per Sally and will be confirmed at the October meeting. Upcoming activities include the Car Council swap meet on 9/23-25; the Route 66 cleanup on 10/9; the CNM breakfast at the IHOP on Montgomery and the Freeway on 10/16; and the Aspencade, which is planned for 10/23. November has the annual Potluck and Auction at House of Covers on 11/6. Don't miss this. Don't miss the GWFBT&SM in Palm Springs on 11/12-14. The Secretary had nothing to report. Treasurer Wendell reported that CNM had $164.07 in the checking account and $2,148.81 in the GMAC account for a total of $1,312.88. There was no membership or merchandise report. The Car Council will be sponsoring a car display in conjunction with the Balloon Fiesta on October 3rd. See Mark to get the details and the phone to contact. The Awards Committee is planning a meeting on the 25th of September, but there may be a conflict. Sylvan Zuercher was not at the meeting because he had to get a new battery in his pacemaker. Bill Reider has agreed to run the upcoming elections since Sylvan is out of action. The meeting was adjourned at 17:39. =CNM= REBUILT & RESTORED Mark Domzalski - October 2004 Here is CNM election time. As many of you know, I have said that I will not serve next year. I regret that I have had to miss some meetings this year, but work at LANL continues to require me to travel and I can't always de-conflict my travel with the CNM schedule. Next year promises to hold more of the same for me, so, combined with a philosophy to not exceed the time in the presidency (3 years) of two esteemed CNM Past Presidents, I made the decision to retire from the office and turn the reins over to other capable and motivated leaders in our chapter. I ask you to attend the next meeting and take part in the CNM election process. I cannot attend the election meeting since Elizabeth and I will be in Florida helping to prepare for and attend our only niece's wedding. Hopefully we'll have a hurricane free week with weather suitable for the planned outdoor garden reception on the 9th. Since this is my last official column, I want to take some space to thank some folks for their support and performance. First, thanks to Vice President Sally. She has brought many new and great ideas to CNM. The monthly breakfasts have been a success and she has helped in making some updates and changes to modernize your chapter. Special thanks to Secretary Chuck. He remains steadfast in his support for CNM as the second longest serving official in CNM. Treasurer Wendell has the distinction of being the third longest serving official. The dedication and support of these folks is the core of the success we have enjoyed. Membership Chair Dave stepped in for Sylvan who requested a medical retirement, Ollie has kept the Route 66 CNM Mile cleanup on track, NM Car Council Liaison Robert has kept us up to date on the politics and antics with the Car Council, Merchandise Chair Ruth stepped in to manage our goods, Webmaster Steve keeps us current and looking good on the worldwide web, Newsletter Editor Emeritus Jim continues his long term success in providing excellence in the written and published word about CNM, and Sunshine Chair Heula has the initiative to make sure that all CNM members know they matter and are remembered whether celebrating a birthday or anniversary, have suffered an injury or illness, or a celebration is needed for a significant occasion. These Chairs and volunteers are one of the significant reasons that CNM is, in my local and CORSA experience, a cohesive, shining example of a truly great organization. But wait, there's more... In this past year, we celebrated our 30th anniversary as CNM. We had a turnout for a wonderfully fun dinner that included past officers and friends who revel in the long term success of CNM. CNM's Care and Feeding booklet went into it's 6th printing, and a small dedicated committee review and updated your CNM Constitution. Lastly, there is a remaining committee working on laying out the processes and documenting our two standing awards, the Ike Meissner Award and the Francis Boydston Award. There is a lot of great work that has been accomplished by our chapter this year. Thank you all for helping to make this happen. Everyone who attended the goodbye dinner for Mark and Mary Lou certainly enjoyed themselves. We hope that they are settling in to their new home in Washington state and enjoying being close to their grandchildren. I will be at the October Board Meeting to transfer all of the articles of the Presidency to your next President. Elizabeth and I plan to be at the CNM auction on November 6th, 5:30pm at House of Covers. Start collecting your auction items now. I will be bringing a few restored Coleman lanterns this year for those of you who like the nostalgia and warmth of vintage lanterns. Thank you all for your support over the past year. I have enjoyed the meetings and fellowship that you have afforded me. Elizabeth and I look forward to many more years of your friendship and company. =CNM= STATE FAIR CAR SHOW - September 19, 2004 Robert Gold I want to start this description of the State Fair Car Show by saying that if CNM had a meritorious service award for the members for actions beyond the call of duty that award should go to the folks who showed up for this year's show. Imagine this scene - I wake up early on Sunday morning and find that it is raining. It is raining HARD. It is raining hard on the cars that my wife and children had washed the day before. (Sorry Anne Mae, Javi and Sara!). As the time grew near for us to leave it is still raining HARD. The intrepid Johnsons (Sally and Geoff) show up at my house and it is still raining HARD. We head out to the meeting place and it is still raining. So what am I to think? I think that when we arrive at the Furr's parking lot I'm going to see an empty lot. You can imagine my surprise when I pull up and there are already four cars there! (No they wern't junkers abandoned in the parking lot - they were Corvairs.) Let's see, four cars plus the four Gold and Johnson entries makes eight cars. That is just two short of the magic number of ten. Then Steve Gongora drives up and that makes nine. Then up drives Larry Hickerson in his $10.5 million dollar Rampside - we've now got ten cars. Ten cars on a morning when any sane car enthusiast would have seen the weather and returned to bed. What a crew we have. That's why we have the best car club in town and that's why all the CNM exhibitors on Sunday, September 19, 2004 deserve special recognition. Now comes the fun part of the story. We enter the Fairgrounds and for the 7th year in a row we get in for FREE. Then we park the cars (did I mention we had 10 cars?) on Heritage Ave., but it is still raining. Alas, are we going to have this car show in the rain? Let me mention at this point that I've lived here 23 years. During that time I've learned one thing - just wait a minute and the weather will change. Well, it took longer than a minute, but before the morning was over the rain had stopped and the day turned out to be overcast and cool - just about perfect. Actually the day was more than perfect... Now let me put my description of the car show on hold and give you a lesson on car selling and exhibiting. I've spent a lot of time over the years watching the shows on the Speed Channel (please note that the Speed Channel did not pay me to say this). I've watched car races, car shows, biographies of race drivers and the cars they drive - all sorts of things. At some time I saw a show where they talked about displaying cars. I think it was a show put on by Meguiar's wax (please note again that Meguiar's did not pay me to say this). These Meguiar's folks kept referring to something called diffused light. That's light that is filtered through a translucent medium so that the light rays are non-parallel. This tends to hide imperfections. Well it would hide imperfections except for Larry Hickerson's Rampside, because his paint job is perfect - I hate you Larry... Well that nice cloud cover at the Fair gave us our diffused light so all the cars looked just great (that is, after we wiped the rain off of them). So not only did the rain stop, but the result was the best light we've ever had in which to show our cars. That meant that your $500 paint job looked like a thousand bucks (but not as good as Larry Hickerson's)... I love New Mexico.. Well, let's now return to our car show report. As in the past, I didn't let the members get off without doing some work for all the ribbons we gave out. The members helped out by doing the judging. I want to single out several members for special thanks. First there is Larry Hickerson and Mike Stickler. These two guys spent a lot of time in the morning judging the best in class awards. That meant assigning points for all sorts of things like chrome, tires, seats, etc. Not only did they have to assign points, but they had to add all those numbers in the end. They're math teachers would have been proud. Really, many thanks to Larry and Mike. Next I want to thank Sally and Geoff Johnson for coordinating the judging for the 17 novelty classes. In the past I tried to do this, but the toll it took on me was too much. I managed to mess up the assignments and didn't do a very good job in keeping track of who won what. This year all I had to do was sit back and in no time Sally was handing me the summary sheets. In addition I want recognize Ruth Boydston for her superior determination while judging. It was quite gratifying to see Ruth do that job with such a combination of seriousness and humor. Thanks to all the judges. When I mentioned that I put everybody to work I really meant it. My two kids, Javi and Sara, were the ones who distributed the 64 ribbons. If you don't think that was a lot of work try walking up and down a line of cars 64 times. As long as I'm in the thanking mood I want to mention how easy it was to work with the staff from the State Fair (all right, Expo New Mexico). All I needed to do was to show up and all the ribbons were nicely boxed and sorted for me. In fact, they gave me more ribbons than I asked for. This year every attendee got a participation ribbon. I think one story tells it all. Craig, the guy who coordinated the exhibits, was going over the "rules" with me. He got to the rule about cars that wouldn't start when it was time to leave and he said don't worry about this rule. "You don't have this kind of problem. Your club is one of the good guys." I guess the CNM reputation is secure. I know you'll find this hard to believe, but I've run out of things to say. So I'll end this article with a list of some of the award winners and a list of the intrepid souls who attended the show. THESE FOLKS GOT THE PURPLE "BEST OF SHOW" RIBBONS: 1. Best car late (1965-1969) 1st Steve Gongora 1966 Corsa 2. Best car early (1960-1964) 1st Ruth Boydston 1963 Monza 3. Best Forward Control 1st Robert Gold 1961 Rampside 4. Best Gold Family Car 1st Anne Mae Gold 1962 Greenbrier Here is the list of the cars that were entered in the show: CAR SHOW ENTRIES: 1. Robert Gold 1961 Rampside (I'm number 1 - at least this time) 2. Anne Mae Gold 1962 Greenbrier (We want to thank Javi for selecting this vehicle for his special award) 3. Larry Hickerson 1963 Rampside (Is it true this truck will be on Ebay with an opening bid of $10.5 million (cash only)? Can somebody give me a loan? I want this truck.) 4. LeRoy Rogers 1965 Corsa (I appreciate the fact that LeRoy showed this car even though he had other obligations at the fair) 5. Kim & Del Patten 1966 Monza (I suspect the gas mileage went down going home because of the weight from all the ribbons you got) 6. Ruth Boydston 1963 Monza (Ruth you have to keep this vehicle so you'll get more "Best of Show" ribbons in the future.) 7. Geoff & Sally Johnson 1963 Monza (An epic novel could be written about the history of this car.) 8. Anne Mae & Robert Gold 1961 Lakewood (This was our daily driver and I had to notify the EPA when I cleaned out all the nasty trash during carpet replacement) 9. Mike Stickler 1966 Corsa (Too bad it wasn't a nice enough day to drop the top on your convertible) 10. Steve Gongora 1966 Corsa (If you want to see how to do a custom interior properly you've got to look at this car) As you can see a fun time was had by all. It had to be fun for all these people to show up in the rain. So I want you all to plan to attend next year and have a good time too! -- Robert Gold =CNM= ============================================================================ C O R V A I R S o f N E W M E X I C O C O M I N G E V E N T S ============================================================================ | | | | | O c t o b e r | N o v e m b e r | D e c e m b e r | | | | | | : : : : : 1 2 | : 1 2 3 4 5 6 | : : : 1 2 3 4 | | 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 | 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 | | 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 | 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 | 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | | 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 | 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 | 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 | | 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 | 28 29 30 : : : : | 26 27 28 29 30 31 : | | 31 : : : : : : | : : : : : : : | : : : : : : : | ============================================================================ Wed 6 Oct 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Remember, this is ELECTION NIGHT. Come and vote! Fri 8 Oct ....... Debbie Pleau may be in town? More later. Sat 9 Oct 9:00 AM Old Route 66 Cleanup Party - Ollie Scheflow Wed 20 Oct 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Fri 22 Oct 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman Sat 23 Oct 8:30 AM Aspencade Tour - South NM 14 Meet at the Smith's Grocery, Central and Tramway SE Wed 3 Nov 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Sat 6 Nov 5:30 PM - Another fabulous CNM auction - House of Covers Sat 13 Nov 1:00-4:00 CNM Ladies - Anne Mae Gold - 268-6878 Wed 17 Nov 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Wed 17 Nov 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman - EARLY THIS MONTH! Sat 20 Nov 8:30 AM CNM Breakfast - TBA Wed 1 Dec 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Sun xx Dec ....... CNM Christmas Party - do we have a plan going? Sat 11 Dec 1:00-4:00 CNM Ladies - TBA Wed 15 Dec 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Sun 18 Dec 8:30 AM CNM Breakfast meeting - TBA Fri 24 Dec 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= CNM LADIES UPDATE Anne Mae Gold I just got word from Elizabeth Domzalski that she'll be unable to host November's CNM get together. She'll be at the Fanbelt Toss in Palm Springs... and who could blame her! We can meet at my house on Nov. 13 from 1-4 pm. I'm at 1301 Valencia Dr NE. You can call 268-6878 for more specific directions. See ya then! Anne Mae =CNM= SEVEN YEARS AGO Jim Pittman Seven Years Ago - October 1997 - Volume 23 - Number 10 The cover photo showed Francis Boydston working on a Corvair engine. Rita Gongora reported that "This past month we have the sad news to announce the passing away of Francis Boydston. Our condolences go out to Ruth and the rest of the Boydston family. Francis was one of the founding members and every member probably carries a piece of him in his or her car. The Club sure has grown since its small beginnings back in 1974. Thank you Francis for your energy to start something that continues to grow strong each year." As some of us leave, others arrive: Jon and Debbie Anderson announced the arrival of a new CNM member, Jamie Marie. Debbie and Jamie were doing fine. Our meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by President Mark Domzalski. Paul Campbell was no longer with the Journal-Tribune, but was now with Don Ray Advertising. Possibly he could arrange a billboard tour? Treasurer Wendell said we had $7874 to save or spend. Bill Reider's Car Council report noted that the picnic was well attended. There was news about the city's zoning plans to start hauling away "junk" cars and discussion about whether the Car Council could do anything about it. Several upcoming events were mentioned. Elections were coming up; who would run? Were we going to plan a Fall Tour this year? Our Ike Meissner award was mentioned and it was suggested that we consider an award in honor of Francis Boydston. After the meeting Bill Reider presented a video showing the fabrication of small specialty parts in a factory near Detroit. Mark's President's letter thanked members of the club for letting him serve two terms and for supporting the club and CORSA, especially all the support that made our "Vairs in the Air" convention such a success. Jim Pittman told the "Saint Francis of Corvair" story and Sylvan Zuercher remembered how Francis helped him debug the distributor on his first engine rebuild job. We had several tech tips in this issue: A good way to bleed the brakes in your FC; cleaning and lubing moving parts like throttle pivot and door hinges; greasing the fan pulley bearings; noises associated with an about-to-fail rear wheel bearing. Fourteen Years Ago - October 1990 - Volume 16 - Number 10 Our cover showed a pair of identical twins enjoying their identical early convertibles with identical dates. Guests Debbie & Dennis Pleau became members before the end of the meeting. Sylvan handed out Otto Parts catalogs. Tom Martin resigned as vice-president and left the Club. Tarmo Sutt and Bill Lawless planned our Aspencade. LeRoy Rogers previewed the October trip to Trinity Site and Bosque del Apache. A reprint from the January 1960 Popular Mechanics told of 10,000 miles in a Corvair: Devon Francis got 22.6 miles per gallon, used up three quarts of oil, and had to call for help to replace a broken fan belt. The fan belt failed because it had been adjusted too tight. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Twenty-one Years Ago - October 1983 - Volume 9 - Number 10 The cover showed a van rigged for rallye wars with at least six powerful driving lights. We had $494. LeRoy showed slides from his trip to the Seattle Convention. Five pages were devoted to "The Corvair Story - A Case History" by Frank J. Winchell, the story of litigation against General Motors over the alleged lack of safety of the Corvair. Twenty-eight Years Ago - October 1976 - Volume 2 Our meeting room at Ed Black's was preempted and we met at House of Covers. We continued to look for ways to raise money. Terry Gray reported on our second Winrock Car Show and nine photos accompanied the article. Members who showed their cars or helped included Bob Hoppenrath, Jim McCain, Jim Giblin, Francis Boydston, Terry Gray, Mike Stickler, Bob and Dave Langlois, Jim Pittman, Jim Godlevski and Andy Ciupryk. We liked the comment of one passerby: "Gee, I didn't know they were making Corvairs again." We thought the Winrock Show would be an annual event, but it turned out there was only one more, in 1979. =CNM= CAR COUNCIL REPORT - September 22, 2004 Meeting Robert Gold No, you're not seeing things. Not only have I written two car council articles for the newsletter, but I actually attended both meetings. In order to add a little variety to these reports I will keep this article brief. The reason the article is brief is that the meeting was brief. The main topic was the swap meet scheduled to begin Thursday, September 23. I don't have much to add to what I wrote in past articles except to note that the location of the meet was changed, but they assured us that there would be plenty of signs to direct us to the right place. The organizers said they hope to raise enough money from the swap meet to make up for past expenditures. The goal was to increase the amount in the Council's checking account, also known as Fort Knox, back to the level it was at the beginning of the year. That's all for the swap meet. There was some mention about the Wheels Museum having another of their series of fund raising dinners. We weren't sure which group was hosting the dinner - you see there are competing groups working on the museum. Apparently one group that does not have control of the property would like to fix it up and have a museum. The other group that does have control of the property wants to tear everything down to make better use of the site. I guess there is nothing quite like historic preservation through demolition. Something was mentioned about a lawsuit being filed by a group from Ohio. Who they are I really don't know. Maybe I'll find out more at the next meeting. This mayhem would be interesting if it wasn't so sad. To wind up my world's record short article, I thought it would be interesting for me to comment on the cars at the Old Car Garage this month. Among the notables was a Chrysler Airflow. The car was nicely preserved, but it needed a little "freshening" to its paint and trim. The workmanship in this car was something to behold. Then there were a pair of 1960 Cadillacs. One was a brilliant red two-door hardtop and the other was a weathered white convertible. You know how when you were small and everything looked big to you? Well, I'm now big, but these cars still looked really big to me. What an icon of American car history. I really appreciate having these cars to look at during the meetings. I won't be at the October election meeting, but I still want to remain as Council rep. Anne Mae will have copies of the last Council newsletter to hand out so you will have a list of coming events. Tune in next month for more Car Council fun. =CNM= CAR COUNCIL REPORT - August 25, 2004 Meeting Robert Gold I guess this report could be called a good news / uninteresting news report. The good news is, I finally attended a meeting of the Car Council. As you might remember the reports for June and July were written by my son Art who was kind enough to fill in. Art did a fine job of spicing up his report on the rather bland meetings. Now on the uninteresting part. I sat at the meeting that began at 7:30 and broke up about 8:30 with my pencil poised to write down all the important information. But alas there was not much to write down. Here's one thing: the appreciation dinner for volunteers was a rousing success. This dinner was a substitute for the picnic that had been held at Elks' Park in past years. During my tenure as CNM President I pushed to have the picnic become our August event so that we could show our support for the council. However, at the last picnic the attendees somehow violated the rules and the Elks didn't want us back. So instead of finding another place for the picnic the officers decided to change the event to an invitation only affair for volunteers at the Museum Car Show. That sounded rather elitist to me, but I kept my mouth shut so as to not bring shame upon the Corvair Club. I figured that enough CNM'ers were going to volunteer that we would have plenty of representation at the dinner. Anyway, I was proved right - we had 6 members counting ballots at the show. However, I guess we didn't do a very good job, because when the list of invitation-only people came out the only CNM member listed was Mark Martinek. So much for our good efforts. It is important to pick your battles, and since the dinner was scheduled for the day after our progressive dinner, I just let it pass. The best part of this is that as you may remember I said the dinner was a success. Why you may ask was this the case? It was a success because it cost less than the picnic did last year! Thank goodness. The treasury of the Car Council is safe again. I guess in the future if we volunteer at a council event I'll need to followup to make sure they get it right. The main topic of discussion at the council meeting was the upcoming swap meet. Again, I have dropped the ball as your council rep, because it seems that all the volunteer spots for this event have been taken. I found this out when I inquired about our club members helping out. Let me get this right - they have all the people they could use. All we could hope for would be alternate/backup roles to the first string. I have been involved in many events over the years and this is the first time that my offer of help was met with anything but enthusiasm. However, if you would like to be considered for a volunteer role please call John Hayne at 294-4434. Remember the swap meet will be held from Thursday, September 23rd at 11:00 am until Saturday, September 25th at 5:00 pm in Los Lunas. So we were all ready to adjourn. I was packing up my notes when a discussion broke out about representation at council meetings. It turns out that there are three levels of members in the Car Council. There are the Active Member Clubs, the Associate Member Clubs, and the Subscribers. That was news to me. I thought we were all created equal. Anyway, the subscribers are organizations that pay (I think they pay) to receive our newsletter and the associate member clubs are clubs that are around town, but don't show much interest in the Car Council. The active members, which includes CNM, are the clubs that send representatives to the monthly council meetings and have volunteers help out at council events. That sounded pretty clear to me. Well it isn't. There seem to be individuals at our meetings who represent several car clubs. I guess they have a lot of time on their hands, because one club is about all I can handle. Anyway, several years ago the council in its wisdom inserted in its constitution that you can only represent one car club at the council meetings. That's a good idea because if you didn't have that rule, one guy (or gal) could have 2, 3, 4, maybe 5 votes. That could really discourage participation by clubs like ours and could result in two guys sitting at the meeting making all the decisions. Actually, that's sort of how the officers run the council, but that is another issue... So some guy says he thinks that if you're elected to represent a car club you should have a vote for every car club you represent. This discussion went on for a while and mercifully died away. But as Tom Jefferson once said, an important part of democracy is vigilance, so if they try to amend the constitution to allow this proxy vote stuff I'll jump right on it. One last thing on this issue has to do with the council newsletter. Now I've been tough on the council in this column, but I do believe their newsletter is pretty nice. It lists a lot of events going on all over the place and other car news. With this in mind I will try to make copies of the newsletter and distribute them at the CNM meetings. Maybe that will be an added reason to attend our meetings. Also, it will make it easier for me to be less long-winded at the meetings when I give my council report. After the talk about voting, the council meeting was finally adjourned and I did get to go home. With that I conclude my Car Council report. Tune in next month for more of the soap opera of "How the Car Council Turns." - Robert Gold =CNM= YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS.... (curious and unbelievable things that have happened to our favorite car) by Steve Goodman Rocky Mountain CORSA Denvair News - September 2004 A phone call one day brings a new turbo CORSA owner to my shop. He just bought the car and can't make the turbo--well, turbo. I looked into the engine bay and everything looked in place. I jumped behind the wheel and the two of us dropped to the street. Try as I might, the turbo simply wouldn't show any positive pressure. I was distressed in a way because the car was in such good condition. I just couldn't believe that the turbo wouldn't make pressure. I scheduled an appointment and on that day I pulled the carb off and stuck a finger into the opening to see if the wheels would turn inside the turbo; imagine my surprise when I could feel NO WHEELS at all. I looked into the compressor housing and all I could see was a nut and washer on the end of a bolt. Removing the turbo showed the real problem. Someone had removed the wheels and shaft and in order to make it look correct, just put a bolt/nut and washers through the bearing housing. They even plugged the oil pressure line that fed oil to the turbo bearing. Of course the car ran fine on the stock CARTER carb, just no boost. The head of the bolt was badly carboned which suggested that the turbo had been that way for a long time. TECH TIP - LOWER DOOR HINGE by Steve Goodman Rocky Mountain CORSA Denvair News - September 2004 Does your door seem difficult to close after being fully opened? There is a stop built in the lower door hinge that allows the door to stay open while getting out of the car. The piece that is spring loaded has a heavy load against it as the door is brought back to the closed position. IT NEEDS TO BE LUBRICATED ON A REGULAR BASIS!! The 1965 and 1966 cars seem to be the worse for this problem; the door hinge is poorly cast metal and the piece will simply rip out of the pot metal and the spring will fall off. On all models you should shoot a little white aerosol lube or even WD-40 onto the hinge pins at least a couple of times a year. TECH TIP - MORE LUBE POINTS by Steve Goodman Rocky Mountain CORSA Denvair News - September 2004 Besides the normal ball joint/tie rod end lube points and the above mentioned door hinges, other parts that should be lubed occasionally are the sway bar bushings and other rubber bushings in the suspension. Use either a vinyl protector or WD-40 on the sway bar hangers, and on the various bushings in the rear suspension too. Don't forget the e-brake cable between the rear wheels; just spray WD-40 onto the sheathing and let it soak in. If you have reason to remove the tunnel cover, lube the cable pulleys and the shifter linkage. Don't forget the pulleys under the dash too. Remember the hinges on the trunk lid and engine lid and also all of the locks, especially the door and trunk lid. =CNM= LA VENTANA - MARY LOU AND MARK MARTINEK Heula Pittman It was May of 1990 and Mark was trying to find a birthday present for his Mary Lou. He says he picked up a newspaper and saw a Corvair convertible advertised for sale at a reasonable price in Rio Rancho. He decided to take a look at it as he had never seen a Corvair let alone driven or ridden in one. When he got there he saw this cute little aqua convertible with a white top. The car had belonged to a former CNM member - Mark doesn't remember the person's name - a doctor or dentist? He drove it around a bit and decided it was fun to drive, so he decided to buy it for his wife without her knowledge. After buying it and driving it home he found out that the valves weren't quite adjusted right - possibly not adjusted at all. He admits he had no knowledge about a Corvair engine nor did he have a manual for it, but he knew enough about valves to adjust them enough to get it halfway running. Mark gave the car to his wife for her birthday and she began driving it to and from her work at Kirtland in the dental clinic. Mary Lou met Bill Reider at his shop on Trumble and he told her about our Club. Mary Lou recalled that the reason she met Bill was that Mark had bought her a fancy typewriter that had memory and all sorts of other features on it and it was necessary to replace cassettes from time to time. She got the cassettes on Trumbull across from Bill's shop. She could see that there were always Corvairs at his shop, so she went to talk to him about her car. Bill encouraged her to join our Club . When the valves got really bad and Mark didn't want to try to work on them, he took the car to Bill where he and Sylvan Zuercher rebuilt the engine for them. Mary Lou drove the car quite a bit after the grandkids came to live with them. Then they bought a Caprice, according to Mary Lou, because kids and car seats don't fit in a Corvair very well. The Corvair went into the garage after the Caprice Classic came into the picture. It only came out of the garage for party trips. Our Couple had quite a discussion at this point as to the date they joined our Club. Our Editor assisted us and after referring to his old newsletters he found that Mary Lou joined in August 1990. (Thanks, Jim!) Mark had a 1952 Customline four door sedan that he was playing with but also liked driving the little Corvair. He saw an ad for a 1965 Corsa belonging to Dale Housley and decided to buy it for himself and began driving it to work. At some point they decided they maybe had too many cars since there were just the two drivers in their house. They had two Corvairs, a Chevrolet, a Ford, a pick up truck and an RV. (Does this sound familiar to anyone?) So they decided to sell the '65 Corsa to a person who gave it to his teenage nephew who two months later blew the engine. (Does this sound familiar to anyone?) Mark recalls - he misses the '65; that Corsa was nice! he said. He didn't know at the time he bought the car that the primary carburetors were plugged up and the only way he could get it off the line was to floor it and kick in the secondaries. And it finally dawned on him to clean the filters and carburetors. It worked okay then. Mary Lou said she never liked to drive the Corsa because the shifter didn't work as well as the shifter on her car. She recalls the first meeting she attended was down in the basement of Ed Black's Chevrolet used car lot. Mary Lou said she was treated nicely by the guys, but there were no women in this Club and there needed to be some! About two weeks later, here came Debbie and Dennis Pleau from California. After that, to Mary Lou's delight, more ladies began attending meetings and participating in Club activities. Then she started dragging Mark to the meetings. Mark said that once he started going to Club meetings with Mary Lou, he realized that our club was probably more active than the Old Ford V-8 Club that he belonged to at that time. They said there was a different atmosphere among our people. Most of the members at that time were "old people" to them. Mark mentioned the Club's participation in the State Fair each year and the parade that went along with that. Mary Lou commented that they had enjoyed the outings with the Club over the years. Sometimes they would drive a Corvair and other times when the grandchildren were along, the old RV was the vehicle of choice. Mark told us that they belonged to the Old Ford V-8 Car Club until he sold his '52 to Frank Corey. Then he bought the '55 Crown Victoria and joined the Crown Victoria Association. Then Bill Reider got them involved with the Milestone Car Society. They agree that the Tri-State meets are "the best" Club activity the Club has and the different tours are fun too. Mary Lou said that she liked our tours to the Large Array because she was in business communications at the time and she gave a speech on it to her class and made an A on her presentation. They agree that hosting the International Convention in 1996 sticks out in their minds as one of the best things the Club has done. They have attended two CORSA international conventions, ours in 1996 here in Albuquerque and this year's event that was hosted by the Lexington, Kentucky club. They felt that ours was better organized and overall a better convention than the Kentucky convention - but of course since they worked on our convention they may be prejudiced! Mark bought several Corvair parts while there but admits they are still in the car's trunk waiting to be put on. At the Lexington convention the cars were arranged by year for the parade. After the early models had come through, the police apparently did not recognize the late models as part of the parade! So, all the early models got into the parade but the late models had no one directing traffic and didn't know where to go! Since the parade cars were playing follow-the-leader and no one knew the destination, the tail end cars met the first cars coming back at them! Many cars never made it to the car show. We have had several contributions to the newsletter from the Martineks. Mary Lou wrote an article for the Club telling about how her car was on Israel TV in a coffee commercial made by a Czechoslovakia director and his film crew. This was filmed in Stanley, New Mexico, out in the middle of nowhere in a cow pasture in front of a gas station. She said they even painted a building aqua to match the color of her car. This commercial was to be played in Israel only. Mark's '52 Ford was in a movie that was shot in Santa Fe. The movie was "Late for Dinner". Mark said that when he was told to take the car for the taping, he washed, cleaned and polished it and got it all nice and pretty. The first thing they did when he got it there was to spray oil all over it and throw dirt at it! Mark said he saw the movie on television and that if one looked quick enough, when the two major characters came out of the drug store on the Santa Fe plaza, one could see his royal blue dirty '52 Ford Customline but you have to "look fast" to get a glimpse. More newsletter articles include Mark's story about his infamous motor replacement resulting from damage to the engine by towing the car "in gear" and the story about the CNM tour up to the Gillman tunnels in which the Corvair stopped running and he hiked up the hill to get his cell phone to work. Mary Lou said on her first trip to the fan belt toss at Palm Springs, she was driving friends to a garage sale and the car stopped dead! Was this the same problem? Mark later installed an electric fuel pump and thinks the original fuel pump is still bad. Someday he'll replace it, or connect a fuel line around it. You can read these and other stories in back issues of Enchanted Corvairs. Mark says the first car he ever drove was his dad's 1939 Buick. Mark was nine years old and lived with his family in north eastern Iowa. His mom and dad had gone off visiting and left the car in the garage. Well, he and his older sister decided to take the Buick off for a ride. He backed the car out of the garage, drove it down the driveway and onto the highway then back to the garage. But when it came time to stop he couldn't hit the brake, went into the wall and ended up hanging out over the edge of the garage floor. That was his first driving experience. After that he learned to drive a Ford tractor before trying a car again. His first car was a 1941 Ford sedan and he became adept at buying junkers and transplanting the engines into his Ford. Mary Lou learned to drive with a big tank, a '47 green Buick, three speed on the steering column. She said everybody knew where she had parked because she usually got green paint on everybody's car. Then her dad traded this car in on a '53 Chevy Bel Air. She was 16 when she got her driver's license in a little town in southwestern Iowa. In Albuquerque she thought a little car that they could tow behind the RV would be nice. The first Corvair she remembers was at a Museum car show - maybe it belonged to a club member. Did the Corvair convertible feel "small" or "unsafe" as Ralph warned? No, she enjoyed driving it. They have towed it on long trips, then used the Corvair to run around while there. And they have enjoyed driving the Corvair to Tri-State events. Can they count how many cars they have owned? No way! But, Mark said, he would not have had to work the last twenty years if he hadn't spent all that money on cars! Mary Lou and Mark look forward to their move to Vancouver, Washington, this month. Mark said that when he moved to Albuquerque 18 years ago that that was it! He wasn't going to move again! But as we all know, things change and we all move on. They said they will likely join the Corvair Club in Oregon which is just across the river from where they will live. They have already communicated by way of e-mail. Here's a partial list of CNM newsletter articles by Mary Lou and Mark: 1992 Truth or Consequences Tour Report Mark Martinek December 1992 1994 State Fair Car Show Report Mark Martinek October 1994 1996 The Commercial (My Corvair on Israeli TV) Mary Lou Martinek November 1996 1998 Our Journey to the '98 Tri-State Mary Lou Martinek July 1998 1998 Things We Learned at the Tri-State Mark Martinek July 1998 1999 My First Corvair Mary Lou Martinek March 1999 1999 A Short Heater Duct (Why our Battery Died) Mark Martinek April 1999 1999 Fix that Short Hose Battery Leak Mark Martinek April 1999 1999 Heater Hose Reprise Mark Martinek June 1999 2000 Out of Oil? Mary Lou & Mark Martinek November 2000 2000 Frostbite Tour Report Mark Martinek December 2000 2000 Frostbite Commentary Mary Lou Martinek December 2000 2001 Tri-State Reports Mary Lou Martinek June 2001 2001 Car Council Picnic Report Mark Martinek September 2001 2001 Campout in the Pecos Mark Martinek September 2001 2001 CNM and the Car Council Mark Martinek September 2001 2001 Thanks to Swap Meet Workers Mark Martinek October 2001 2002 Battery & Clutch Pedal Mark Martinek April 2002 2002 Trip to St. George Mark Martinek May 2002 2003 Corvair Gathering at Mesquite, Nevada Mark Martinek May 2003 During 2001-2003 Mark made many Car Council meeting reports. =CNM= DUMMY OF THE MONTH Larry Blair Jim: First of all, thank you for calling to check on me. That was much appreciated. My status is that I haven't passed the kidney stone but a 10 inch tube is in place between my kidney and bladder, should it decicde to move. Unfortunately the tube caused an infection which was miserable. If the stone doesn't move, it will be blasted with shock waves to break it up, probably in October, so I'm enduring the misery of a foriegn object in my finely sculpted and beautifully toned body. Hope you can use this under Dummy of the Month: KACHUNNNG! That was the sound I heard, followed by a revving 140 horses, as I let out the clutch to get onto Louisiana boulevard heading home. Suddenly, no amount of shifting and clutching would get my beloved little green convertible moving. And, right at 5PM rush hour on Louisiana Boulevard just north of I-40. Lots of courteous NM drivers gave me a single-finger salute as I pushed my car into a nearby bank parking lot, whose departing employees also were intensely annoyed that my plight would interfere with their rapid departure from their highly satisfying and customer-oriented jobs. After recovering from severe chest pains and muscle spasms from pushing a puny little 2400 pound convertible a hundred feet, I wisely concluded that although my finely tuned and balanced 140 was doing its thing, the thing was not getting to the rear wheels. So, I called Kathy and pleaded for her to come and tow me. After reminding me how many times she has done this, she arrived to take me home again. At least, it was a Chevy towing a Chevy. Imagine the shame if she had towed me home behind the Ford F-250 Powerstroke! She is one considerate gal! I consulted with all the resident experts in the club, almost all of whom rolled their eyes and rended their oil-stained clothes in despair, as they gave me dire diagnoses of what might be wrong. Opinions varied from a broken input shaft to messed-up spider gears to a bull gear having jumped the heifer shaft [or was it the other way around?]. At any rate, I decided to pull the power train, as I wanted to do some other modifications anyway, and check the clutch, which, after only 12,000 miles, was not acting quite right. And so, the crux of this article reveals itself! After I got the power train out [with Mike Stickler's help], I discovered that the splines on the right axle shaft were worn smooth where the shaft fits into the universal joint yoke. So, no power was getting to the right rear wheel. Now, maybe if I had a limited-slip differential, I could have motivated on down the road, but being the high-performance, devil-may-care driver that I am, I did not have that option. Upon further detailed examination, I have concluded that the bolt and large washer which hold the axle shaft into the yolk cannot simply work their way out of that assembly; the geometry of that connection simply won't allow it to happen. Thus, I eliminated the possibility that I had not torqued that bolt to spec. Instead, I came to the painful conclusion that I PROBABLY HAD NOT EVEN PUT IN THAT BOLT! FOR SHAME!!! In my haste to get the Little Green Weenie on the road, I had violated a fundamental Sylvan/Bill rule: When it's all put back together, do you have any parts left over? [Actually, I just made that rule up, out of deference to our two Corvairists Emeritus, or is it Corvair Emeritii?]. On the other hand, I have been wondering what that large bolt and washer on my workbench belonged to. Now, I could be wrong in my diagnosis. But, in any event, that Corvair went for 12,000 miles, including trips to Colorado and elsewhere, without failing me. Since the Dummy of the Month Club has been relatively inactive for awhile, I thought this tale might provoke some of my fellow Corvair aficionados to fess up on your booboos. You know who you are. We can all benefit from your experiences, Del. =CNM= TRIP TO KANSAS Dennis Pleau - September 2004 THE DRIP LINE, Pikes Peak Corvair Club The [PPCC] newsletter is late this month and it is all my fault. Instead of working on it last weekend, I went to Overland Park, Kansas for the 40th anniversary of Heart of America Corvair Owners Association. We had to fight the weather a little but it all worked out OK. I arrived Friday morning and checked into the motel. It was a little different than checking into most motels. They gave me a card to fill out and after filling it out, I reached for my credit card and the lady told me that they trusted their guests and I didn't have to pay or show a credit card until I cheeked out. I didn't think anyone did that any more. I toured around Overland Park for awhile and washed the Exploder, and later in the afternoon went down to hospitality house (the hotel has two rental houses). People started drifting in and the snacks were good. Around 7:00 pm it started raining. Not just lightly raining but the water was running down the Street from gutter to gutter. Lightning was hitting in the general vicinity and even hit less than a block away. That was bright and loud! The next day I heard on the radio that we had gotten 7 inches of rain. I would guess most of that fell in an hour. Saturday was the car show. It had stopped raining but had not completely stopped sprinkling. The car show was in the Metcalf Mall parking lot facing Metcalf Drive, Street, Boulevard? which is a main road. Thirty cars showed up. The judging was restricted to the people who entered cars, so I didn't get to vote. I took some CORSA merchandise and set up a small table and sold quite a bit. I also sold 4 sets of the Corvair Basic manuals for PPCC bringing in $80.00, PPCC only has 6 sets left, so get one if you need one. I will be trying to sell them any time I get a chance to help out the PPCC treasury. After the car show, they put on a gymkhana. It was a timed run through a bunch of cones. You had to go forward into a garage made of cones which was eight feet wide; then back out into another garage which wasn't directly behind the first garage; go forward out of that garage into another; stop and throw fanbelts trying to get them over cones; drive forward around a cone; drive forward into the garage you had previously backed into; switch driver and passenger; back out and go back to the starting line. A couple of things became evident. You can't throw a fan belt out of an early four-door, as the window isn't big enough. High HP isn't a big advantage. In the end, two early convertibles had a runoff for the win. Terry Kalp from Wichita and Kirk Eck vs. Ned Madsen and Jim Dallas (Ned is also known as deer slayer as he hit a deer on the way to the convention in Kentucky). It ended up that Terry and Kirk won the run off. We then had the rest of the afternoon off to get dinner and then got back together in the evening for an awards celebration at the house. Winners of all the classes in the car show were presented a trophy. I think everyone in attendance got a door prize (I got an oil filter). Sunday I made the long drive back home. A few things that I noticed were that a car show next to a busy street brings in a lot of people and HACOA gained some new members, and a gymkhana can be staged on a very small lot with very low speeds and be very competitive and a lot of fun. In all, I had a great time! - Dennis =CNM= MARY LOU & MARK MARTINEK DINNER Jim & Heula Pittman Papa Felipe's Restaurant staff put up with about 37 happy, talkative, walk-about CNM members and visitors on Saturday night, September 11. We gathered to wish Mary Lou and Mark happy trails as they move west to their new home in Oregon - oops, I mean, Washington. (Well, they could probably throw a dollar across the river to Oregon if they wanted to.) It was great fun getting together (there was much conversation but few lies about humungous Corvair feats were overheard by your reporter) tempered by the fact that our long-time members were going away, tempered by the promise that we could all come and visit and camp in their back yard during the 2005 CORSA Convention. Those attending were: Mary Lou & Mark Martinek; Elizabeth & Mark Domzalski; Sylvia & Jerry Goffe; Anne Mae & Robert Gold; Rita & Steve Gongora; Dave Huntoon; Carol & Gary & Walter Huntoon; Geoff Johnson; Sally Johnson; Joel Nash; Kim & Del Patten; Heula & Jim Pittman; Bill, Lee & Jo Anne Reider; Emma & LeRoy Rogers; Mary Alice & Oliver Scheflow; Kay & Tarmo Sutt and students Ester and Max; Wendell Waker; Brenda & Hurley Wilvert and two daughters. If we missed anyone it's probably because they chose to remain anonymous, or maybe they went "blue" left instead of "red" right as they entered Papa Felipe's and so missed the whole party. Mary Lou and Mark, we will miss you in the coming months and years. Thanks for making a great contribution to our great club. =end=