|
|
Corvette
ANNAPOLIS
Annapolis, Maryland
Corvette Annapolis
History
|
If you were a Corvette enthusiast in the early
1990's, what else could you do besides drive your car? The next best thing to actually sitting
behind the wheel, listening to the sweet music of a Chevy V-8 while stirring
the cogs, is talking with someone about doing this. The founding members of Corvette Annapolis did just this. At the time there was no car club in the
immediate Annapolis
area that catered to Corvette owners.
Two of the founding members, Jim Davis and Mike Bluestein, traveled to
the closest Corvette club in the area to satisfy their quest for fellowship
with fellow Corvette owners. The
closest club at that time met on the opposite shores of the Chesapeake Bay, in Queenstown, MD. It wasn't long until these men from the Annapolis area decided that once there were as many men
attending the Queenstown meetings from the western shore as there was from the
eastern shore, they would start another club in the Annapolis area. From this, Corvette Annapolis
was formed. Besides Jim and Mike,
the other founding members were Ed Sutton, Carl Morgan, Mike Doty, and Steve
West.
The first informal meeting was held at Ed
Sutton's house with later meetings held at the Riva Volunteer Fire
Department. Another one of the
early meetings was held on a Saturday morning at Rudy's Tavern on General's
Highway, just north of Annapolis. From the start, Corvette Annapolis
was a supporting member of the National Council of Corvettes Clubs, NCCC. As Jim recalls, you couldn't beat the
price of labiality insurance that NCCC offered a small club just starting
out. Being a member of NCCC also
allowed Corvette Annapolis to receive information about what
other Corvette Clubs were doing. To
back the club financially at the start, each of the founding members chipped in
$100.
The first show the club held was a concours
at Genderson Chevrolet. Along with
other shows and rallyes, Corvette Annapolis started to
grow, and as of this writing has around 115 members. One of the monthly events that the club
currently holds is a brunch. The
founding members of the club started this tradition of mixing Corvettes,
fellowship, and food.
The Corvette
Annapolis logo and patch was designed by Steve Angell in early 1998. Steve took the idea from T-shirts the
club would have made each year for the September concours. The shirts had a similar picture of the Bay Bridge
on it, so he used that as a basis.
He felt that it was a fitting symbol of the Annapolis area. He added the "old" and
"new" Corvette emblems, because our club's members' cars range from a
'54 to (now) an '01. The original
club jackets were light blue with teal trim, so he used the light blue for the
water. The club name logo was
designed by Jim Davis (our first club President) and one of the founders of the
club, so Steve used that logo of the words "Corvette Annapolis" in
his design. The logo had always
used the red and royal blue colored letters, sometimes with a silver background
behind "Annapolis". Our club colors have always revolved
around the all-American red, white, and blue. The patch design was decided during a
competition by the members present at one of the spring or summer meetings in
'98. They voted on a winner from 3
different designs which were anonymously submitted.
Special thanks to Jim Davis and Shannon
Shepherd for providing the information contained in this article.