8:45am Saturday, August 29th, 2015. Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Large outdoor events such as festivals, fairs, car shows, cow chip bingo national championships, and national ZZ Top conventions inevitably become games of accountability-hot-potato where only an elite few possess the balls to say "yes" to anything. By virtue of my show "Regular Car Reviews," I knew one of those elites: Lance Miller. He is the owner (or part owner) of the influential Carlisle Fairgrounds, but he was nowhere to be found that morning.

I stood in the Carlisle fairgrounds office trying to tell a gaggle of dentist-receptionist-looking-types that I was a celebrity judge who needed a badge and full rights in order to tramp around the grounds while mumbling into a GoPro. The Fairgrounds clerk looked at me askance and picked up a shortwave radio. "I have someone here from...Regular Car Reviews. He says Lance made him a Celebrity Judge...Regular...Car...Reviews...when will Lance be back?...OK...I'll tell him."

The fairgrounds clerk turned back to me and put the radio back in its charging dock, "Lance is giving an interview right now. Just wait a minute."

I nodded, smiled and said: "OK, no problem, thanks for helping me out!" and walked to the back wall of the Fair Office and leaned against it. There were no chairs. The walls were white and the whole building was built up on two-foot posts in case of flooding. Fairgounds are rarely built at the tops of hills.

The radio behind the fair office desk crackled with someone's voice. "Lance said Regular Car Guy is good."

Knowing the name of the highest officer possible in a public organized event is your ticket to "no problems." Everyone who comes into a fairgrounds office has a problem. Fairground clerks know this. No matter what organization they work for, fairground workers are well used to dealing with grown-up children. You know the kind. The kind of grownups who read at the 7th grade level. The kind of grown-ups who never tuck in their shirts. These are the aged versions of students who habitually skipped class, broke all their pencils thinking it would get them out of a test, and never met a school bus seat they didn't try to carve-up. Now they're adults and living in our world. Here they are, clogging up fairground offices all over this great land, every summer. Here they come with words full of demands. They've lived hard lives out of false-plated trailers full of used C3 parts. Traveling from fair to fair trying to unload the stuff. No lowballers! They know what they have! ...That's why I evoke Garrison Keillor-level politeness when asking for anything at an open-air event such as Corvettes at Carlisle.

Knowing Lance Miller helped too. Unless you know a high-up name to attach to your request, get ready to beg. Without a non-bluff name-drop, you'll get a cut-and-paste response, delivered to you as if you are a kindergartner who just asked for his third bathroom break.

I walked out of the office with a lanyard and award paperwork for whichever Corvette I thought was the best. Corvettes at Carlisle's Celebrity Choice Award wasn't exclusive, there was more than one celebrity judge. On the other hand, I was the only judge taking deliberate steps though the gravel parking lot because he was on prescription drugs that weekend. I was ready for war!

I jacked up my back two days prior by sitting for hours editing Regular Car Reviews and sporadically lifting car parts.

The doctor gave me Prednisone, which is a steroid pill, in conjunction with a pain reliever which had a multisyllabic name I couldn't pronounce. The aim was to reduce inflammation and temporarily relieve back pain.

Steroid pills also give you a mutant healing factor. If you up your testosterone, injuries heal faster. Why do you think MMA fighters cycle on and off this stuff while they train? Muscle sprains, hairline fractures, twits, and jams heal up faster if you have more juice in you.

AND I WAS FULL OF IT THAT DAY!

9:50am

C3 owners backed their sharks into folding-chair saved-grass spots. They never idled slow. They poked throttles to make the engine note peak and shudder to mimic hot cams. A Backward-Baseball-Cap-Dad polished a dark C7 that had tinted plastic headlights. Pre-teens giggled and raced each other on mobility scooters. I couldn't tell if they borrowed the scooters from their relatives or sneaked them from the rental shack by the fairground front gate.

A friendly American male version of Hanoi Hannah thundered from speakers atop permanent grandstands in the center of the fairgounds. "Corvettes are the best, now and forever. All the things you need to build your perfect corvette can be found here in the vendor area. Today's weather forcast is sunny with highs in the lower 90's. Drink plenty of water. Don't forget to eat. Meet Chip Foose!"

I passed a circle of seated silver-haired men, all wearing polo shirts from Boscovs' department store, the same retailer where I buy mine. Most own C2 hardtops. One interchangeable dude says to another, "There's some good tuckus up on the grandstand."

"What?" says the other.

"Bitch-sluts," clarifies the first.

North of the grandstands was a tent filled with the same kind of decorative white folding chairs found at outdoor weddings. A banner flapped from the tent's awning: "Women's Oasis." A disposable aluminum baking tray held mixed fruit. Another held canolies. "B9," called a lady from the far end of the tent, "B9," and bingo cards were marked off.

My legs kept numbly working. My back pain was distant. Beyond the Woman's Oasis and grandstands was "The Hill." It is an elevated area of the Carlisle fairgrounds that cannot flood. There were no food stands there. No bathrooms. No portapotties. No boomers in folding chairs. It's was just a place to park your Corvette and walk away down to the action near the grandstands.

C5's populated The Hill. C5's are Corvettes made between 1997 and 2004. Unless you're really into fake chrome tail light covers, LED ground effect lights, and doth-protest-too-much freedom flames, C5 Vettes aren't show cars yet. C4s are getting popular again because of 1980's nostalgia but C5s are falling lower and lower in value, as all recently new cars do. The Corvette C5 has further to fall. It needs to bottom out as the C4 did a few years ago.

Car values all follow arcs. The most desirable Corvette generation now, in 2015, is the Corvette C2 (1963-1967). Last year, in 2014, a 1967 Corvette C2 L88 I game him my award. The car was just right. It was an everyday superhero. Here\'s a quick clip of me meeting the owner:

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10:30am

Behind "The Hill" at the Carlisle Fairgrounds is a purpose-built autocross track. The Fairgounds hosts so many car events, it was no problem to lay down a rectangular track at the far end of the property. The course is tight enough, with four hard corners and two chicanes, to keep speeds under 30mph. It was, after all, a Corvette show. When Vettes race, they do their ruthless work at high speeds where their massive V8 engines shine. For safety, the autocross was made tight to make participants drive slow and alive so they come back next year.

Keyboard warriors like to curse Vettes using all the vending-machine 'Murica-Moan of big displacement and low power. These "actually-ing" paddock smartasses forget all about the Challenge Cars. In the 1980's C4's where lathering hot freedom all over Porsche, Lotus, and others in SCCA racing. No one could touch the Vettes. They took first in every race for three goddamn years! Once you tune a C4's suspension, you have a medium-sized sports car that handles like a machine half its size...with an engine bigger than anything else on the track. So what did all the manufacturers do? They lobbied to ban Corvettes from SCCA racing. "You're winning too much! Go away!" So, the Corvette Challenge Race was formed in 1987 where C4's could race against each other. The race had an unheard of $1,000,000 purse ($2,100,686.62 adjusted for inflation)!

On the fairground's autocross track a black C5 with a Procharger hissed away with every turn. It put on the biggest show because it was loud. Small children asked what was wrong with the car. A new C7 leisurely cruised around the track, only accelerating after the front wheels were straight again. The hardest charging cars were the C6s. They're no longer new cars, no longer in the spotlight. They're recent graduates at a college party. They're older, wiser, but no longer the young studs. They need to prove they they can still hang with Delta Kappa Delta Sigma Epsilon Delta Delta.

A blue C6 tried to drift "accidentally-on-purpose" around the last corner which just happens to be right in front of all the spectators. The driver kept panic-correcting every time the tires lost traction. From my point of view, he looked like he was just coming into the same corner too hot each time.

11:00am

The pain relievers were wearing off, but the corticosteroids were still circulating. Two men, who clearly own property, talked about the autocross race while exiting the the viewing area from the top of the fairgrounds hill. One said, "I got the book on how to do this. You have to study the cones."

11:09am

I arrived back in the basin of the fairgrounds by the grandstands. It was people watching time. Attendees were getting hungry. A peckish human wants everything now and that is when he or she is most entertaining.

A tattoo-sleeve girlfriend has a lunch of Red Bull and Instagram.

Children wriggled while restrained by Dad-hands. The kids wanted to touch the Corvettes. Who could blame the kids? They were surrounded by big cars that look like toy cars, especially early model C3s. But you can't touch. You can't even get close. The cars are loud! The cars look like fun! All the adults are having fun. The adults can get close but you can't get close. You have to be careful and stop, stop, stop, slow down, and stop. Parents gave their kids soda to calm them down.

I walked steady. Pain relievers were almost gone. Water, $3.

12:00 Noon

I ate a big sausage overloaded with peppers and onions. I saw a lone water on the grandstands and took it. There was no one around. I was thirsty and I figured whatever roid-rager going on inside me was more than enough to handle a Virginian's backwash.

A late 70's white C3 left its parking space and rolled around the fairgrounds for a bit. It parked, and set off again--slow rolling. The car returned to its grass allotment for a while before setting off again. This goes on enough that other Corvette owners remark, "There he goes again."

"Who?"

"You know..."

"Oh, that guy."

The C3 had no hood. The rocker covers were trimmed in gold. The supercharger was trimmed in gold. A small plaque affixed to the side of the supercharger housing read "24k Gold."

The loudspeaker atop the grandstands announced: "Welcome to Corvettes at Carlisle. Attenders are not permitted to drive any vehicle within the fairgrounds for the duration of today's events. Thank you. Today's weather forecast is sunny with highs in the lower 90's. Meet Chip Foose!"

1:00pm – Close

I lost my notebook for this portion of the report. It was back at Real Neal's encampment by the sausage stand. What follows comes directly from my medicated memory.

Short line to Meet Chip Foose. His table had many sharpies. He signed everything brought before him.

A distracted child looked at his reflection on a triple-waxed C5. His mother was 15 feet away calling. "Come on, let's go! Charlie! Charlie! I'm talking to you! We're leaving. I'm leaving you. Bye! Bye-by! Goodbye Charlie! I'm leaving you forever and you'll never see me again. Bye Bye! ...CHARLIE! MOVE IT!"

A rusted muffler lay on a blue tarp. On it was written the words "All Original."

Belts did their best.

C2 owners took valuables in and out of their trucks, smiling at C3 and C4 owners.

C4s looked so obtainable, sitting on the grass. Many were for sale. Many prices had only four digits. I saw, in my head, a C4 murdered-out with blackboard paint, knobby tires, and a flood LED light bar on the bumper. The transmission would be manual and the seats would be eBay race seats. The engine would be tuned up to "not crappy" levels. The headlights would actuate. The targa roof would be off and a mesh cage would replace it. To VALAHALLA!

I laid on the grass pulling my leg up to my chest, trying to stretch out my back muscles. I tried "The Cobra" but it hurt too much.

Two men in their 50s, who both looked like they had disappointing sons, pointed at a Power Wheels Corvette. "Here's one for Tom Cruise!"

A woman in a sun-dress pushed a stroller that carried her oxygen bottle. "I don't care...I don't care..." she said to a younger woman to her left who wasn't saying anything.

A man in his early 40s held his arms out to his sides just a little bit as if he has just finished a heavy weight-training workout and he couldn't straighten his arms just yet. He carried a goodie bag bursting with spray bottles for various levels of car detailing. His white T-shirt said "USA1." He looked to what was either his son or nephew, "Do you want to look at more cars?" The boy looked straight ahead and said yes after a two second pause.

My recollections end here. Regular Car Reviews will return to Carlisle for the 2016 Ford Nationals. I'm not sure if I'll be medicated.

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