Florida Corvette Club Inc. - The Most Active Club In Florida

Mystery Trip
The Don Garlits Museum

May 28, 2005

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President John Whaley planned one of his memorable Mystery Day Trips. This one was fabulous.
We met at the Seminole Towne Center parking lot, full of expectations and excitement to see where our journey would take us. We traveled beautiful winding backroads up towards Ocala. It was, as usual, quite the sight to see nothing but beautiful Corvettes lining the road. One man came out from his porch to take pictures of each and every one and wave to all of us as we cruised by.

About half way through we met up with Vettes-R-Us, a corvette club from Lake County. They followed us the rest of the way to the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing. Don, as I am sure all of you know, is the "king of dragsters". You can imagine our surprise when John had arranged to have "Big Daddy" Don Garlits himself show us around the shop and museum. He took the time to explain to us all about drag racing, about his experiences and what goes into manufacturing the awesome machines that he uses. He showed us his prototype "Swamp Rats" and gave us a personal tour of his shops where he restores classic dragsters. As a thank you for the great tour the Florida Corvette Club gave "Big Daddy" a FCC T-shirt autographed by the club members and a Club Flag. He was very touched to receive this. Being a man of great taste, Don himself is a corvette owner, with a 50th anniversary Vette.

On the trip we also had a Mystery Guest. Our very own WEBMASTER, the best in the world, Ron Lemon was in town visiting, with his girlfriend Christine. He is such an important part of our club even though he is behind the scenes. It was great for new members that didn't know Ron when he lived in Orlando to meet the GENIUS behind our great Website, and it was a pleasure for all of us who missed him so dearly over this past three years since his move to see him again. After meeting Christine, we could all see what is keeping him away. She is a very sweet and charming woman. It is our sincere hope that they will move back down to Florida where they belong or at least come and visit a bit more often.

After the day of touring the Museum of Drag Racing and the Antique Auto Museum, most of the club members went to dinner at Sonny's Bar-B-Q. All in all it was a very enjoyable day. Thanks John for all of the hard work you did in planning a fantastic Mystery Day Trip. It is one that we will remember for a very long time. Special thanks also to the Stevens and Jim Bott for providing pictures of our trip.