New Date: Saturady September 19th
Time: 11am-3pm (Central Time)
Plateau Corvette Club
Corvette — "The Great American Sports Car" e-mail: plateaucorvette@gmail.com- Club Sponsor " Dave Kirk Automotive"
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On the Labor Day Holiday, September 7th, Les and Kelly Rhoades (in their Jeep, because the Corvette was in the shop getting two wheels replaced) hosted a PCC club cruise with the support from Terry and Sharon Pearson who helped lead the way. Six PCC Corvettes (12 club members total) attended the 11th Annual Netherland Church of Christ, Labor Day Car Show.
The great bluegrass music was performed by the band; Conspiracy To Kill A Possum. I’m glad we arrived a bit early and secured some great asphalt parking spots because by 9:30, groups of 30 or more cars were streaming in seemingly nonstop. The show is from 10am-Noon. This is the third year I have attended this event and clearly it was the largest attendance I have seen. After the show, we drove down to Cookeville and ate lunch at Crawdaddy’s restaurant. This show is a don’t miss annual event. Maybe we’ll see you next year.
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Les and Kelly Rhoades hosted an overnight club ride to visit the Bristol Dragway to experience the thunder of injected nitrous 3,500+ horsepower rockets. Six Corvettes (11 people) came to the line and stagged for departure at the Crossville Buc-ee’s. The threat of rain loomed all around us, but everyone was still excited and happy to be on our overnight road trip to Bristol. Everyone knows it’s been a very rainy summer thus far, so we all expected to get wet at some point on this trip. When we arrived in Johnson city at 3:30pm the rain was pouring down. We were only 20 minutes from the drag strip, so we made a unanimous decision to check-in at the hotel and see if we could find any updated information to tell us if the race had been cancelled or not. That event research ended with a long story, so I’ll skip to the fact that Tina finally found a post indicating the race had been rain delayed, but expected to proceed at 6:30pm in the evening. Fast forward…the racing did continue some time after 6pm and we got to enjoy hours of heart pounding 1/8 mile drag racing without the rain every returning.
The next morning, we woke up to the sun shining and nearly clear skies. The convertibles were put down as we readied ourselves for some great North Carolina twisty road driving. We started off the morning by driving to the Hot Springs NC Visited Center for a quick stop before heading south for 36 miles on “Hwy 209 – The Rattler”. Traveling thru the Pisgah National Forest and over the Great Smokey Mountains is where you’ll find “The Rattler”. This stretch of road has a reputation for offering some of the most attention demanding, but beautiful driving you will ever experience. Once you’ve successfully ridden “The Rattler”, you will understand why all the others could merely be considered preparation rides.
We ate lunch in Maggie Valley before making driving the northern section of “Moonshine 28” where we stopped at the Fontana Dam Visitors Center. Lucky for us, the road leading to the Fontana Dam had been recently repaved making for a fun smooth drive. In the good old days this road was popular with moonshiner runners. The road today boasts great twisties with wide sweepers and fun up and down sections to enjoy.
It was no quiescence we went in this direction because Moonshiner 28 connects to the eastern end of the “Tail of The Dragon”. By the time we left Fontana Dam the rain started coming down quite heavily. This slowed down any further possibilities of spirited driving and allowed us to simply enjoy driving along Cheoah Lake on our way to the Tail of the Dragon. For those who have yet to drive this section of Hwy 129…it boasts 318 curves in just 11 miles and hyped to be one of America’s most thrilling destinations for motorcycle riders and sports car enthusiasts. Even on this Sunday in the rain the blue and red lights were out patrolling. We passed one police car parked on side of the road giving a little Mazda Miata a souvenir for his efforts. Our drive continued slow and controlled in the pouring rain. For us, it was yet another wet run down the Tail of The Dragon.
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Thank You Claudia and Dan Manring for planning the ride. Always a good day spent with Friends! It was another “On The Road Again” day with Plateau Corvette Club friends. It was a beautiful sunny summer day to Chase more waterfalls. Today’s destination was “Fall Creek Falls”.
Our first stop was the Nature Center in the park. We had some splendid waterfall views from the long Swinging Bridge. Near the bridge is a new overlook that was recently opened for handicapped access, providing a nice look at the cascades. Another waterfall was visible down some steps.
The next stop was the “Big Falls” which is just a short walk from the parking lot. There were a few people swimming or at least cooling off in the water.
Lunch was at the “Ugly Mug” in Spencer,… no disappointments there. Good food and service.
After lunch, some club members went directly home and a few of us opted for Ice Cream in Sparta at the Dairy Queen. A well-deserved finish to the day after a nice drive in our Corvettes.
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Brad & Amy King’s FIRST EVER Club Ride!
Ten PCC Corvettes were back on the road as Brad and Amy King proudly hosted and led their very first Plateau Corvette Club ride — and what a fantastic day it turned out to be!
We kicked things off with 10 beautiful Corvettes rolling toward Bert’s Hometown Grill in Madisonville, TN. Great food, great friends, and plenty of laughter set the tone for the day.
After lunch, the group headed out to Bald River Falls and the Cherohala Skyway in the Cherokee National Forest. As our member Sharon Pearson shared, the area had heavy rain the night before — which made the river and Falls absolutely roar. She said it was more water than she had ever seen on previous visits… “truly one of God’s masterpieces on full display”.
Great friends. Great roads. Good food. Good times.
This is what keeps our club rolling down the road. Save The Wave!
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On Friday June 26, 2026 Claudia and Dan Manring hosted a club ride to Calhoun’s restaurant in Lenoir City. A Pit Stop was held at Watts Bar Park.
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Saturday June 27, 2026 – Another great small town car show was held on Main Street in downtown Crossville. Thanks to the host, Crossville Cruisers. The last event for the year will be held on July 25th from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM
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On Memorial Day weekend, May 22nd and 23rd, Les and Kelly Rhoades organized an overnight road trip for our club members driving down to the Talladega Superspeedway to get on the track for some fun laps. It was a successful trip and Kelly and I were able to check off three more things from our bucket list. The event centers around raising money for our Veterans. Hendrick Driven for Veterans is an Alabama-based non-profit initiative dedicated to supporting veterans, active-duty military, and their families.
On our Friday morning drive from Crossville down the mountain to Pikeville, we drove through a small typhon of rain, which I’m sure had everyone wondering why we were still going on the trip. With chins up and smiles on our faces, we continued down the highway. By the time we made it to the International Motorsports Hall of Fame Museum, mid-afternoon, the clouds had mostly disappeared and we had a dry parking lot. The NASCAR Museum was well worth a visit. The facility was packed full of historical race cars and memorabilia. You’ll also find cars that are not part of the NASCAR history, like John Force’s dragster.
After our museum tour, we drove over to the Speedway and found the infield garage complex where we picked up our event packets, which included windshield decals showing your session number and merchandise (t-shirt) we had purchased in advance. To our surprise, we were given an early 8:30am track time. It’s a good thing we drove down the night before. We decided to go check into our hotel and then dine across the street at a newly opened Olive Garden restaurant. It’s not always easy finding a place that can sit 20 people.
On Saturday morning we woke up early to sunshine and warm weather. It was tops down on the drive over to the track. We arrived to see several long rows of Corvettes already parked outside the turn 4 tunnel waiting to be directed into the track. This gave us plenty of time to get out of our cars and take it all in the splendor of actually being at Talladega, socialize a bit with friends and strangers and put our session number decal on our windshield. Soon we were given the signal to drive into the infield garages where we would stage for our laps on the track. It was odd how much right-hand turning force was required on the steering wheel to actually go left in the corners. Somewhere, I heard that you have to go a minimum of 80mph to stay up on the track. We were a little faster than that…..some more than others. (insert picture of smiling face here).
After we all finished our laps on the track, we drove about 35-minutes over to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. Barber Motorsports Park an 880-acre park which features a 2.38-mile professional racetrack is anchored by the museum. The Motorsports Museum is a massive 5-story, 230,000-square-foot facility. [The museum holds the Guinness World Record for the largest motorcycle collection in the world, alongside an impressive array of vintage racecars, boat motors, bicycles and more.] It houses over 1,800 motorcycles (fully operational) representing 220 manufacturers from 22 countries, spanning over 100 years of production. It also features the world’s most extensive collection of Lotus racecars. Thanks to one of the docents at the museum entrance, I was able to find the collections first three monocycles. (Honda Interceptors #1, #2 & #3).
Plateau Corvette Club 