ZR-1 at The Amelia

[mackguy]

Last weekend was the 30th anniversary of "The Amelia" Concours on Amelia Island Florida. I've been a regular attendee since my parents moved to the island in 2007, though never participated in any capacity.

A few years ago they started doing a RADwood show as one of the surrounding events to the main Concours, and since picking up my 40th Anniversary ZR-1 last year I had something bring! I opted for the "RADwood Royalty" package which gets better parking and a few other benefits, and personally think a C4 ZR-1 is among "peak RADwood" cars so it made sense.

My 11 year old is a Corvette fanatic, and I'm planning to take him to the NCM this summer, so for this trip I brought my 8 year old. First real trip for both of us in the Corvette since I bought it in September. Got all the fluids changed with Amsoil, did a quick wash & polish, and loaded up with stuff, we headed down Thursday after school.

A little over 6 hours from school to my parents' house, we arrived about 10.

Friday we were off to the Classic Motorsports Amelia Kickoff show, which was very eclectic, I ended up parked between a 2020 Morgan +4 and a GT40 replica. My parents took my mom's series I E-Type.
My son thought the judges had something wrong with them as I didn't win any award, and neither did the GT40, and he thought those were clearly the 2 best cars there!

Due to weather this year they compressed the schedule, moving the main concours to Saturday, alongside the RADwood show.
One of the neat features of the Amelia concours is they usually drive the show cars onto the field at dawn, so if you arrive a bit before dawn you get to watch a parade of great cars, so we headed over about 6am but there seemed to be some delay and the movement had just started before my son and I had to head back to the Corvette to get lined up for RADwood, thankfully my dad and friend stayed behind to see the action.

Leaving Sunday we ran into the heavy rain that had caused the schedule change, but the Michelin Pilot Sport AS4 did their job great, and we pushed through, weather cleared up around Savannah.

All in, 1,003 miles added, the car performed great, even managed 24mpg on the way down and about 21 on the return trip (heavy rain & heavy traffic) which seems pretty good for a 30 year old supercar! 20 gallon tank is nice as well, giving me much longer range than my Bentley or Challenger manage. Cruised comfortably at whatever speed I wanted.

Only real negatives are between the 65,000 miles and 30 years, the suspension is showing its age, and was a little wallowy on some of the road heaves. Sport setting helped, but I think the shocks are worn. I'm planning to do a full suspension rebuild at some point, but not urgent. And my AC is low on refrigerant so it got a bit warm on the drive home. But any time you can take a 32 year old car on a thousand mile trip without a hiccup is a win in my book!

[mackguy]

more pics

[mackguy]

More pics

[double]

Sounds like it was a great time with memories I'm sure your son will cherish!

[crazey]

Nice!