Corvettes roar to win revving contest at this Oregon fundraiser

About 85 Corvettes roared into the TC Chevy dealership Saturday in Ashland to raise money for children with medical needs and make some noise.

The revving contest, where five drivers put their car in neutral and floored the accelerator pedal, broke Oregon’s legal nighttime decibel levels and prompted some in the large crowd to cheer and cover their ears.

In the end, Jakobe Diaz, a wildland fire fighter who lives in Medford, was awarded the loudest Corvette trophy for his modified 2004 car.

Saturday’s 3rd Annual Corvette Show raised money for the

Southern Oregon Sparrow Clubs

, where students perform community service work and businesses donate funds to a classmate with medical expenses.

Family owned TC Chevy sponsored the fundraising event and partnered with the 50-year-old

Southern Oregon Corvette Association

, which the dealership also sponsors.

Ron Howard, the regional Corvette club’s president, and his team were at the dealership long before the 10 a.m. start of the event to direct a steady stream of Corvette drivers to their display spot. Corvette owners living outside the Rogue Valley came from as far away as the Oregon coast and northern California.

There are more than

10 Corvette clubs

in Oregon that organize social events and provide members with technical and service information.

Southern Oregon Corvette Association

members participate in

Eagle Point’s Fourth of July parade

and put on day cruises and gatherings open to the public.

The club is hosting the 30th

Corvette Weekend

show July 18-20 at

Riverside Park

, 304 E. Park St. in Grants Pass. In the past, the club donated $18,000 raised at the show to

Candlelighters For Children With Cancer

.

“The cars brought us together,” said Wayne Shelford of Grants Pass, who is Southern Oregon Corvette Association’s vice president, “but it’s all about the people, raising money and giving it away.”

The

Chevrolet Corvette

has been produced for so long

—

since 1953

—

that an owner could have been influenced to want America’s first sports car by watching the 1960s television show

“Route 66,”

hearing Prince perform his 1983 hit

“Little Red Corvette”

or learning the “Sideswipe” character in the “Transformers”


movies was based on the

2009 Corvette Stingray concept car

.

Kent Washburn drove his 1963 Corvette Sport Coupe, still in original condition, from Grants Pass to Saturday’s event. His car’s highly praised, two-piece rear window split by a central pillar, called the “split-window design,” was offered only that one year. He bought the used classic for $2,800 in 1978.

Parked nearby was a gray

2024 Corvette 2LT convertible

the dealership listed for sale at $99,400.

Many of the drivers at Saturday’s event are second-generation owners. Howard drives a 2008 Jetstream Blue Corvette his dairy-farmer father bought after his Grants Pass farm was acquired to build a public school.

Notable on all eight generations of Corvettes, from the first model to new ones: The logo’s checkered race flag and a fleur-de-lis to represent Chevy founder Louis Chevrolet’s French roots. The Corvette name was inspired by a warship.

Dan Hagerty of

Vetteworks Motorsports

in Central Point was one of the drivers vying in the revving competition. While in neutral, he depressed the clutch pedal and accelerator pedal of his 1968 Corvette to increase the speed and sound intensity of the LS2 engine’s rotation.

TC Chevy general sales manager Tim Hawkins held his cell phone near the exhaust pipe for a smartphone app to measure decibel values amid puffs of exhaust smoke.

Another hopeful driver in the contest tried to coax more noise from her 2004 commemorative edition Corvette with a racing Billy Boat exhaust system that she said added “an extra 40 under the hood with an extra 35 on the rear.”

A trophy for best classic was awarded to a 1976 Corvette owned by the Dean-Dailey family of White City. And the trophy for best overall Corvette went to Ron Atkinson for his 1972 Baltic Blue Stingray convertible.

Southern Oregon Corvette Association is a member club of the

National Corvette Museum

in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Across the street from the nonprofit museum is

General Motors’ Bowling Green Corvette assembly plant

, the only place in the world where Chevrolet Corvettes, including the Stingray, Z06, E-Ray and ZR1, and “low-volume, high-performance engines” are made.

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— Janet Eastman covers design and trends. Reach her at 503-294-4072,


jeastman@oregonian.com


and follow her on X


@janeteastman


.

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