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Steve Turkheimer

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Champagne Valentine Brunch – Claim Jumper

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Story: Scott Gregory
Photos: Scott Gregory

Love and breakfast were in the air on a cold, rainy, Sunday morning when we gathered around the fireplace at the Claim Jumper Restaurant for their special Sunday brunch buffet.


After being seated at two large tables, we were turned thirty -four of us loose on the buffet. From the fresh salad bar, to the omelet bar and carving stations, there was something for everyone- especially after two trips!


We had two friendly waitresses who, despite our apparent famine, kept up with the cold drinks and hot coffee.


With brunch nearly over, and the last few trips to the dessert counter completed, everyone had relaxed into pleasant conversation, when Tom Tomlinson surprised the ladies with red Valentine roses for each of them! Way to score points buddy- that was a hit!


We don’t have a Sunday event for March. Instead we have two Saturday events. The first, on Saturday the 16th is our Drive, Bowl, Eat, at the AMF Bowling Square Lanes in Arcadia. The second is Saturday March 30th. That’s our Day at the Races, with horses and horsepower! This is going to be a full day of activities, and it promises to be a good one.

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From the Driver’s Seat – Jan2019

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January 2019 President’s Message

Can you believe February is already upon us? It seems like it was just a year ago we were a month into the new year and here we are again.

While January was not our typical month in the SCVCC, there was still some action behind the scenes as our board transitions to its new configuration. I can report that our Activities Committee is taking the job seriously and working hard to get us rolling to many new events and destinations.

As you will read in a couple of pages, our new Secretary, Dan Clarkson is “right-on” with his pen and paper taking the minutes at our meetings. We should all show our appreciation to those who have stepped up to the plate mid-year to keep our board of directors running so smoothly.

While the winter rains are so appreciated with the several inches of moisture locally along with the many inches of snowpack added to our mountains, Corvette caravans are fewer in the winter months. We have time though to make sure our favorite cars are well maintained and detailed in the meantime.

Our SCVCC Webpage Events Section did have a couple opportunities for us to fire up the Vettes and get together in January. Our monthly Taste of the Town was held at Saddle Ranch Chop House and I must report a very good attendance of 25. TOT is every third Thursday at a local eating spot and if you haven’t attended in a while, you are missing out. The company is terrific and you don’t have to do dishes. What could be better?

January finished up with a Surprise Breakfast run on the 27th. We all like surprises and for sure runs are great too in our Corvettes, so when you put the two together you have the makings for a great turnout. That is just what we had when 42 members and guests showed up at 7:30 AM at our designated start place on the Old Road. Our Activities team briefed us on the basics of the caravan and we followed the leader away and south to parts unknown. The route took us through Pasadena on I-210, exiting at Myrtle Avenue to Jake’s Roadhouse. An awesome caravan of 22 Corvettes, with only one mishap – if anyone finds John Vega’s club flag, let him know!

We are looking forward to what February and the remainder of winter has in store, but with weather unlike the rest of the nation, we are in for more good Corvette times.

Time now to do serious planning for NCM Caravan 2019. If you haven’t gone before or want to check out more than CA-126, a cross country adventure in America’s Sport Car is a trip to remember.

Mike and Judy

Jakes Group

Mystery Breakfast Run – Jake’s Roadhouse

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Story: Mike Woodings
Photos: Judy Woodings and Mark Ware

With a rainy January almost behind us, it was finally time for our first club run for 2019 and our Activities Crew had a much-anticipated Mystery Breakfast Run arranged for us. Nobody but the planners had a clue about the destination, not even your writer.

January 27th gave us a gloriously beautiful morning with jackets only optional wear. As I pulled into the Chuy’s lot, well early of the start time, I found over a dozen Corvettes already assembled with nearly that many arriving soon thereafter. The SCVCC was eager to hit the road for parts unknown. Was it “drive to eat” or “eat after the drive”? I say the latter, with everyone ready to roll.

The headcount totaled 42, with 22 Corvettes, as Donna Webster briefed us on our route, but not giving a clue about our destination. We followed our instructions and the four taillights in front and drove south on I-5 and then transitioned to I-210 into Pasadena, then east on the 210 until we exited at Myrtle to turn north. The route was familiar and many of us figured Jake’s Roadhouse in Monrovia was where we were going.

Jake’s is a great destination, famous for their lemon raspberry pancakes, but also specializing in barbecue foods and sandwiches along with a friendly staff and never-ending buckets of peanuts.

Jake’s was new to many of our group , but for those of us who have eaten there before it was a treat. Living in Awesometown, Monrovia has an old-town flavor we don’t often experience. Our early arrival afforded us plenty of seating for a leisurely time together and as we completed our breakfast time, the confirmation about Jake’s being a great choice was seen in the waiting room and outside with scores of people waiting to be seated.

Thanks to our Activities Committee for the trip back to Jake’s and a big thank you to Jim and Donna Webster for their first run as caravan leaders, well done. Also, thanks to Ed Hoffman for handling the tail-gunner position and not losing anyone.

Saddle Ranch Chop House at the Westfield Valencia Town Center

Taste of the Town – Saddle Ranch

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Story: Mike Woodings
Photos: Judy Woodings

2019 is here and off to a good start. Our first gathering of the year was our monthly Taste of the Town social on January 17th. With two whole weeks since out last club meeting, you could tell the need to get together with fellow Corvette people was there.


Anthony, our always faithful Communications Guy, got the word out about the event from his new bunker over 400 miles away. Members were alert and answered the beckoning in great numbers. The destination was Saddle Ranch Chop House at the Valencia Mall, where Rock meets Western.

Most attendees were from the Rock side of the equation, while there were a couple Western people in the mix, complete with hats and even boots. It takes all kinds.


The headcount totaled twenty-five for this go around, up significantly (up 312%) from our previous TOT at the same location. Restaurant management were all eager and happy to take great care of our group with the increase in attendance, recalling when our numbers were down due to a large turnout for the Prescott Vette Sette car show last September, appreciative that the entire SCVCC didn’t depart from the community. By the way, none of our brave attendees got close to the bull. Could it be all of our bull riders now live in Arizona?

Our club has almost an entirely new Activities team, all eager to keep things rolling with many great activities for our members and guests in the new year.

Keep up to date for all of our upcoming events, outings and get-togethers by frequently taking a look at the Events Section of our club website. The Newsletter and Three Months at a Glance events listings are not always the final word for event dates and times since changes do occur from time to time. Listings in our webpage at scvcc.org are the final word so always check there before making plans.

I just checked the site and noted at this very moment our next TOT is at Maria Bonita Mexican Restaurant on February 21 @ 6:00 pm. I plan on being there for a taco or fajita, but I will be anxious to get an email update from Anthony and will be checking our events site to make sure I go the correct place. Hope to see you then, if not sooner.

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From the Driver’s Seat – Dec2018

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December 2018 President’s Message

Can you believe 2018 is in our rear-view mirrors? It is hard to believe that our club’s long awaited 40th Anniversary year has come and gone. We introduced a new custom logo for the celebration and emblazoned our t-shirts, polos, jackets and even our banner with the special emblem. We celebrated with special recognitions at our annual picnic and made our longevity known at our recent All-Corvette Car Show. We did good, but that was then and now is now.

Now we have 41 years to celebrate and be thankful for. We have gone through some significant changes in the past twelve months, not the least of which is an almost complete reorganization of your Board of Directors for our Santa Clarita Valley Corvette Club. We have a new VP, Jeff Hernandez; a new Secretary, Dan Clarkson; three new Activities Committee members, Donna Webster, Don Ceo and Karen Jewett and even a new chief executive, yours truly. That’s quite a change on one hand, but on the other, not really. We are all up to the task and ready to continue on in the finest tradition of the SCVCC.

Our December was just that, the final month of our calendar year with cooler temperatures, holiday celebrations and family time. Many of us enjoyed a time of giving as well as Corvette fun with a Caravan on December 1st to Santa Paula Chevrolet for the annual Toys for Tots event. Next was our traditional Christmas Party at the Sand Canyon Country Club. It was another delightful event where we got dressed up in first class club-wear or better and got together in an amazing number for a terrific party. We contributed again to the Santa Clarita Food Bank and enjoyed a time of dining and dancing with some of the best people in these parts, our membership.

As we move into 2019, we are sure to enjoy even more good times together as a club and also continue to leave a good mark in our community as an organization who cares. I am happy to report that the excellent reputation we enjoy has helped lock us in at the Oaks Club at Valencia for the next year with the recent signing of agreements for utilizing the Oaks Grille for our meeting location. We enjoy meeting there and the Oaks Club likes having us.

We are all in this club together and all have to work together to keep things fun for us all. Our club has been described as a family and as such we all play important parts. Even if you are bashful, each of you has the potential to be a leader in one way or another. You don’t have to be a board member to be active and contribute. The Activities Committee can always use suggestions and help with planning. Your help in taking pictures and contributing them along with articles for the Newsletter is always appreciated as well.

There is additionally the possibility of more personnel changes for your board on the horizon, so think about how you can contribute. Most important at the moment though is making our new year another banner year.

Happy New Year to you all,

Mike and Judy

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Merry Christmas, SCVCC Style 2018

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Story: Mike Woodings
Photos: Mike Woodings

Club activities in December give way to family time and for most of us, our SCVCC Christmas Party. Our 2018 party was indeed THE big December event for our club.

Throughout the year there are plenty of things that bring us together as a club to travel, sight see, perform and even eat with Corvettes all part of the action. Thanks always go out to our Activities people for making it all happen.

This time of the year is when we get together in another fashion though. We set aside the t-shirts for something a little fancier and even add music and dancing to the scenario. It’s party time!


Our 2018-2019 new board

On December 8th, over 100 of us got together at the Sand Canyon County Club for an evening of fun with our Corvette friends. The program changed some from previous parties without a rigid schedule, allowing for more time for visiting and dancing with a few door prizes and a big 50-50 drawing too. Our band, Drop Zone kept the party going with plenty of music and the dance floor was filled right up to the final song.

In the spirit of giving, we brought our contributions for Santa Clarita Food Pantry once again and thanks go out to Linda Butler for her tireless efforts for the organization and to all of you who helped this worthy cause. Additionally, what about the decorations this year? We all appreciate the work done by Tom and Judy Tomlinson with the table centerpieces. Deana Shaver and her staff are also to be recognized for putting this year’s party together.

Your writer just happened to have the Nikon in the car, so there was an opportunity for some prom pictures in the foyer. The pics are available in our Shutterfly album is you and your date would like a copy for next year’s Christmas card.

So, as always, at a time of year filled with many commitments, it is always fun to get together as Corvette friends to make the SCVCC Christmas Party the event of the year!

Toys for Tots

Toys for Tots 2018

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Story: Mike Woodings
Photos: Mike Woodings

December brings a time of giving and combine that with Corvettes, it was a time of caravan to Santa Paula Chevrolet to participate in the Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots event.

Major Bill Hendricks of the USMCR in Los Angeles founded Toys for Tots in in 1947. 5,000 toys were collected during the campaign that year. In 1948, the USMC expanded the program nationwide. Toys for Tots continued expanding to today and is named as a top charity in the Philanthropy 400 and is accredited by the BBB Wise Giving Alliance. In other words, it’s a great charity which helps a heck of a lot of kids at this time of year.

Annually, our sponsor Santa Paula Chevrolet holds a donation drive in which local Corvette clubs are invited to participate with their gifts for boys and girls and rolls out the red-carpet with a breakfast for participants at the dealership.


We had a great turnout on a beautiful December 1st morning. The road was clear and the caravan was spectacular as we rolled west on CA 126 yet again.


Once in Santa Paula, we joined our fellow Corvette people in filling the lot with Vettes and the contribution boxes with all sorts of cool toys, including some scale model Corvettes to perhaps inspire another generation before electric and self-driving cars have ruined their minds.

Giving is always a great thing to do and thanks to all who participated in this worthy event. Thanks too to our hosts, John and Sandra Macik of Santa Paula Chevrolet for including the SCVCC in this year’s Toys for Tots program.

And a final thanks to the Marines who serve our nation, not only locally, but around the world!

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From the Driver’s Seat – Nov2018

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November 2018 President’s Message

Wow, just like that, a new face on the Driver’s Seat page. In a way, I find it hard to believe that so suddenly a transition has just taken place. With my 10th anniversary of club membership on the very near horizon, I suppose I have enough under my belt for some reflection about my time as a member and where I see myself as your new chief executive.

I find myself in leadership of not only an older, well established Corvette club, but also a club with a large number of members much junior in tenure than myself. My detective background is cause for my curiosity and my earlier engineering training made numbers important to me. I have looked at our current roster and have found nearly half (42%) have been members for five years or less. That is quite a number. That 42% has known our most recent board of directors as their only board since joining.

We have all been comfortable with the stability we have experienced. Each month, our business meetings had the same players giving reports about our club, its finances and its activities. We happily attended each month and went on many cool runs and caravans with our only concern being where we would meet with a club of our size. While we said good-bye to a few members from time to time, we kept our membership maxed-out and to this day keep attracting more new friends who want to join us in our Corvette adventures. Still all good in my opinion, but some members with much more longevity recall different times when we had fewer rules to help us manage our number of members. I believe that while we may think we are “just a car club”, we are a fixture in our community with a reputation to protect for the sake of our future as a club. Our by-laws give us the focus we need for success.

So then, out of nowhere, our club has experienced an exodus to greener pastures by a large number of not just members, but a big slice of our board, as well as our most senior member. But guess what, we have our November meeting in the history book, our November activities were fun, and our December meeting is at hand. The SCVCC lives.

Our club has not missed a beat with the loss of half of our board since we have, if I might say so, good people remaining. We also have a great new VP (Jeff Hernandez) on board and three new volunteers (Donna Webster, Don Ceo and Karen Jewett) who are now in the Activities Committee. My thanks to them for being team players in filling the void we suddenly experienced.

Elke Couples, Mark Ware, Deana Shaver, and our new “Boss Lady” Judy Woodings remain as my current backbone with Anthony Bachmura also soon departing to Arizona. We are at the mid-point of the current club year and elections for the 2019 – 2020 club year will be here sooner than we can imagine. Other changes might occur then…or they might not. That remains to be seen.

But here we are, Thanksgiving is behind us with Christmas and New Years fast approaching, and hey, even with the changes, we still have a vibrant and exciting Corvette club and I am looking forward to all that we have ahead. We still need some help in the areas of Communications and Newsletter positions and I know there are some in our midst who can take over those positions and dangles. If a poor farm boy from Washington can be elected to the board of the greatest Corvette club in town, surely one of you can help us all “Save the Wave”!

Mike

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Edwards AFB Winterfest

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Story: Mike Woodings
Photos: Mike Woodings, Moira Moe, Google

The Holiday season is a time to join family to enjoy the traditions and festivities that go with this time of year. In that light, the invitation we received from the Simi Valley Corvette Club to join them in being part of the annual Edwards AFB Winterfest celebration was a great idea. Additionally, the concept of us and our Corvettes being part of the event was even more inviting.


Each year Edwards personnel and families gather in the Exchange parking lot for special winter activities and a tree lighting ceremony and this year, our Corvettes on display were to be an added attraction. But this year, rain came and we all anxiously watched the forecast hoping there would be no dampening of the Winterfest event.

On Friday, November 30th, 26 Corvettes and 45 participants assembled in the Kohl’s parking lot on Golden Valley Road to caravan up CA-14 for our final event of the month. We met up with caravans from Simi Valley Corvettes and Vintage Corvettes in Lancaster for a combined caravan of 65 cars onto the base.
We had already received clearance from USAF security for admittance onto the base, so our entry through the Rosamond gate went smoothly with all having already passed muster.


Edwards AFB is not only remote, it is big and spread out too, over 500 square miles. It was quite a drive just from the gate to the BX, but smooth sailing with our USAF Security Police escort.


The Winterfest celebration is organized by the 412th Force Support Squadron which this year additionally provided a tour of several sights on the base to show us where some of our taxes are spent.


The true highlight of the base tour was the up close and personal briefing we had about the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter, a single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multi-role aircraft. At $125 million apiece, the jets certainly would give our Vettes a run for the money, but our still worthy Corvettes, parked on display for interested base personnel, were a hit.

Edwards AFB dates back to 1937 when the Army Air Corps moved some bombardment exercises to Muroc and later in 1941 operations expanded with our build-up with WWII. In 1942, super-secret jet aircraft testing began. Following the war, testing continued and Muroc was renamed to Edwards Air Force Base in 1949.


The day was long, with our caravan, tours, and Corvette display and ended with the Christmas tree lighting.
Our run to Edwards can be summed up as an All-American holiday event with the coming together of our American military and our American Corvettes.

Our thanks to the Edwards staff and families and to the Simi Valley Corvette Club for including us in the Winterfest 2018 celebration.

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Taste of the Town – Yamato’s

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Story: Mike Woodings
Photos: Mike Woodings, Yelp

Our outgoing Activities guru, Joyce Bergmann, put together her final Taste of the Town event for our November club social night out on 11-15. Our destination, Yamato Japanese Steak House in Stevenson Ranch.


Just days prior, we returned from our Central Coast Getaway where we dined on Chinese food, so why not give other Asian cuisine equal time?

We had twenty-three in attendance, so it seems this was a good call for our Thursday dining out and was not too much rice for one week


The teppanyaki style of cooking is not only delicious, the entertainment is free. Modern teppanyaki grills are flat-surfaced grills used to cook food in front of guests at restaurants. Teppanyaki steakhouses place an emphasis on the chef performing a show for the diners. The chef might juggle utensils, flip a shrimp tail into his shirt pocket, catch an egg in his hat, toss an egg up in the air and split it with a spatula, flip flattened shrimp pieces into diners’ mouths, or arrange onion rings into fire-shooting volcanoes. There are however no broncing bulls some expect for a Corvette get together.

You must note that in December, there is NO Taste of the Town evening on our schedule. On December 20th, so far you are on your own for whatever menu you might choose. This may not be the final word on the subject though as sometimes things change after press time.

As always, keep your eyes open for changes coming up on our scvcc.org website and in your email. For those doing long term planning, our January TOT has not yet been announced since you might have noticed that our Activities Committee has been undergoing some changes.

But, thanks for getting us together and joining us one last time Joyce. Happy trails to you.

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