Kansas City Corvette Association



Australian Visitors

This month we had two visitors who travelled a great distance just to attend our meeting, Dave Schrapel and Sandra Matters from Adelaild, South Australia. In October 2014, Dave was visiting the states and attended the Car Show in Eureka Springs, AR. He approached Mike Moorman and asked for some information on KCCA. Mike brought him over to Ginny and Gary Hemphill and Cindy and Danny Townsend. At the time, Ginny was President and Cindy was Vice. Dave told Gary he "really liked his hat Mate", so Gary and Dave traded hats. He also gave us Kangaroo key chains. He wondered if he could get a t-shirt, so Danny literally gave him the KCCA 40th Anniversary "shirt off his back". Cindy and Ginny have been emailing him (and he is on Facebook) for the last 3 years and Dave promised he would come to a meeting. So this year Dave and Sandra made their plans for the trip centered on the date of our meeting in September. This is Dave's 6th time to the states but Sandra's 1st time. So they did it up right, landing in San Francisco, coming to KC, then to Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Las Vegas and finally Los Angeles for the 16-hour flight home. They plan to go to Graceland, tour a plantation learn about VooDoo, go to Grand Canyon and take a helicopter ride to the bottom, tour Hoover Dam, have fun in Vegas then drive to LA and go to Disney Land and Universal Studios.We took them to Strouds (loved the cinnamon rolls) and to Smokehouse BBQ. Wanted them to know what real BBQ was before they got to Memphis and Dallas. In addition, Sandra likes to shop, so that was easy for Ginny to do. They also managed to make a Corvette show and Cruise night in Blue Springs. Dave talked to the group about how difficult and expensive it was in Australia to have a Corvette and get parts. The good thing he is able to machine many of the things he needs. A "chain conversation" from left hand drive to right cost $20,000 on a C4. He actually ordered a few parts to be delivered to a friend’s house in LA for him to take home. They have very few C5s, C6s and virtually no C7s in the country. The import laws are very strict. He was previously the events coordinator for their club. They pretty well like to do the same things we do----drive their cars to fun places and new restaurants! Dave brought a goodie bag of gifts to give away. We did not get them all done, so we will have more of his items from Australia at the next meeting. We are so glad they made the trip.