[Eddie44]

I got to thinking this afternoon (as I was putting a business card on a great looking MY C5) that we have grown by leaps and bounds in the last few months. Somehow the word is getting out about this Forum. I wondered how you all heard about it? Just a suggestion that maybe we make this a sticky so we can learn how newbies heard about us.

I first heard about the AZ Vette Enthusiasts on the CF. I took my first cruise in May 03 just days after buying my Vette. The cruise was up over Mingus Mtn to Jerome, Cottonwood, Sedona and on to Flagstaff and then back down I-17 to Phx.
This was all before the Forum was even considered.

Okay, what's your story?

[1EvilC5]

I heard about it through the Corvette Forum.

First event was a the first Poker Run- Sept 03 that went to Rosevelt Lake a few years back. That was my Artic White Vette in the picture below.



Link to Pictures

Phil...

[P51tj]

Found this great place while sufing the net shortly after getting our 1st Vette in '04. While looking for Vette clubs in the area I found this site and never pursued any other clubs further. First talked with Mark and Tayna since they lived so close, and they suggested we join up on the '04 Toppless Cruise. Well that was our 1st taste of ACE and enjoyed it so much that we try to play with ACE as often as possible. We are still here and ain't going nowhere else anytime soon!!!

[Sidewinder]

Some friggin old lady in a black '98 told me about it.

[Eddie44]

Some friggin old lady in a black '98 told me about it.

Oh, I can't wait! Does anyone have her cell #?

[Desertdawg]

Well before the ACE website was ever thought of, ACE was just an email group of all Corvette Forum members that wanted to get together for BS-ing and other fun... (anyone remember the midget strippers???)...

One of the best hangouts, that I never had the pleasure of attending, was at the house of Scottsdale Jack's, he even had a urinal in the garage to keep everyone happy, and the plants alive around his house...

About the time I joined the email list, allot changed, most of the original members were moving on to other things, and before you knew it Bryan was the ring leader. We had a bunch of wrenching days at his house and thats about the time we decided to throw in some cruises. Also around this time the CF started the Brain Aneurysm fund cruise, we held our first poker run to raise money for this nation wide event, and we were also the group that raised the most money so we were awarded a brick at the Corvette Museum...



I'm sure Bryan can add a bunch more to this, and there's still a few old members registered here...

[ckaprolet]

Searching the internet for information on Corvettes after getting ours. I believe it was "Corvette Forum" I found first then linked to this place....I wasn't looking for a forum or group just good information. This place certainly fills both needs!
Thanks

[ICULUKN]

I was one of the charter member at the original corvette saturday (Jacks house).. There was maybe 10 of us.... Dwayne, Bryan, Me, Nate Caro (extreme motorsports *for at least a couple of weeks).... Jack...& Bill Reid.

[Togo]

i have been a member of "ACE" since the days of ol' Cactus Jacks house!
actually Bill Reid turned me on to this group - then he disappeared!
those were the days i had my silver '85!
still a great group - but some of our original members have dwindled away -
by screen name - purpleC4, mr freeze, cactus jack,
i'm sure there are more, i just can't think

[Scratch]

I may have saw it scratched into a bar top...somewhere in Cave Creek

[Kens06]

CF southwest section.
2nd annual Gila Bend Cruise!!

Found a great bunch of people!
For some reason they keep inviting me back??????????????

Ken

[Eddie44]

Found a great bunch of people!
For some reason they keep inviting me back??????????????

Only cause you take good pics and alot of em!   

I may have saw it scratched into a bar top...somewhere in Cave Creek 

[Phoenix FRC]

Corvette Forum.
I was exchanging conversation and asked if someone was from AZ? then asked if they where a member of DCA.
Phil spotted me and sent me a link.
SInce I figured out ACE has some DIY'er I haven't bothered being snubbed by DCA.

Thanks Phil,

Thomas

[VetteTax]

I heard about it through the Corvette Forum.

First event was a the first Poker Run- Sept 03 that went to Rosevelt Lake a few years back. That was my Artic White Vette in the picture below.



Link to Pictures

Phil...

Wow, Phil, I think that was my first ACE event too. I'm second from the right.

[MOTV8]

My first post:
"Very cool. Thank you for the welcome. I've been over on the CorvetteForum for awhile, I guess it was the first one I found when I went looking for answers. But I recently followed a link over here, and it looks like I'll be able to finally get some good advice on LOCAL stuff. Like who puts on new convertible tops that your wife buys you for X-mas? That'll be one of my first posts! Anyway, thanks again for the congeniality. I hope to get out and meet some of you, as soon as NFL play-offs are over! Very nice forum BTW. "

Thank you to all the 'old-timers' that got this ball rolling, it is very very cool. My wife also thanks you, she was getting worried that I was psychotically anti-social after moving down here. Go figure.

[BSeery]

Hmmmm -- I had my car for only 6 months and was looking to do some wrenching. I wanted to swap out the rear steel spring for a mono-composite spring. Someone on the CF suggested I come up to CactusJacks place and do it up there because they wanted to see how it was done. So, I hung around Jack's garage for a couple of Corvette Saturdays. After that we did the rear spring in his garage (see photos and a write up by clicking here ) and I kept coming back to help others on their cars. There was one cruise that we went on up to Prescott and back that was a lot of fun. There was the midget strippers at the pool, Jim King's bad luck and other memorable days with that group.

Jack moved, the Man's Garage was sold with the house and the group mostly broke up after that. I tried inviting as many people to my house to do some wrenching but even that started to decline after a while.

Many times people mentioned they really liked the cruising and had fun doing that. So I started trying to get people to come back by organizing cruises. We had some fun in Gila Bend, Doc's cruise to Sedona and back, Topless Cruise and a few others.


The forum and Arizona Vette net's history:

I needed a place to keep the pictures of our events. I had some web space from the old "@Home" service which became Cox.net. I used that web space to host some pages of pictures. It eventually outgrew my space, went to some space given to us by another ACE member and kept getting bigger. Web pages were added to advertise upcoming events. The first BAF poker cruise really got the publicity going and got membership up there pretty good. After that I started looking for a better home. I got the domain name "Arizona Vette.net" on November 2003. In April 2004 it was moved to it's current location. The new web hosting company came with free forum software and the rest grew from there.

Some interesting stats since April 2004:

April 10th 2004 - first day of the new forum.
By May 31st 2004 - 32 members.
August 31st - 57 members
December 31st 2004 - 75 members.
March 2005 - 105 members - finally past that magic 100 member mark.
July 2005 - 151 members - picking a few up.
Sept 2005 - 193 members.
December 2005 - 239 members. From March to December we more than doubled our membership.
Currently - 341 members.

Most joined at one time - 11 - April 22nd 2004. An email went out to the old e-mail list that was ACE inviting them to the Arizona Vette Net.

New Topics posted since April 2004 - 1690.
Total replies - 20,344.
Total views - 253,547
Off topic has 60,172 views and in second place is events with 58,840.

[Scottsdale Jack]

Howdy boys. Glad to see you are still a cohesive group. Allow you to remind you all, that the whole ACE thing started with just 3 Vette weenies; me, Mike Bruss (now drives a Lexus .....), and Ed Moriuchi, (drives a Nissan with the ole Vette in the garage). We all worked at ADOT and had Vettes. We began to gather at my little garage in Scottsdale, and thereafter inviting all comers on the CVF with their Vettes. It started slowly at first, but we had a REALLY GOOD bunch, and it grew and grew and we all became close friends over the next couple years. I can remember Canyon Sherer counting 32 Vettes at the house one weekend. The neighbors didn't seem to mind, until somebody (George Crouse) did a burnout while he was leaving. That was always a problem, as George had one HOT HOT Vette. We had members as far away as San Diego (Tim Austin) and Yuma (Mike Bowman), but, belive it or not, they showed up pretty regular on Corvette Saturdays. We all brought our beverage of choice, and sometimes the morning gatherings would last well into the night. Guys would bring skillets and make breakfast for everybody, then another guy would bring a crock pot of chili for lunch. All the while we were working on somebody's Vette. Great days and I am very proud to have been associated with ACE (Brian came up with the name ACE as well as the great logo) and I wish you all the joy that the group brought to me.
Other founding members:
Mike Bruss
Ed Moriuchi
Bill Reid
Joe Bria
Roger Legge
Stan Morton
Josh Corothers
Paul Hamersly
Rich Pagoria
Jim King
Canyon Scherer
Brian Seery
Tim Austin
Mike Bowman
and a few others whom I dearly miss. Great guys one and all.
All the best to you, and PLEASE keep your Vettes. My nephew has my last one and I still miss it after 4 years. But I live 8 miles out on a Jeep trail and could never have anything but a Jeep up here.
Jack Hammitt
SCOTTSDALE JACK ("Cactus Jack"? Tee hee, you old bastiches have no memory)

[Togo]

Howdy boys. Glad to see you are still a cohesive group. Allow you to remind you all, that the whole ACE thing started with just 3 Vette weenies; me, Mike Bruss (now drives a Lexus .....), and Ed Moriuchi, (drives a Nissan with the ole Vette in the garage). We all worked at ADOT and had Vettes. We began to gather at my little garage in Scottsdale, and thereafter inviting all comers on the CVF with their Vettes. It started slowly at first, but we had a REALLY GOOD bunch, and it grew and grew and we all became close friends over the next couple years. I can remember Canyon Sherer counting 32 Vettes at the house one weekend. The neighbors didn't seem to mind, until somebody (George Crouse) did a burnout while he was leaving. That was always a problem, as George had one HOT HOT Vette. We had members as far away as San Diego (Tim Austin) and Yuma (Mike Bowman), but, belive it or not, they showed up pretty regular on Corvette Saturdays. We all brought our beverage of choice, and sometimes the morning gatherings would last well into the night. Guys would bring skillets and make breakfast for everybody, then another guy would bring a crock pot of chili for lunch. All the while we were working on somebody's Vette. Great days and I am very proud to have been associated with ACE (Brian came up with the name ACE as well as the great logo) and I wish you all the joy that the group brought to me.
Other founding members:
Mike Bruss
Ed Moriuchi
Bill Reid
Joe Bria
Roger Legge
Stan Morton
Josh Corothers
Paul Hamersly
Rich Pagoria
Jim King
Canyon Scherer
Brian Seery
Tim Austin
Mike Bowman
and a few others whom I dearly miss. Great guys one and all.
All the best to you, and PLEASE keep your Vettes. My nephew has my last one and I still miss it after 4 years. But I live 8 miles out on a Jeep trail and could never have anything but a Jeep up here.
Jack Hammitt
SCOTTSDALE JACK ("Cactus Jack"? Tee hee, you old bastiches have no memory)

HOLY SHIAT! how'd you get wind of this?

interestingly enough jack, i had my original post as scottsdale jack, but that didn't look right, and when someone else mentioned cactus jack, i HAD to go back and edit it as to not look like a fool - guess fools run in crowds (and drive vettes!)
i'm sad though that you didn't include me in the group i'm not sure exactly when i joined up, but bill reid had me come out and we swapped my chip in my '85 for his hypertech - it was my first mod/repair etc. and i couldn't have done it without you guys!


Hey Jack, if your nephew has yours, you should set something up and come down and hang for a day - it'd be a blast - we haven't heard much from you in a long time, and it's been even longer since we'd all seen ya!

[Desertdawg]

Jacks on the email list.... it's good to know at least one person read it.....

Howdy Jack...

[1EvilC5]

This thread is very interesting, the drama just turned into a scene from City Slikers.

Very cool one of the founding members jumps in and gives a history lesson on how the group first started.

As for George Crouse, Bryan, Glenn and I ran into him at the Arizona Power & Sound grand opening. I believe he still has his Vette, but it was not running.

Who's next to share their first encounter?

Phil...

[Togo]

This thread is very interesting, the drama just turned into a scene from City Slikers.

Very cool one of the founding members jumps in and gives a history lesson on how the group first started.

As for George Crouse, Bryan, Glenn and I ran into him at the Arizona Power & Sound grand opening. I believe he still has his Vette, but it was not running.

Who's next to share their first encounter?

Phil...

george has been pretty busy - he has 2 daughters now and this is a pic of his "recent" work
http://temp.corvetteforum.net/c4/gcrouse//.../ic_pipes_f.jpg
(i put the link as to not totally hijack)

back to our regular scheduled program

[roneva]

Heard about ACE from my son-in-law who met you guys at the Pavillions. Have enjoyed the comradeship and the cruises. I'm not much in the mechanicals, but really enjoy reading about them and knowing where to take mine for the mods!