MBCA Carolinas Section Second Quarter 2012

SECOND QTR 2012

MBCA | Carolinas Section THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE MERCEDES BENZ CLUB OF AMERICA, CAROLINAS SECTION

The Tour of a

Lifetime

By Melissa Sprouse Browne

PRIVATE TOUR OF HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS If you were one of the lucky fifty or so members to attend the private, behind the scenes tour of Hendrick Motorsports at 4400 Papa Joe Hendrick Boulevard in Charlotte, North Carolina, you know first-hand just how unbelievable it was. If you weren’t there, then read on to find out how complex and surprising their operation really is.

If the tour was so great, you may be expecting detailed photographs from the machine shop or the fabrication areas. How about ones from inside the museum?

There aren’t any.

Why, you ask? The entire campus of Hendick Motorsports is highly secured and not open to the general public. No cameras or recording devices of any kind are allowed. Outside shots were acceptable, and those pictures accompany this story later in the publication.

Opening the doors to the secret world of Hendrick Racing is a privilege bestowed upon very few, and one for which the members of the Mercedes Benz Club of America, Carolinas Section are quite grateful.

We arrived at the Hendrick campus around 9:30am. Another beautiful day in North Carolina, the sun was bright and the temperature was already rising. One of the largest groups to ever CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

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CONTENT 2

President’s Message

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New Member Roster & Benefits

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Hendrick Motorsports

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Calendar of Events

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Legends of the Autobahn

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Odds and Ends

PRESIDENT Richard Deiber Huntersville, NC (704) 948-1433 president@mbcacarolinas.org IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT Anthony Santagati Beaufort, SC (843) 522-9444 sandspub@aol.com VICE PRESIDENT Soren Pedersen Waxhaw, NC (980) 722-5651 vicepresident@mbcacarolinas.org SECRETARY Position Vacant TREASURER Roy L. Davis Columbia, SC (803) 331-1852 royleedavis42@gmail.com MEMBERSHIP CHAIR Fred Harris Statesville, NC (704) 902-6253 harrisfred@hotmail.com EVENTS CHAIR Position Vacant NEWSLETTER EDITOR Melissa Sprouse Browne Columbia, SC (803) 791-3800 info@mbcacarolinas.org

From the National Business Office: With every email and address update that we receive at the NBO, we will send a 10% off coupon for one item in the Club Store. One coupon per member will be sent electronically (so it must 2 include a valid email address). Please send these updates to Geni at geni@mbca.org.

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

New Blood

We are turning the corner with participation; the tour of Hendrick Motorsports marking our first event of the year with more than fifty people in attendance. The very next event is our Annual Dock Party, planned for Saturday, z i b . r June 9th at the home of Henry and ibe rick@de Katherine Dunbar in Charleston. The dock party is usually very well attended, so I hope to see plenty of folks there.

With an good influx of new members over the past months, we are excited about the direction the club is taking. As my term is about to expire, as well as the term for vice president, it would be great to see a new member who wants to become more involved step up for a leadership role. If you are thinking about getting more involved, please contact me - we could use you as an officer or event planner for the coming year.

I would like to thank Ed Keady of Hendrick Motors in Charlotte for working so tirelessly to set up the private tour of Hendrick Motorsports. You’re an asset to the Mercedes brand.

Have a great summer and get out and drive your Mercedes!

About MBCA Established in 1956, MBCA has approximately 20,240 active members and 9251 additional household members in 12 regions which are comprised of 80+ local sections throughout the United States and Canada.

Each region is adminstered by a regional director who is responsible for assisting and inspiring the sections in the region. The regional director also fosters the formation of new sections, coordinates regional activities and represents the constituents as a member of the national board of directors. Hundreds of events are organized by sections, from social gatherings to tech sessions, from car shows to driving events. Most sections publish a newsletter of information and events and each section has its own officers and bylaws.

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WHAT’S NEW: 22 NEW MEMBERS! We are so pleased to welcome the newest members of the Mercedes Benz Club of America to the Carolinas Section!

Ellen Boyd Augusta GA William Cofield

Denver

NC

Charles Finkel Rosman NC There’s a lot of good to be had from your membership!

Matthew Krieger Harrisburg NC In addition to all of Bob Lindberg Charlotte NC the cool things you get from National, such as Candace McKey Highlands NC the loyalty discount you receive on the purchase Sherrod Morehead Beaufort SC of a new Merceds Benz, your very own Carolinas Patrick Owen Columbia SC Section offers special Drew Phythian Pineville NC benefits, too!

First, as a new David Rice Charlotte NC member, please feel free to attend an event at Judy Rice Charlotte NC no charge. For activities Erich Schmidt Charleston SC that include travel or dinner, those expenses will still remain the Scott Segui Rock Hill SC responsiblity of the Thomas Setz Concord NC member. But any cost charged by the club Tom Thornburg Charlotte NC to participate will be waived for your first Patrick Uli Concord NC outing.

Second, your club Herbert Van Der Ven Whittier NC officers have made Jenner Wall Charlotte NC some amazing arrangements with William Wentz Charlotte NC dealers in our territory to offer discounts above Rugby Hodgkins

Gastonia

NC

and beyond the normal extended to a club member.

At Hendrick Motors of Charlotte and Mercedes Benz of Myrtle Beach, members receive a fifteen percent discount on parts. AND, both dealerships generously offer a reduced hourly labor rate of $99, which represents a savings of thirty percent over the standard rate!

Finally, a chance to meet with fellow enthusiasts may provide benefits you never expected. One chance conversation might lead you to that one piece of information you needed; for example, several of our members are very knowledgeable about parts and may be may be able to point you to a resource you never knew existed for that one part you needed.

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BENEFITS FOR NEW Tony Gray Matthews NC MEMBERS

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PRIVATE TOUR OF HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS attend a Carolinas Section event, we anxiously awaited the start of the tour.

William West Hopper, Eastern Regional Director of MBCA, addressed the group and shared his enthusiasm for the unusual sneek peak we were about to receive into the world of NASCAR racing.

Ed Keady, General Manager of Hendrick Motors of Charlotte, was responsible for arranging the tour and came along to enjoy the sights and sounds with all of the members. He spoke to the group immediately after William Hopper and then we stood together for one of the few photos from the trip.

Two tour guides from Hendrick Motosports were provided and divided our group into two sections of approximately 25 members each. One group started on one end of the operation and the other group started on another end.

We walked up to the machine shop and waited for our guide to use her security key card to gain access to the building.

Once inside, the noise was almost deafening.

Multitudes of high end fabrication machinery hummed away, tended by expert machinists.

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Provided by Haas Automation, the CNC lathes and machining centers were hard at work making parts for all of the race cars fielded by Hendrick. Except for the engine block, they make all of the parts for every single race car on site.

For example, they can make one oil pan per day.

Following the Japanese model of manufacturing, the floor was perfectly clean and white. Nothing was greasy, nothing was even remotely dusty. You could, as they say, eat off the floor.

We journeyed onward out of the machine shop and up a long hallway, lined with large prints of advertisements touting their many victories and championships. Our guide shared that whenever one of their drivers wins a race, all six hundred and sixteen Hendrick employees receive a bonus. When one of their drivers wins a championship, each employee gets a piece of championship jewelry.

Further down the hall, we passed the dynamometer, or “dyno” for short. The dyno measures engine power and theirs was heavily worked. Our tour guide explained engines are built for seven teams. All engines are specified to run within five horsepower of each other and this spec is checked on the dyno before each

one leaves the plant. There is a difference that can be achieved during the last ten races of the season but exactly what the difference was she didn’t disclose.

We had a chance to take a souvenir, which my husband and I accepted as a fond remembrance of the tour. What was it? A spark plug from one of Jimmie Johnson’s race cars.

The engine assembly area was next, with a ceiling-mounted lift to move completed engines to their racks for final inspection.

Each engine part is numbered and tracked for performance. In some cases, parts can be re-used.

Once they have fulfilled their usefulness, they are melted down and the metal reclaimed.

S in progress on cars for Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon. The shop had an area in front that was open to the public, with a few show cars and a window to see some of the workings of the crew.

We took a few minutes to explore the public area and then continued our privileged access into the forbidden zone.

In the large open area where the cars were assembled and finalized for inspection by NASCAR, we noticed several large metal plates in the floor. These

plates were perfectly level so each car could be completed to the very exacting tolerances required by Hendrick standards.

Since Dupont is a major sponsor, Hendrick Motorsports tries to paint as many of their race cars as possible. However, if they’re not painting a car, they will likely use a full body wrap instead. We watched one being applied, and it’s essentially a giant sticker that covers the entire body of the vehicle.

One car that looked ready to go was Jeff Gordon’s car with the AARP Drive to End Hunger wrap.

In the areas above the shop floor were several private offices CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

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We were there on a Friday of a race weekend, so there were only seven completed engines on the racks at the time. The rest had been taken by their respective teams for the upcoming race.

On a normal day, three times as many engines would be there.

We departed the engine assembly area and made our way out into the bright sunshine.

The Raced Parts building was to the right as we walked out above the practice field for the pit crews.

The outdoor area was grassy and enclosed, but again, not in use since the crews were already gone for the race weekend.

Up the hill and to the right were the 5/24 and the 48/88 shops. The numbers stand for NASCAR race driver numbers, belonging to : #5, Kasey Kahne; #24, Jeff Gordon; #48, Jimmie Johnson; and #88, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Our group was given a choice: what shop did we want to see? We selected the 5/24 building and saw the work

2012 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

JUNE

•June 9: Annual Dock Party. A Carolinas Section tradition, the annual Dock Party will be held in

Charleston at the home of Henry and Katherine Dunbar. Right on the water, enjoy sitting on the dock while eating some of the finest LowCountry Boil anywhere. For additional details, please contact Henry Dunbar at 843-670-6000 or at dunbardome@yahoo.com.

•June 23: Augusta/Aiken with Peachtree Section. Start at Mercedes Benz of Augusta at

10:30am for member car show, tour and lunch, leave at 1:00pm for Aiken for a trolley tour and ending at Wilcox Inn at 6:00pm for dinner. Dinner is $35 per person. Contact Al Farlow, 706-860-6103 or at wlfacf@ juno.com.

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•August 16 - 17: Road Trip to Alabama Mercedes Benz Plant Tour. The Mercedes Benz

Manufacturing Facility is located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The plant tour will be on Thursday, August 16 at 12:45p.m. Tour fee is $5 per guest. Transportation will be provided to Alabama.

SEPTEMBER •Columbia, SC Member Barbecue. Hosted by Carolinas Section members in the Columbia area, this Fall party is a must! Additional details will be forthcoming.

•Sept. 20 - 23: Charlotte Auto Fair. The Fall version of the popular car enthusiast event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

•September 29: Rock Around the Clock Car Show and Street Fair. Held on Congress Street in Winnsboro, South Carolina, the car show portion is held on Saturday from 11:00am - 3:00pm.

OCTOBER •October 5 - 6: Oktoberfest in Banner Elk, NC. Take in the beautiful fall foliage, cool, comfortable mountain temperatures, and a weekend full of festival activities from 10 am until 5 pm each day. Be sure to bring the kids because the event is for the whole family. Held at the Sugar Mountain Resort, Main Lodge, 1009 Sugar Mountain Drive. For details, check out http://oktoberfest.skisugar.com.

•October 20: Eurofest at BMW in Greer, SC. Finally, it’s our year! The honored marquee this year is Mercedes Benz, so let’s have a good showing at the field in Greer. A three-day event, the Eurofest activities are hosted by BMW North America.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER •November 3 - 4: Hilton Head Concours d’Elegance. The Carolinas Section is an invited car club and exhibits at the Car Club Jamboree on Saturday. Stay overnight and return for Sunday’s official Concours d’Elegance at Honey Horn.

•December 7 - 8: Christmas at Biltmore. The year concludes with the Annual Meeting and dinner

at the famed Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina. Decorated for the Christmas holidays, Biltmore is unmatched in its majesty during the month of December. Don’t miss it!

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LEGENDS OF THE AUTOBAHN

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ODDS AND ENDS

MEMBERSHIP IS UP For the sixth consecutive month, MBCA membership is up. On March31st, our North American family grew to 19,765 members.

ONLINE ADVERTISING TEST Self-described Mercedes Benz enthusi-

asts will be targeted by the National Business Office on Facebook and two Mercedes Benz websites. Unique messages will be delivered to males ages 45 -55 and ages 56+ and invite them to join the club.

NEWS FROM NATIONAL Effective January 1, 2012, MBCA membership

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dues increased as follows: one year $49; two years, $95; three years, $139. It has been twelve years since MBCA last raised its dues. This modest increase represents less than nine percent over 2011. Operating expenses have increased, making it virtually impossible to avoid a modest increase today.

YOUR DEALERSHIP’S ON HOLD MESSAGE WIL SOON INTRODUCE MBCA

The next time you call your Mercedes Benz dealership and are put on hold, you might hear a thirty second message that touts the benefits of becoming a member of MBCA. The National Business Office negotiated a special partnership with Applied Media Technology to advertise MBCA through Mercedes Benz dealerships that use AMT’s on-hold messaging service.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS UP

We’re getting there. As of May 11th, MBCA had 3442 likes on Facebook, 1308 LinkedIn Connections and 91 Twitter followers. This presence is in addition to the many section Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.

The list of MBCA member benefits and discounts has markedly expanded in the last two years. Please visit www.mbca.org/member-benefits for a complete list.

NEWSLETTER EDITOR PUBLISHES BOOK ON SENIOR CARE Melissa Sprouse Browne, a Carolinas Section member since 2003, has written a book on caring for aging parents.

The Caregiver’s Training Program: What You Need to Know to Take Care of Your Parents in Their Golden Years gives you practical, immediately useful tactics for caring for a senior loved one.

This book provides the step by step instruction you need to understand what to do, who to call and how to find help when you need it. Written by Melissa, who owns Seniors First Home Care, this book addresses the common issues you’ll encounter, incluing how to handle a parent with Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson Disease, breathing disorders, mobility issues, stroke, congestive heart failure and more.

Available in print on www.amazon.com, and through www.caregiverstrainingprogram.net.

E-book offered on Kindle, Nook, Kindle Fire and all other e-readers.

If you have questions about caring for an aging parent, please feel free to contact Melissa at melissasprouse@aol.com.

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PRIVATE TOUR, CONT’D.

RICK HENDRICK PRIVATE AUTO COLLECTION Our new guide used her security key card to open the lobby door of the building and

ushered us into the small room. Three brand new Camaros were featured, the number one, two and number sixty-nine off the production line.

They surrounded a fifteen foot tall trophy in the center of the room. We crowded around the cars and then our guide moved us into their private conference room.

The most unusual take on a glass conference table EVER, this abnormally large table had extra thick glass with a base from the chassis of a 1963 Corvette. The guide joked that we could “start the table” if we wanted. The table was built by one of the original Hendrick employees, who at age 73 still works there today.

The rear door to the conference room opened and there are barely enough words to describe what was on the other side.

If you even remotely like cars or history, you would have been in heaven.

The room we entered was so large it could only roughly be classified as a room; a more apt description would be super warehouse or airplane hangar. To give some perspective, it was large enough to have streets inside (i.e., Stingray Way). Filled to the brim with pristine, perfect vehicles, there were easily over two hundred cars displayed.

As you moved around the room, there were vignettes of scenes and important places from Rick Hendrick’s life. Starting on the far left, there was a full 1950s style Dairy Dream ice cream shop that even served vanilla ice cream. Parked outside of the ice cream shop were the vehicles you’d expect to see from that era.

Next you encountered a full sized, working, driveable modern fire truck parked beside the General Store, replete with a fresh fruit dispenser; put in a nickel, get an apple. Moving along, the next diorama was the Virginia State Bank, where Mr. Hendrick’s mother had worked as a teller. On the wall at this set-up was a photograph of the elder Hendricks’ wedding and a car like the one Rick’s parents used when they were dating was parked outside of the bank scene.

(If we describe every scene in the building, this story will go on for much longer than we have room!)

Representations of Little Joe’s Cycles, a drag strip complete with a Top Fuel dragster and video of Rick driving on the strip, a scene of City Chevrolet, a drive-in movie theater, and even a scene featuring the police car that pulled him over for drag racing when he was a teenager in Virginia were perfectly executed.

One hundred and twenty five Corvettes were there, along with a significant number of Camaros and other unique vehicles. The Hendrick affinity for Chevrolet was obvious.

A newstand was in the far right corner, with every publication prominently featuring Rick Hendrick on its cover. Above the newstand and running along the top of the structure was the “man cave,” which was off-limits to us. However, you could see the engine chandelier, the twenty foot wide Ferrari Pininfarina wheel mounted in the ceiling on the right and the glass floor, under which rested his vast collection of guitars.

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used by the race teams.

Trophies were visible in some of the windows.

As was the policy in every other part of their facility, the shop was perfectly clean in every way.

Our tour guide pointed out several of the almost finished cars and focused on the seats. Each race driver’s seat is custom made and will fit only that driver. The average cost of a single seat is $15,000.

She also shared that their funding is provided in great part by sponsorships, to the tune of eighty percent coming from sponsors. A title sponsor gets a logo on the hood of the car; smaller contributors get proportionally smaller logos on the car and fire suits worn by the driver.

When we left the shop area, we were led to a large building at the end of the campus with no special markings other than the Hendrick name.

Our tour guide then handed us off to another person who would handle the rest of the visit with us. Little did we know – the best was yet to come.

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a master collection of music and movie memorabilia. A full suit worn by Elvis was flanked by gold and platinum records from various artists. Signed movie posters from the casts of Tombstone and Top Gun were framed beside a neat picture of Mohammad Ali and The Beatles.

All told, it was truly one place you had to see to believe. What an honor for the MBCA Carolinas Section to be allowed access to this incredible organization. Thanks again to the amazing Ed Keady of Hendrick Motors of Charlotte for making all of the arrangements.

And better yet, at the end of the tour our group was treated to a terrific lunch at the brand new Northlake Mercedes Benz dealership, where we closed out the day with one of our members, Chris Arthurs from Greenville, SC, purchasing a new vehicle! For more on his story, please see the feature on page 11.

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A FIRST AT NORTHLAKE MB OUR ADVENTURE AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AND NORTHLAKE MERCEDES BENZ

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While having lunch, my wife decided it would be a good idea to take a look at some of the new vehicles. And as you can imagine, when you put car buffs in front of new toys, we ended up with a new 2012 GL450. We had owned a 2007 GL450

by Chris & Sheryl Arthurs that we had just sold in January so we were familiar with the vehicle.

The improvements in the 2012 are fantastic. The On April 27, 2012, The Mercedes Benz Club of Bluetooth works seamlessly with our iPhones.

America, Carolinas Section had put together a tour The improved navigation system is fantastic, and of Hendrick Motorsports in Charlotte, NC. the handling has been greatly improved. A great My wife and I thought this would be a great vehicle. experience and decided to participate. We had As for Mercedes Benz of Northlake, you could a great time touring the excellent facilities and not find a better group of people; from Brian seeing firsthand how the Hendrick organization makes the engines that power a lot of the NASCAR Porta the General Manager to Chris Terry our Sales consultant to Franco the Sales Manager, the whole race vehicles. experience was unmatched.

We also had a chance to tour part of “Papa” We have purchased many vehicles over the years Hendrick’s personal collection of vehicles, for a car buff this was like a kid going to a toy store, a great including several Mercedes Benzs and BMWs and we have never been treated so well. They have time was had by all.

To top off the day we finished the tour with lunch definitely raised the bar in serving the customer.

We will definitely purchase more vehicles from at the newly opened Mercedes Benz of Northlake, the Hendricks organization. while we were there we had a chance to tour this What started out as a simple tour of Hendrick state of the art dealership with a behind the scenes Motorsports, turned into a fantastic buying tour of the service and parts departments, very experience for our new GL450. impressive.

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THE LAST WORD

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Mercedes-Benz Club of America Proudly Salutes Past & Future Winners of the Concours d’Elegance of America at St. John’s

The Mercedes-Benz Club of America welcomes current & future owners/lessees of new, pre-owned, classic & collector Mercedes-Benz to join our global community.

Visit mbca.org or call 800.637.2360.

Richard Bahre receives the “Most Significant Mercedes-Benz” trophy from Mercedes-Benz Club of America Executive Director, Doug Truitt for his 1931 Mercedes SSK

More Than a Car. We’re a Community.SM

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