NVE3 in Las Vegas!!! Our club members represented our IL region very well with 35 members
attending. We had a total of 71 people in attendance! Members traveled with their cars and took
about 3 days to get there and others flew in by Wednesday, May 2. There were 16 cars on the car
carriers and they also arrived by Wednesday. Rob along with a couple of helpers, Troy Cooper and dad
Gary Cooper, Ed Bowser and Spencer Schumann, moved the cars from the car transporter parking lot to the parking deck. There were a total of 414 Vipers in the parking deck! All colors and all generations!
Check out Facebook and the website for pictures taken in the parking deck!

The National event started on Wednesday. Remember there was going to be a raffle and some lucky
members would be upgraded to a suite at the Delano? Well, one of our members, Paul Krant, won one
of the raffles and received a Penthouse Suite on the 60 th floor of Delano! Congrats Paul! After getting
checked into the hotel and then checking into NVE3, everyone met at the Mandalay Beach for dinner.
Table and chairs were set up on the beach, with actual sand. There were 3 different buffet tables set up
with different entrees. Members could mingle and walk around in the sand to get reacquainted again
and some even got their feet wet in the pool!

On Thursday, we headed out to Red Rock canyon for a drive through the canyon. What an amazing sight of rock formations and colors. Everywhere you look the colors, formations, sun shining on the rocks –what an amazing sight! Some of us have been through Red Rock canyon before but no matter how many times you have been through this canyon, the rock formations and colors are amazing! After our drive through of Red Rock, we headed over to Wayne Newton’s Shanandoah Ranch for lunch. We
parked across the street from Shanandoah and were bused over to the ranch where an amazing lunch
was prepared. After lunch we were able to tour Wayne Newton’s house which had a very homey feeling
with many family pictures on the walls. Did you know Wayne has two daughters and the youngest one
is 16 years old! We were also able to tour the home Wayne and his brother grew up in. Then we toured
the horse barn of 39 Arabian Horses. What beautiful horses! Two horses put on a short show for us by
prancing and running a little and the more we clapped they would come and stand in front of the grand stand and whinney!

Roger Dittrich was even lucky enough to have one come up to him by the fence and
he got to pet his nose! At 2pm we ventured over to the front of Wayne Newton’s home and we had a
group picture taken of about 860 people! Check out our Facebook page or check our website to see the
group picture! After the group picture, Ed Bowser and his fiancé Paige were married in a little setting
beside the house. Several team members stayed for the wedding and it was quick ceremony but it was
a nice and sweet ceremony of which Ed and Paige said their own vows. Lovely!
On Friday, our group toured Hoover Dam and was taken down under to view the inners of the Dam. We also visited the museum. Quite a human marvel to learn how this dam was built! Friday night was open for everyone, so we had a group dinner at Borders Mexican Grill. We reserved the outside area and enjoyed grilled tacos with all of the fixings. We also celebrated Jo Schumann’s birthday with cake and cupcakes. We had a great time and closed up the grill that night!
Saturday was race day for our group. Vipers ventured out to the Las Vegas Speedway and enjoyed the
Road Course, Autocross and racing on the oval. It was a hot day with 100 degrees temp. The road
course was 2.5 miles and everyone stayed on the road course because there were rocks on the side and
we had no accidents! They were broken down into 4 groups – expert, intermediate, rookie and novice
for the beginners. The novice group had a pace car and took it easy to learn the track. A couple of our
members took advantage of this so they could get the feel of a road course so we hope to see them at
one of our scheduled road courses this year! The road course took up the first 4 hours of the morning,
then we had a Cinco de Mayo taco lunch which was provided and it was very good. Nice break from the heat in an air conditioned building. There were 2 auto crosses in the afternoon. It was fairly quick and fast. Ralph Gilles came and joined the autocross driving two of our club member’s cars. And, two of our members, Mark Schumann & Dale Nafzinger, actually beat Ralph’s time! Way to go Mark & Dale! Next, the oval had 2 different run groups and everyone had 2 runs on the oval. It was an amazing feeling up on the bank! Speeds got over 130 mph. Everyone had a great time while at the track, even in the heat!

Saturday night was our final event. The banquet was spectacular as Alex Ristonivic was the coordinator!
The VOA store was open for final Viper apparel shopping, vendors were on hand to talk and sell
products, and a silent auction was also going on with some great things such as special Viper engine,
Viper wheel tables, Viper logos like Stryker & Fangs in brushed metal that were huge in size, helmets and many other special Viper items! Dinner began with a wrap-up speech from Alex and thanking his event team. Alex also introduced the new National President for the next two years, Beth Sewell. There were about 860 people in this banquet room! Each table had a great center piece designed by Howie Frank and each table had a deck of cards and had to find the card with a Viper sticker. That person received the table center piece. After a delicious dinner, an auction took place selling many special Viper items like 4 race suits from the Viper driving team! The evening ended with Beth Sewell announcing where the NVE4 will be held – Miami and Florida Keyes! It will be towards end of April or early May in 2020.
While there, several members attended various shows, went to the Mob Museum, went shopping,
walked lots of miles along the strip and had some great dinners with great club members! The week
seemed to go by pretty fast and come Sunday morning our 16 cars had to be loaded back onto the
transporters. Rob had several club members to help him get the cars from the parking deck to the
parking lot where the car transporters were. Thank you to: John & Barb Gastman, Vince & Shelly Canestra, Troy & Gary Cooper.
Another great NVE in the books and we look forward to NVE4 in Florida!