Car Guys

Imagine yourself on the first day of a weeklong Corvette trip with eighteen Corvette friends. You cancelled three Corvette trips you had planned during COVID, so you were really looking forward to having seven days of mountain sights, sounds, and socializing with friends.

You arrive at the motel the first night and discover loss of tire pressure, fill it up but the next morning it’s low again. You get the Vette to a tire dealership and they find a cracked rim with no option other than a new rim. You can’t drive the car home 400 miles safely, and worse yet, you can’t continue on the much anticipated planned trip. To complicate matters your C-6 ZR-1 has rim size and offsets that make finding a new one rare.

This is one of those times the quote “I came for the Car and I stayed for the people” comes into play.

This scenario happened on our August trip to Wyoming, Montana, Beartooth Pass, Chief Joseph Scenic Byway, Kool Deadwood Nights and more. We made one phone call to Mike Rovere, a longtime supporter/sponsor of BHCC and owner of Dale's Tire in Rapid City to see if he had any ideas. In typical Mike Rovere fashion his response was simple and straightforward. “Yes, I have a set of four rims and tires on my car that I will loan Cecil for the entire trip so he can continue on his planned trip. Bring the car to my house, we’ll mount them, he can be on his way and I’ll pick them up in Sioux Falls when you return.”

Wow, what a solution and it made eighteen Corvette people very happy. It makes being a part of the Corvette community a rewarding experience. THANK YOU MIKE ROVERE!

Here’s a little background on Mike and his involvement in the Corvette hobby. He comes from a family of racers and “Car Guys”. Mike and his family own and operate Dale’s Tire & Retreading in Rapid City, SD. His original interest was drag racing at Sturgis Dragway at their regular weekend races. He was always very competitive at the BHCC drags winning many awards and wins. He and Barry Konken developed a good clean rivalry that spilled over into the BHCC Autocross. It wasn’t long and Mike showed up at a high speed road course event sponsored by Jerry’s Chevrolet at the Motorsports Park in Hastings. He now was hooked on high speed road courses, continually improved his times and is now competing in a nationwide series of events sponsored by Optima Batteries. The Optima Battery search for the Ultimate Street Car is a series of events that take place at some of the most prestigious tracks around the country. Participants enter to qualify for a chance to be invited to the grand finale, the Optima Battery Ultimate Street Car Invitational which takes place in Las Vegas during the SEMA Show in November. Cars are judged in 5 categories: Design & Engineering, Road Rally, Acceleration & Braking, Autocross & High-Speed Road Coarse. Mike has competed in this series for the past 5 years and has qualified for an invitation to the grand finale each year. Most recently he finished 1st in class during the highly competitive Road America event this August. Mike competes in his 2008 Atomic Orange Z06 which is powered by a 780HP naturally aspirated Lingenfelter Eliminator Spec engine. A car that he mostly built himself in his garage.