Prez Sez - Happy New Year!

Sioux Falls Corvette Club
2 days ago
5 min read

January 6, 2026

Happy New Year and welcome to 2026! It is going to be a fantastic year for members of the Sioux Falls Corvette Club as we launch into another series of Drive & Dines, Spring Rally, Black Hills Corvette Classic, membership meetings, picnic, lamb roast, banquet and more!

As your new President allow me to start off by expressing my gratitude to Denny Robinson and John Pesicka for their leadership in 2025 serving as President. It was a bit of a hybrid year and they, along with the Board of Directors, did a great job for you in keeping the club a great organization to be a part of. I am also thankful for the support of you and the Board as I assume the role of President for 2026. I am very much looking forward to working with all of you over the course of the upcoming year as we share our passion for the Corvette with fellow Corvette enthusiasts.

When it comes to thank you’s, the biggest one goes to you for being a member of the SFCC. It is only through your support (dues, attending events, volunteering) that we can provide the many opportunities to enjoy and drive our cars together, meet new friends, swap stories, and travel around a bit.

The club had a good year financially nearly breaking even thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, dues support of our members, and the hard work of Jen and Cheri with merchandise sales. Thank you to our sponsors Jerry’s Chevrolet & Corvette Center, Sioux Empire Cleaning, Holiday Inn Spearfish, Nordstroms Automotive, Eckler’s, and American Muscle!

We kicked off 2026 with a free pancake feed for our members on Sunday, January 4 at The Alliance where we supported our chosen charity, American Legion Post #15. There was a nice turnout, great conversation and a delicious pancake breakfast. We continue to build out our events calendar, with the full slate of events currently scheduled shown at the end of this message. Coming up in February will be a Drive & Dine to a movie matinee at the Dell Rapids Theatre as well as an Arizona Social, hosted by Joyce and Harold, for our snowbirds and traveling members. March will bring a Chili Challenge in Larchwood and a two garage tours in Mitchell, and we are just getting warmed up. Special shout out to Mike Skiles for his generous work in arranging our Drive & Dine schedule. Coordinating these events take significant time so please give him a big thank you the next time you see him.

In 2026 the BOD will be doing a review and update of the bylaws for the club, as the last refresh was nearly 10 years ago. Our club activities have changed over time warranting a few revisions to keep up with the times. One of these will be revising the board position for the Car Show to also include Drive & Dines and be more of an Events (non-BHCC) board seat. We envision this to have a committee orientation to it, which will allow for additional input and support in building out our member event activities. We will bring the updates to the membership in April or May to vote on and with your support we will make some nice refinements to the bylaws.

Our new Vice President and Membership Director, Tom Matthys, is eager to share with you all of the benefits of membership and will be sending out periodic communications that you will find very useful. Keep an eye out for those starting in the next month or two.

At the November annual banquet, the 2026 Board was elected and members include:

President: Mike Hardy

Vice President: Tom Matthys

Treasurer: Elaine Robinson

Secretary: Cindy Miles

BHCC: Barry Konken

BuzzBook: John & Denita Pesicka (non-elected, non-voting agent)

Car Show: Denny Robinson / Abdulah Delibasic

CHIPS Editor: Ryan Berg

Drive & Dine: Mike Skiles (non-elected, non-voting agent)

Historian: Paul Dyke

Merchandise: Deb Matthys

Racing/NCCC: Larry Mortensen

Past President: John Pesicka

Sargent at Arms: Glen Hoffer

Spring Rally: Dave & Jane Mutschelknaus

As you can see, it takes a village to have a vibrant and growing Corvette club that we can all be proud to be a part of. I’ll leave you with some interesting statistics from the National Corvette Museum of the final 2025 Production Statistics that you may find interesting.

National Corvette Museum Final Production Stats

Units Produced 25,835

Stingray Coupe 8,403

Stingray Convertible 5,237

Z06 Coupe 4,786

Z06 Convertible 4,076

E-Ray Coupe 1,374

E-Ray Convertible 1,779

ZR1 Coupe 115

ZR1 Convertible 65

Top Colors:

Black 17.8%

Arctic White 17.6%

Torch Red 13.1%

Red Mist 11.3%

Sea Wolf Gray 10.7%

Riptide Blue 7.1%

Hysteria Purple 6.6%

Competition Yellow 6.5%

Sebring Orange 5.3%

Rapid Blue 4.1%

Fun Fact: 34 Corvettes were built with green seat belts, just 0.1% of total production. The next rarest seat belt color was blue clocking in at 3.7% or 952 cars.

Save the wave!

Mike Hardy, President

701-306-7778

mbhardy502@gmail.com

2026 SFCC MEETINGS & EVENTS SCHEDULE (as of 1.6.26)

Watch your email or check the Events Calendar online for more info!

January:

Sunday, January 4^th Free pancake at American Legion Post 15 (The Alliance)

Wednesday, January 21 Board of Directors Meeting

February:

Sunday, February 15 Drive & Dine – Dell Rapids Theatre Movie Matinee

Sunday, February 15 Arizona SFCC Social, hosted by Joyce and Harold, Mesa