[VIDEO] Corvette Museum Officially Opens Corvette Cave-In Sinkhole Exhibit

Photo Credit: Corvette Museum

Friday was the two year anniversary of the day that a sinkhole opening up in the National Corvette Museum’s skydome, swallowing eight Corvettes and propelling the museum to the highest visitor counts since its founding.

To help tell the story of that fateful day, the Corvette Museum has opened its newest exhibit, “Corvette Cave-In: The Skydome Sinkhole Experience”. Executive Director Wendell Strode, along with the Museum’s Marketing Manager Katie Frassinelli and exhibit designer Roger Barganier, all take turns talking about that bizarre day when the floor fell out and how the museum “turned lemons into lemonade” by embracing the seemingly bad situation and making the best of it.

The exhibit is divided into major sections which are The Day, Media Coverage, Pop Culture, Cars Affected, The Recovery, Karst Landscapes, What It Took to Fix the Sinkhole and The Grand Finale. The exhibit uses photos, videos, informational text and interactives to share the sinkhole experience with visitors.

“We’re story tellers,” said Roger Barganier, President of Creative Arts Unlimited. “When we first started working on the exhibit, I didn’t understand what happened. So we got all the information and created an exhibit so the average visitor will understand what happened. And we added some geology, geography, science, and there is some STEM in it for school groups, plus lots of interactives,” Roger added.

After visitors wind their way through the Corvette Cave-In exhibit, they then come into the newly renovated Skydome where the “Great Eight” Corvettes that were recovered from the sinkhole are on display.

Visitors will also be able to see the outline of the sinkhole on the Skydome floor. A 48″ manhole allows visitors to look into a glass window to the see the floor of the sinkhole which lies 30 feet down.

“We were able to put some of the parts from the sinkhole Corvettes back into our cave, and we now have a web cam that allows visitors to actually search in the cave for the car parts,” said Katie Frassinelli, NCM’s Marketing and Communications Manager. “I think my personal favorite is the Corvette crane game which allows you to remove boulders, debris and Corvettes from the sinkhole. The designers even put the cars exactly how they were in the sinkhole. Of course, the game is a lot easier than it was in real life!”

“Looking back two years ago, I don’t think any of us could have imagined that today we would be somewhat commemorating the sinkhole,” said Frassinelli. “I guess you could say this is the final slice of lemon on top of our glass of lemonade. We’re excited our story has come full circle and we now have a fun, interactive exhibit to tell it for years to come.”

Here’s some video from the Corvette Museum showing the various sections of the Corvette Cave-In Exhibit:

Source:
National Corvette Museum

Related:
Corvette Museum to Open Corvette Cave-In Exhibit on 2nd Anniversary of Sinkhole
[VIDEO] Time Lapse Video of the National Corvette Museum’s Sinkhole Restoration
[VIDEO] Time Lapse Restoration of the 1 Millionth Corvette