Mark Nenichka’s 1973 Chevrolet L48 Corvette, winner of the Corvette category in the Times Leader’s Fins, Fenders and Fuel contest.
Mark Nenichka’s 1973 Corvette a labor of love, a tribute to friendship
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A perfect score handed down by the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) is not an easy thing to achieve. The judges look at over 120 different parts of the car, and even a piece of adhesive harness tape could dock a point or two.
Mark Nenichka has attained perfection, a 400 out of 400 score, many times with his 1973 Chevrolet L48 Corvette. But he also had a fond memory of the one time he came up just short.
“At an AACA meet in New Jersey, I got a 399 out of 400 … they deducted one point because a piece of cloth tape had come loose,” Nenichka said. “So I tracked down a company that made the tape, bought some and got my perfect score.”
It’s these little details that could mean so much when your car is at the very top of the field, like Nenichka’s Corvette has been for a number of years.
But Nenichka knows this car means more than just numbers on a page: it honors a lifelong friend of his who passed away in 2011.
“I’ve worked at Diamond Manufacuturing since 1982, and I got to work alongside Rusty Flack for a long time,” Nenichka said. “The two of us really acclimated to cars, always had.”
It was Flack who introduced the Corvette to Nenichka: Flack had lost his own ’73 Corvette in a fire, and went out and purchased another one in 2005.
He immediately brought Nenichka on board to help restore it to its former glory.
“Rusty was a Corvette fanatic,” Nenichka said. “I was more than happy to work on the car with him.”
And so, they went to work: redoing the paint, the upholstery — “putting it all back together,” as Nenichka put it.
Unfortunately, Flack was diagnosed with colon cancer around the end of 2009, and passed away in 2011.
Not long after Flack passed, his brother Hal called Nenichka to meet with him about getting some of Rusty’s cars sold off.
“I knew that, if the Corvette went to market, I wanted to take a run at it,” Nenichka said. “But I noticed that it wasn’t one of the cars we talked about.”
As Nenichka got up to leave the meeting, Hal Flack surprised him with the title to the ’73 Corvette — with Nenichka’s name written on it.
“He said ‘Rusty wanted you to have this,’” Nenichka said. “I couldn’t speak … I’m getting even a little choked up now, just thinking about it.”
It was then that Nenichka decided to join the AACA and get the Corvette the accolades it deserved.
He put the finishing touches on the vehicle’s restoration, then began taking it to AACA meets in Hershey and in New Jersey, winning an impressive number of awards — and more than a few of those coveted perfect scores.
If you ask Nenichka, one of the biggest bonuses throughout his journey with the Corvette? His wife of almost 38 years, Sharon, right beside him.
“Having Sharon with me doubles all of my enthusiasm about the car,” he said. “We get a joint enjoyment out of our cars.”
In fact, just last year the Nenichkas each won Senior Grand National awards — Mark for his ’73 Corvette and Sharon for her own Corvette.
“I never have to worry about other plans or whether or not I should be going to some of these meets, because my wife is right there with me,” Nenichka said.
“It’s the cherry on top of everything.”