Hunter Wilson/Daily NewsFred (left) and Nancy Voras of Deer Park, Ill., browse the displays Monday afternoon at the National Corvette Museum. NCM is the focal point of the yearly Corvette anniversary celebration, which begins today and continues through Sunday.

Organizers of the National Corvette Museum are hoping 13 is a lucky number for the anniversary celebration that starts today.

About 700 hundred Corvette owners from across the country and elsewhere have registered for the event, which includes a 2007 Hall of Fame induction for Corvette racing legend Doug Hooper; C4 consultant and technical specialist Gordon Killebrew; and Project Opal designer Carl Renner; museum tours, a dinner, autocross and other events.

While participants are likely already registered for many of the events that they will attend, the public is always welcome to the event, either to ogle the cars or tour the museum. On site registration for the event began today and cost varies. Individuals who just want to come out and look at the cars, tour the museum and listen to the lectures can do so for $8 each or $20 for a family, according to Bobbie Jo Lee, marketing and communications manager.

There also is a chance to help the museum raise funds for its next phase, a $10 million expansion. Ten dollar raffle tickets are being sold for a 2008 red Corvette coupe that will be given away Saturday.

Museum Director Wendell Strode said such fundraising efforts are an integral part of their plans to pay off the debt that will be incurred with the project.

The museum has $2.5 million raised for the project and will borrow the remaining $7.5 million from National City Bank; details of how that debt will be structured have not yet been finalized, Strode said.

Plans are to bid the project out this winter, start construction in the spring and be complete by summer 2009, he said.

The expansion will add 47,000 square feet to the existing 69,000 square feet and will include a library-archives – something which Strode said is central to the project – a cafe with 75 seats, a greatly expanded gift store and a conference center with a seating capacity of 400. The center also can be used to display 50 additional cars.

They also will add a dedicated area for inspection, display and pick-up of special-delivery Corvettes people order from the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant.

Plans also include the renovation of 17,000 existing square feet to &#8220help tell the Corvette story and help people better navigate their tour of the museum,” Strode said.

A feature that will be added to the museum, thanks to a grant announced today by Gov. Ernie Fletcher, is a new driving simulator that will be used as an educational tool to show the effects of driving while drunk or how it feels to overcorrect a vehicle that has slipped off the side of the road.

The museum is constantly doing things to make the facility fresh for return visitors.

But for diehard fans such as Bill and Bobbie Weir of Floydada, Texas, it is the people they have met here that keep them coming back.

&#8220It’s like a family reunion,” Bill Weir said. &#8220A lot of people who work here are friends. A lady from New Jersey just walked in and she stays every year at the same hotel as we do.”

The Weirs arrived Monday to help put the event together – Bill Weir, who owns a wholesale company, is in charge of parking.

&#8220I really enjoy that,” he said. And Bobbie Weir, a retired elementary school principal, helps do pretty much anything in the gift shop and elsewhere.

Bill Weir said he and his wife didn’t start driving Corvettes until after 1997 when they made them roomier. He is 6-foot-8-inches tall and she is 6-foot-3. In 1999, they came to the museum in a huge national caravan.

With thousands of Corvettes and owners, the experience was overwhelming. They came back the next year and met lots of people and by their third visit, they were hooked, Bill Weir said.

Now the Weirs are lifetime members of the museum, ambassadors for museum events and Bill Weir is on the board of directors. Both come for two major events a year and Bill Weir comes more frequently for meetings.

Lee said members such as the Weirs help the museum succeed. There are 28,000 members.

Members, as well as the general public, are expected among the 1,000 or so people who will stream through the museum during the event that ends Sunday.

The public will get a chance to see a Lucky Seven display, with a model from every year ending in 7 since 1957 and get to hear about the 2008 Corvette.

– For more information about the event or to see a detailed schedule, visit http://www.corvettemuseum.com.