September 24, 2004 The meeting began around 7:30pm since the Busch North race and Busch Happy Hour ran late. When Derrike walked in, along his side were his twin nieces Amber and Angela Cope, looking beautiful as ever. A little later due to traffic from the track arrived Jay Robinson, owner of the #49 Advil and #39 Yahoo Busch cars, along with his general manager and girlfriend Elaine Hughes and marketing contact Stacey Carlson. Also present was John Walters who works with both Derrike and Jay in trying to locate sponsorship. Ken Fleming welcomed the 31 attendees and thanked everybody for coming. He acknowledged the volunteers who assisted in the fan club meeting: Norman and Gladys Reynolds for finding the meeting location and helping with many other items, Dana Cope and Cheryl Fleming for registration, and fan club member Glenn Cope for donating his Derrike Cope collection for the door prizes. Ken then introduced webmaster and vice-president Jeff Cope. Jeff noted that it was ironic that the meeting was being held in September because that made it 8 years ago that Jeff had contacted Derrike for the first time and the website he had created became the Official Derrike Cope website. Later, the website became the location for the Derrike Cope Fan Club. Jeff informed everybody that the fan club membership was now over 1,400 members. Next it was time for a delicious buffet style dinner with a choice between roast beef and fish along with some fantastic desserts. After dinner, Derrike spoke to the group. He thanked everybody for their support and was glad they could make it. He introduced his twin nieces Amber and Angela and said they would come up to speak shortly. He also introduced Jay Robinson and his group. Derrike informed everybody that it had been a tough year for him along with going through a divorce but the past couple months had been fun with Amber and Angela living with him. Since he never had children, he was getting a good education how it was to live with two girls and was enjoying the time to really get to know them as he never had the opportunity to spend much time with them. Derrike told us that the #49 Advil car had made the Busch race in 34th position and unfortunately the #80 Cup car he drove that weekend did not. Amber and Angela spoke about what they have been doing and what their plans were. The previous week they had tested a Cup car at Hickory, NC and had enjoyed that. They will run in ARCA next year and possibly some Busch races. When asked if they would be sharing one car or have two cars, there was a quick answer of two cars. They will be going back to Washington state in a couple weeks to drive in a race. A drawing was held for the Derrike Cope merchandise that Glenn Cope had donated and each attendee received at least two items, and most likely three. Derrike had brought three items to the meeting: a pair of racing shoes, Dee Zee helmet, and his Poison uniform. Ken started an auction with the shoes and Derrike stopped the auction and said he would like the items to be given away just like the other merchandise was. He donated some money to the fan club treasury in lieu of the auction. Derrike then autographed any of the items given away or his Advil postcard as the evening came to a close. Meeting Attendees
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