Keysville Auto Center Opens New Carwash     

The Grand Opening of Keysville Auto Center’s new LaserWash carwash took place last Saturday, October 18th. The new addition, standing in the corner of the lot of the well-known car dealership, attracted the attention of quite a few people, too. The brand new, bright white annex with sky blue roof, and American flag flying in the breeze at the entrance, serviced a steady stream of customers on Saturday. Folks were eager to try out the state of the art carwash. At times, four or five cars were lined up, patiently waiting their turn to try out the computer programmed washer.

While the carwash, which seems to be a natural accompaniment to the dealership, was under construction, project manager James Frederick explained to the Southside Messenger just how worry- free the new operation is: “If there was a problem somewhere with the way the wash was working, it is set up to give an alert to the computer inside building as well as to, say your computer or iPad, or phone, even, and to the main computer at the place where it is run. That computer can then diagnose the problem, and send the correction back to this computer. The thing really can run itself, all the way down to adjusting how much water and soap it uses.”

A Keysville native, and the owner of the Auto Center since 1999, Randy Claybrook had been looking forward to the Saturday grand opening. He, along with some family and friends, got together and set up a grill and a deep fryer at the corner of the main building and served hot dogs and French fries to not only the folks driving in to try out the carwash, but to those that just happened by, curious to see what all the excitement was about in the usually quiet parking lot. If you couldn’t see Randy when you first pulled up, you had to look at the front of the carwash. True to his way of doing things, wanting a job well done, and willing to do the work to make it happen, Randy was the fellow that was prewashing bumpers on the cars before they went through.

Keysville Auto Center doesn’t keep a huge inventory. It does however, seem to keep the vehicles that people want. The inventory there does a rather steady turnover. If they don’t have what you are looking for, chances are Mr. Claybrook knows where to find it. He has good experience in the auction arena, and spends a fair amount of time checking out the deals at one place or another to bring home to Keysville. This is still home for the Claybrook family as well. Randy and his wife, Conni, live here today. They have three grown children, two young men and one young lady. Mat has graduated from Virginia Tech and Chad is attending  Longwood University. Calli, the youngest, and the only girl, is attending Virginia Tech like her brother Mat.