Vehicle Judging at Club Shows

[wvahotwheels]

I would like to know why clubs judge all show vehicles by the same criteria?
I have seen trailer queens, concourse, projects & daily drivers all being judged by the same criteria.
My 72' Mach I is, by all means, a daily driver. It shows it to. My engine has some dirt on it, my paint isn't perfect. I am not rich enough to restore my mustang to perfect order or even to do much work on it. Yet, I go to a Mustang Club show, many different ones, and I am judged as if it should be perfect. At some club shows it has even been told to me that they want to see new mustangs over old ones. At one show I had the only body style of the 71-73. I was told it wasn't good enough for a trophy because it wasn't perfect. Yet, they gave 21 trophies to 2008-12 Mustangs, most fresh off the showroom.
I have been a Mustang owner since 1974. I have owned 5 Mustangs. When I started there were no resto parts available. I joined MCA because I was under the impression old mustangs were meant to be shown. They are classics. As much as I like the new Mustangs, they have not earned the right to be called classics as of yet.
I would love to hear explainations and dialogue on this, before my renew comes up.

[mmsnyr8120]

Vegas Valley Mustang Club held a show at the Eastside Cannery Casino in April. Matt and I had just joined and was asked to judge. This show was open to all makes and models. The club had judging sheets for each car and broke the classes up by year. Example--1950-59, 1960-69, etc. We had a couple of categories on the sheet. Paint and body, interior, wheels and chrome, engine compartment, and overall condition. Points were awarded 1-10 and 10 was the best and the closest to 80 points were winners. But the President of the club made sure that if a class had a lot of entries, then more trophies were awarded for that class than a class with only say 3 entries. So it is safe to say that each club makes up their own judging criteria. Which I think is better than a popular vote. I would suggest that you make ideas known to your club for what you think should be changed for judging their local club shows. Clubs have to build a reputation for hosting a car show. The more people that are satisfied with trophies, goody bags, drawings, raffles, etc. means that more cars will enter the next show.

[fastlane65]

We have a pretty good show every September and average over 100 cars. It is open to all Mustangs and Fords. About 20 classes. As head judge the last couple of years, I don't do any judging, but instruct the volunteers to judge on cleanliness, workmanship and presentation. There are always classes that have only one or two cars and classes with 15 to 20 (65-66 coupe, 05 -present, etc.) The big classes make it hard to keep everyone happy, especially when a much lesser car from a category with two entries gets an award. I've even been screamed at and accused of biased judging because a 09 Shelby didn't get an award and a '71 Mach did (12 Shelbys in the class, one '71 Mach). What I have learned is that you can't keep everyone happy, but try to make the awards as fair and reasonable as possible. Remind people that we do this for fun. No one gets paid, none of us are professional judges, and this isn't the Riddler award. Put the judging criteria on the entry form and in the packet the get at registration. Let them see their judge sheets so they will know where they lost points. Try your best to have a good show and plan for a better one next year.

The biggest inequality will always be between the daily drivers and the garage queens. My cars aren't daily drivers, but they get driven, sometimes hard. It is hard to keep them spotless only driving on weekends, much less everyday. I've thought about adding a "daily driver" class this year, but was told people might lie about it. Just to get a $5 trophy.

In the end, you have to go to shows for the fun and fellowship, and to support whatever charity or organization the show benefits. Be proud of your car, show it the best you can and be pleasantly surprised if you win a trophy. When you start obsessing over winning or losing it is no longer a fun hobby.

[craigzygmunt]

I am a board member of the Mustang Owners Club of Southeastern Michigan and our club puts on the Mustang Memories show at Ford World Headquarters in August. Last year the show drew almost 800 vehicles. Judging at the show is pretty much based on cleanliness and presentation and there are many classes broken down by year and level of modification. Newer and older vehicles never compete against each other, competition is within each class. The bigger the class the more trophies are awarded. It's generally about 1 trophy for every 3 or 4 vehicles and classes might range from just a few vehicles to 20 or more.

Whether or not your car is a daily driver and no matter how old it is, it can be cleaned. I can assure you, the vast majority of newer vehicles are not "fresh out of the showroom." They are driven just like yours and they get dirty. I have an 06 convertible and it's seen rain many, many times, it was in the snow once, has been on many long trips, has been to the track, etc. It's been very dirty but me and the wife work our butts off and clean it for a show, including the engine bay and undercarriage. By the time it gets to a show it's clean enough that you'd never guess where it had been. And it's won a few trophies.

The point is this, the people who win trophies at a show at a minimum clean the car thoroughly, some obsessively. There is no visible dirt on the car or in the engine bay. When a judge looks at two cars, one is dirty and one is clean and all other things are equal, the clean car is going to win. You just have to decide how hard you're willing to work at cleaning that car up. But if you're not willing to clean it up at all, you're not going to win a trophy. And before you say that it must be nice to have that kind of time, I have 3 children, a job and as busy a lifestyle as anyone else. And believe me, I don't work as hard as I do on my car for a $5 trophy. I do it for the satisfaction that it gives me and sometimes it's nice to know that someone else recognizes the hard work that I put into it.

As for the garage queens and trailer queens, I understand how you feel about them and it's tough to compete against them. But at the end of the day, I figure that I enjoyed driving my car and while it might not be as perfect as his, it's pretty close. And all that guy did was ensure that the person who buys his trailer queen when he dies will have a real nice car.

[J_Speegle]

I would like to know why clubs judge all show vehicles by the same criteria?

Clubs choose what ever seems to work for them and their region and often they do not have a large enough number of cars entered and or workers to have allot of different classes so often allot of cars get lumped into a small number of classes. Sometimes clubs choose people's choice or participant choice method of judging while others simply give everyone a participants award.

Also you often don't know what the standard/expectations are until you show up to the event in many cases making it difficult to know how to prepare.

MCA on the other, have many different levels of participation and classes allowing for a wide range of cars at National Shows with expectations spelled out ahead of time. Of course this takes allot of time and allot more workers then allot of local groups have available

[mustangted1963]

same happens at national events, my 06 has close to 50k miles on and was OD, car next to me was 1 yr older and in DD and had less than 7500 miles on it.

[cnghubbard]

Having Read this thread, I find that I have some real opinions on the subject.
1) Agreed that local shows need to clearly state their expectations at 'Judged' shows.
2) You should not lambast 'trailered' cars. For example, my concours 'conservator' 1966 Mustang had over 250,000 miles and 30 years of daily use prior to restoration and competition. It took a lot of personal labor over the years to maintain my Mustang in a condition that could be restored. There was much additional work necessary the restore and detail the car poor to competition. Had there not been trailered, low mileage 'unrestored' cars, I would not have had access to the details of production Mustangs necessary to compete in the 'Concours' class. I now trailer my car to any event (MCA or not) that is over 50 miles, which is about all judged shows (regional and national). I have a lot of time and effort invested in my car and want to preserve that investment.
3) I have been asked to judge at several regional shows (especially, if they have a concours class). In every instance, they have, in reality, a classless show (all cars were to be judged on appearance and cleanliness only) and everyone took first place. As a result, I am reluctant to serve as a Judge in regional shows. When I first joined MCA, I participated in National Capital Region shows. Their shows used the MCA judging sheets rigorously; as a result. I was prepared for my first MCA National show and did well. I believe regional shows owe participants honest class judging. if they use the MCA classifications and terminology. On the other hand, if the show judges cleanliness and appearance only, call it a 'Show and Shine' event and give participation awards.

[timber67]

......

[17780]

We have a pretty good show every September and average over 100 cars. It is open to all Mustangs and Fords. About 20 classes. As head judge the last couple of years, I don't do any judging, but instruct the volunteers to judge on cleanliness, workmanship and presentation. There are always classes that have only one or two cars and classes with 15 to 20 (65-66 coupe, 05 -present, etc.) The big classes make it hard to keep everyone happy, especially when a much lesser car from a category with two entries gets an award. I've even been screamed at and accused of biased judging because a 09 Shelby didn't get an award and a '71 Mach did (12 Shelbys in the class, one '71 Mach). What I have learned is that you can't keep everyone happy, but try to make the awards as fair and reasonable as possible. Remind people that we do this for fun. No one gets paid, none of us are professional judges, and this isn't the Riddler award. Put the judging criteria on the entry form and in the packet the get at registration. Let them see their judge sheets so they will know where they lost points. Try your best to have a good show and plan for a better one next year.

The biggest inequality will always be between the daily drivers and the garage queens. My cars aren't daily drivers, but they get driven, sometimes hard. It is hard to keep them spotless only driving on weekends, much less everyday. I've thought about adding a "daily driver" class this year, but was told people might lie about it. Just to get a $5 trophy.

In the end, you have to go to shows for the fun and fellowship, and to support whatever charity or organization the show benefits. Be proud of your car, show it the best you can and be pleasantly surprised if you win a trophy. When you start obsessing over winning or losing it is no longer a fun hobby.

+1....I agree with you 100%

[kryptonite]

My club has an open show for all makes and models and we average around 100 cars. We also judge on cleanliness, fit and finish. This past spring, I had one woman who did not like that a classic 71 VW Super Bug beat out her raced prepped, 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer for best import (She did get a TOP 75 Award). After she left, I pulled both judging sheets and compared them. The Bug was rated much cleaner than her newer Lancer. I've judged many local shows and one MCA show, so I personally took the time to instruct our judges on what to look for and to err on the side of the participants. I also told them unless there was caked on dirt or mud, not to deduct too many points unless they felt and could justify to me that they deserved the score they were about to give.

I believe cleanliness is the key when it comes to car shows, no matter what make or model or year, though some of your local open car shows can be biased against newer cars vs. classics. My car is a 2005 and has over 140k miles on it after driving home from the MCA National in Rhode Island this past weekend. I show it locally and at MCA National/Grand Nationals; sometimes I win a trophy, sometimes I don't. I go to car shows to see the cars, hang out and meet people.

Most people have a hard time believing my car has 140k miles because I do take care of it. Before I loss my job back in 2009, I was driving 450 miles a week on my Mustang and I probably washed it at least monthly and give it a really good scrubbing before I drive it to a car show.