Tedd Thompson

This was a veterans benefit car show and I would have gone there even if there were no awards. The awards are not why I go to car shows anyway it's a social event mostly for me but not all people feel the same. Some are very competitive and get upset if they feel they are put at a disadvantage, this was one of those times.

As I signed up this morning I checked to see what my class was and was a little surprised to see my 55 just cut the line on the year limit. Yep The next class was 1956 to 1966 in stock class mine was 1900 to 1955 , a span of 55 years.Pretty difficult to judge a Model T and a 1955 car the same way. I'm not sure why this was whether it was a mistake or ignorance but someone must have not looked this plan over very well. I herd rumblings and such from some of the contestants of I'm never coming here again if this is they they are going to do the judging, I could have gone to such a such a show and got a fairer judging.

I think it was mostly a mistake but as you know these shows live and die on the attendance of the car guys, no cars no show. I guess my question is should I mention this to the organizers of the show or just let it ride, It's not my club or my show. Buy the way my car did well so I have no gripe other than to see this thing succeed..... Tedd

oldcutlass

It does seem strange, they should just do away with the classes and go for top 10 or 20. I agree local car shows are more of a social event for me too.

redoldsman

Tedd:
I am like you. I go for the fun and the awards are nice but most of us have plenty of them. We had a guy at our zone show this year that did not place apparently for the first time ever. He had a nice car but the engine needed painting badly and several other things. Granted he drives the car a lot. He was really pissed he didn't get a plaque. He is a very well educated guy. I went to a show a couple weeks ago and they had no classes. Participants just voted on their favorite 15 cars. I was fortunate to finish in the top 10 but did not place last year. In most shows I can go in the 50's or the convertible class. I am sure you have the same option most of the time. The NTOC Zone Show has all cars from 1959 and earlier in the same class. That has always seemed odd to me. For me the fun part is people asking me if it is a Buick or telling me their Daddy had one just like except it was a 4 door. One of the things that has really been a lot of fun is the car hop tray. People love it and I think it gets photographed more than the car. Enough of my rambling. Congrats on doing well and thanks for supporting the veterans.

jaunty75

Having run many car shows over the years, I can understand the show organizer's point of view. They're trying mostly to divide up the classes in such a way as to get a reasonable number of cars in each class while trying to make sure they have more than one or two in each class. I'm quite certain that this was not a mistake or a case of ignorance.

I don't know how the show you attended turned out, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were as many cars in the 1900 to 1955 class as there were in the 1956 to 1965 class. If they had subdivided that 1900 to 1955 class into something like 1900-1920, 1921-1940, and 1941-1955, they might have had no cars or only one in some of those classes while getting 10 cars in the 1956 to 1965 class and 20 cars in the 1966 to 1975 or whatever it was. So the guy who shows up with his 1935 Ford in #4 condition ends up being the only entry in the 1921-1940 class and walks home with a first-place trophy for simply showing up while ten nearly perfect cars in the 1956 to 1965 class get nothing at all because there were 15 cars in the class and only one can get the first place trophy.

I'm not saying that this is what happened in the case of your show. I'm saying that this is what CAN happen, and car show organizers want to avoid it.

Going to a Top-whatever format lumps all the cars in attendance into one large class, and then the whole show is comparing apples to oranges. But people always seem a little happier with that because they know going in that the cars are basically being judged against themselves and the standard of perfection for that car rather than against each other.

An advantage to car show organizers doing a Top-whatever show is no wasted trophies (unless they get something like 40 cars at a "Top 50" show). When dividing up the show by classes, they need to purchase 1st place, 2nd place, and maybe 3rd place trophies for each class and have plaques made and attached to each trophy. If they don't get at least as many cars in each class as they have trophies for, they end up with un-awarded trophies, which is just wasted money. The Top-whatever format eliminates this problem as all trophies will be awarded assuming there are enough cars.

People organizing local cars shows have to balance expected attendance in terms of number of cars, distribution of that attendance by model year, by truck or car, by original or modified, etc., and their budget when determining the show format they'll use.

There is no perfect way to do a car show, and there will always be people who complain about whatever format is used.

Koda

While there is no perfect way to do a car show, there are plenty of wrong ways, and people have the right to voice negative opinions about stupidity, especially when it's the cars that make the shows, and you just charged me 40 dollars for the privilege of showing my car, and I got a bag with a pen that doesn't work, a dash plaque that is already rusting, and a T shirt that wasn't the size I wear, or specified when registering for my efforts.

Jaunty is very much correct that they try to do the trophies for the anticipated demographic makeup of the show. However, it gets stupid when there is only a Best GM - Other award for anything that isn't Chevrolet, yet there is best Chevelle, best Corvette, even best Monte Carlo for the Chevies. My good friend rightfully bitches that her Hurst Olds has to compete, at this one show we attend yearly, with all other GMs, yet my Monte Carlo gets its own class. (My 442 is so undrivable that it would only win the "wow, you actually made it here, here's a complementary tow truck gift certificate to get home" award.)

This is on top of the fact that it is so much easier to maintain a Chevy over anything else GM due to the aftermarket support imbalance.

Car shows are changing with the times. Hot rods are on their way out as their owners die off from old age. I have two events near me, the Frog Follies in Evansville (which is customized hot rods) and the Newport Antique Auto Hill Climb (which is stock components only.) Both are national events, yet neither is huge. But, now, at shows, there are so many Mustangs, Camaros, Chevelles, Novas, Corvettes, and they are all mysteriously factory big blocks...

One trophy I miss is "original class." Those have gone by the wayside in the past ten years. I would usually win as my car is a strong condition 3 all original. It used to be original meant something, but I think the 60s and 70s cars are becoming over-restored like hot rods now.

redoldsman

The thing I get the most tired of seeing is the late model Chargers and Challengers with the led light on the front of them. Does it really take a lot to do that? One thing I don't see a lot of is rice rockets. I guess they do their own shows. I know I am showing my age. I still manage to have a good time when I go and as mentioned, that is what counts.

Tedd Thompson

I sometimes show my Miata at a coffee and cars event, anything goes, bring what you drive,and mine is a ricer. I get a different prospective of the car hobby. Enthusiast are enthusiast they breath the same air but talk a different language. Big learning experience for me. Lots of talk about turbos and getting 250 hp out of a 1600 cc engine, getting the car lighter, everything is metric speak and the parts vendors are businesses I a'm unfamiliar with but it's as fun as getting lost in the fifties. Their not a bad bunch just maybe little younger. Try it you may like it. Change doesn't suck all the time... Tedd

classicmuscle442

Hot rod and street rod classes, boy you can only imagine the arguments and this was at the American Legion in town. Show was in it's sixth year when me and my wife starting organizing it. Ended up calling it a hot rod if it didn't have fenders and eliminated the hot rod class the following year.