Thread: Judging at car shows

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Read in another thread Mooneye had a experience with a car show . Judging i think is best when its done by spectators and not members who are entered. This is a way you have no bias towards any of the cars competing . We have a local show at the union hall and if you have enough friends drop buy and vote though you go home with a trophy . Recently went to a Mustang show and club members could not enter but they did judging so fairness was spread out. Now i overheard some of the entries and they will hit most years because of the cars originality and pristine shape . Now has a friendship from repeat entries gone bad i sure hope not . There are alot of cars worthy and deserving and trophy.

Bobby,
Your right, the judging thing is a touchy subject,seems like somebody is always unhappy.
When my grandson and I go to some of the local shows at the schools around here he almost always wins and I rarely do. Everyone that comes to the show can vote there are no real judges. So the majority of the voting is done by kids and they all like his car!

Car show judging frosts me in general. With local shows, especially, there are too many folks that have 'friends'. When I was into showing several years ago, I actually started to write "Do Not Judge" on my entry. You tend to keep your buddies happy longer in many cases.

The car club that I belong to used to hold a "invitational only" 3 day indoor car show every year. Car club members were trained in the fine art of judging cars and every car was judged at least twice before an award was decided. This was done to reduce the chance of favoritism. All members cars were ineligile for any judging award and we knew this going in. We paid the same entry fee, but were ineligible for awards.

Even with those precautions set up, there was always someone who thought they should have gotten an award instead of someone else. You could even show them why their cars didn't receive a higher score, but that really never made them cool off. Some had to be evicted from the show and told they would not be allowed back in the future.

I judged for 3 years. Instead of sitting back and enjoying the show, we (usually 6 teams of 2 judges each) had to judge and re-judge 350 cars in about 12 hours. Since once the cars were parked on Friday they couldn't be moved until Sunday afternoon, we tried to do as much judging as possible on Friday and Saturday after hours when the car owners were gone. Good judging is a lot of work, I don't envy those who do it carefully and with out prejudice. It was fun, but it could be stressful depending on the car owner and their attitude.

If you want some really good judging sheets, more objective then most of them, get an ISCA sheet and use it. As Bob said, Judging is a tough job.... The majority of people don't have a clue what the criteria is and whoever wins there's at least 10 people in your face about it..... Best thing to do if you're part of a club running a show is give each participant a copy of the judging sheet when they come in so when they come up whining later it's easy to point out the errors of their logic!!!!! I've built a few show only cars and the level of detail involved with building a car that will be competitive in the big time shows requires about 40% more in labor hours.... I've won a lot of trophies, but the only one's I ever keep are the "people's choice" trophies, IMO they mean the most. The others have all been given to parts stores I buy from, or sometimes the first little kid that comes by and sez "Wow, neat car Mr."!!!!!!

Ken it would allmost be a hot rod if the hood side was missing LOL jk . He has to take the award the car looks very detailed .

Ireland true i've been at a show and heard people saying who would win just because of that .

Mopar that sounds like a well organized event . With that many cars it would be very hard to be favorable to just one . Your effort to judge fairly had to be rewarding .

Dave the work is to extensive to want to show LOL . This brings up a cousin who owns a shop say that he doen't show for reasons of them picking a small flaw apart.

We as car nuts can find a flaw in any car but should that bring down points when there is so much great work in other places. Seems its harder to get the points up then them slipping down . I attend mostly Mustang and Ford shows and have heard judges say it would be good except for one thing i found.

I think i'll beat the dents out prime it and drive it. LOL naaa just like Dave i like em shiny at least.

About 2 years ago I went to a car show in KC and I saw a judge use a mic. to check the dia. of the little ball on the top of the antena on a 56 Chevy.
When I saw this I just started to laugh and I had to walk away.
What a buch of BS.
Who really care's is one antena is .006 to big or to small.

Hope no ever mic's my ball probably be a pep boys close enough and works type .