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Yet another set of blind judges at a car show today...

PhillyTurboSix

PhillyTurboSix

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Went to a car show in Haddonfield NJ today with the TTA. Great having the car out and enjoying the amazing weather we had today in the area and that's always more enjoyable then some $5 dollar award they give out. But when the judges don't have a clue how to judge a car it makes me nuts! About a dozen cars in my class. A really nice GN and a really nice gray GTA in the class with me. The rest of the cars in the class were ok at best and not really detailed that well other then a Mustang. Figured between the cars in the class one of the 3 of us should be an easy win looking at the other cars in our class. Who would win the best of class well that's always fun to see how good the judges are and how well they judge a car. Well an HHR beat us all with best of class! The friggin hood wasn't even open! :mad2: They kept saying keep your windows up, hood open and trunk open to even get judged! Oh yea the HHR had a hard tanoe cover and that was closed as well.

I could care less about the winning the awards at these shows but is it that hard to judge a car! I even opened the doors for the judges when they came thru. The judges had nothing but compliments on my car and yet a HHR takes the best of class with a closed hood. uggg sorry boys had to gripe somewhere. I just wish these shows would leave the judging to people who have an eye for detail and follow their own rules! The HHR was clean but come on... I got runner up and that was fine but these guys kill me.

anyhow it's always about showing the car and letting others enjoy and learn about the TTA's. Just having the car out was a blast. I finally burnt thru the tank of gas that was a year old! :eeks: So she has a nice fresh tank of fuel for the winter months.

I had my 9/11 shirt on today as well. The church in town rang the bells for everyone who lost their lives in the towers and planes that day. I was in those buildings one week to the day it happened so it hits home for me every year when it comes around. I love NYC and I go there a lot over the year. It will be in my mind forever! Never forget!!!
 

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Hey PhillyTurboSix, if its any consolation, I know how you feel. I took my all orig 82 FB to the Pontiac Nats and was feeling really confident because in the tech line and everywhere, people kept saying "Wow we havent seen an all orig 82 in a long time, etc, etc". I displayed the build sheet, PHS stuff, orig title, everything, and got totally snubbed by the judges. Of the 4 cars in my class, I got 4th. I went home kinda dejected, but then got to thinking, I dont NEED anyone to tell me I have a nice car, I know I do. So take it with a grain of salt and TTA's are collectable, sought after, and not everyone owns one. Also 9/11 victims RIP.
 
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Chevy HHR and Chrysler PT cruiser are different. Same style, different make.

The chevy hhr with the ecotec will surprise a lot of people. Still gay...

Jason
 
well in feeling u , i have a syclone and my tta at my shop my tta is not a show car but very nice and the syclone is 43000.00 mile super clean truck i quote what a nice s10 are u gowing to put a v8in it to make it fast and then is that a formula whys the shaker not on it . well folks thats what you get . it makes me crazy but what do you want ,they also think a 76 four door nova is a hot rod . please never forget and GOD bless there souls
 
Quiky One said:
Dang Jim your skinnier now then you were in Ohio!
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Thanks Jason. I've lost about 20 or more since Ohio. Down to 200lbs from 270!!! :eeks:

kymmee said:
Hey PhillyTurboSix, if its any consolation, I know how you feel. I took my all orig 82 FB to the Pontiac Nats and was feeling really confident because in the tech line and everywhere, people kept saying "Wow we havent seen an all orig 82 in a long time, etc, etc". I displayed the build sheet, PHS stuff, orig title, everything, and got totally snubbed by the judges. Of the 4 cars in my class, I got 4th. I went home kinda dejected, but then got to thinking, I dont NEED anyone to tell me I have a nice car, I know I do. So take it with a grain of salt and TTA's are collectable, sought after, and not everyone owns one. Also 9/11 victims RIP.
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Well you know the pain as well! Just annoys the hell out of me when I go to a poorly judged show. I've personally judged about 5 shows with other really good judges and all of them we got compliments on how well the show was judged. When you have a row of 10 cars and you walk down them looking very closely you can tell what ones are worthy or not. I do love just having the car out giving it some exercise, enjoying the weather, friends at the shows, and teach people about the TTA's. While I don't jump on people but if someone walks up with interest I'm right there answering their questions about them! :thumbup:

Rodimus_Prime said:
PT Cruisers are gay
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Way gay! And can you believe they have their own event at Carlise!! I just don't get those cars at all. I went to a local show and 20 of them showed up. Stuffed animals all around and in the car and all kinda goofy crap hanging on and around the cars. A friend of mine blew a head gasket in his GN near my house so I went over there and sat with him for a few hours till the tow truck showed up. Well this happened right in front of a Dodge dealership. While we were sitting there on the curb right by the new cars some people were looking at PT Loser's behind us and I remember hearing the salesman say.. "Now if you buy a PT Looser you can join all types of car clubs and take it out to car shows all around the area" Even the people gave him a look like wtf. I'll never figure why people show them that's for sure!

jarredsoon said:
My friend had an HHR and a new black corvette. He had to sell one and sold the corvette. That is gay.
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lol wow better de-friend him that is uber gay! :eeks:

adam levy said:
well in feeling u , i have a syclone and my tta at my shop my tta is not a show car but very nice and the syclone is 43000.00 mile super clean truck i quote what a nice s10 are u gowing to put a v8in it to make it fast and then is that a formula whys the shaker not on it . well folks thats what you get . it makes me crazy but what do you want ,they also think a 76 four door nova is a hot rod . please never forget and GOD bless there souls
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well it's always nice to share the pain with others that's why I posted! I had a guy yesterday just about ready to question why there was a turbo six in my TTA and I cut him off and told him the history of the car. You could tell he gave the car a bit more respect after learning about it. The key is to make sure you school these people at the shows so they know. Because you know they are going to run home and google or ebay it! :clap:
 
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you are that upset, I would suggest going to shows where they don't give trophies. Sorry to disagree with you, but everyone thinks their car deserves a trophy. That is why I always leave before they had them out, hate to see everyone think their car is better than the ones that win. Just my 2 cents.
 
roadkill73 said:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you are that upset, I would suggest going to shows where they don't give trophies. Sorry to disagree with you, but everyone thinks their car deserves a trophy. That is why I always leave before they had them out, hate to see everyone think their car is better than the ones that win. Just my 2 cents.
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Well if you read my post it has nothing to do with getting a trophy. Typically before I even step in the door coming from a show, I tear the plaque off, and the trophy goes in the trash can. They are dust collectors that cost $5 bucks to make and I don't need them cluttering up my house. I will keep some of the more unique ones or the more expensive ones that people actually put time into or I'll keep the ones that I win at special events, and or national or regional events that mean something. I am NOT a trophy hunter in no way shape or form. Never was never will be so please don't get me confused with one of them because I am not a trophy collector.

My point in my post above is it's about judging a car show properly if your going to run one. If your going to take the time and effort into running a car show well then you need to make sure it's judged properly. I've seen this time and time again and it just gets old when judging cars at a show can be so simple and yet they have no clue how to do it. 90% of the time I go to cruise nights where they don't give out awards. I've also been to shows where there is 400 cars, 20 awards, and won. I've tossed those in the can when I got home as well. The problem with not judging a car show properly is all the nice cars go away and don't bother to come out anymore. I go to the shows to enjoy ALL the cars that are there and check out the amazing things people have done with their ride or the amazing ways they have preserved them over the years. I've noticed a trend at some local shows where the quality of the cars have dropped big time. The super low mile all original rare stuff gets looked over and some turd that the owner details once every 5 years wins. I know of 2 shows that have been going on for years in the area that are no more because they did not judge the show properly over time and no one attends any more and they get hate mail.

My pop taught me... Do it right the first time and every time or don't do it at all.
 
I feel the same way about Judging. Being in Auto body and doing restorations on the side, I know what I am looking at when I go to a car show. It killed me one year at a show when there were about 10 or 15 very nice classics and muscle cars with beautiful paint jobs, and a new corvette with only a few miles on it took best paint. there was a couple 30 plus year old cars with original paint that looked as good as the corvette. Why not give the trophy to someone who actually put a lot of time into creating the paint job or taking extremely good care to preserve a 30 plus year old paint job than give it to someone that just drove a brand new car off of the lot. I don't care if I win any trophys, My TTA in the condition it is in now does not really deserve one anyways. But give credit to where it is due. I know of enough car shows around me that if you are not in their car club you won't win anything, regardles of how nice your ride is. I enjoy goingto the shows, but most of the time I leave before they hand out trophies because I dont want to get into a fight with the judges over who should've won.
 
Hey Jim, don't throw those trophies away. If they are not car specific you could probably donate them to local organizations for the kids. Check with schools and boy scouts/girl scouts etc... I am sure they would appreciate free trophies to give to the kids. I prefer to get the dash plaques at car shows. I think they mean moreto me than a trophy. I also normally only go to shows that are raising money for a good cause.
 
I have donated some of them over the years that were nice. There is a trophy shop I do embroidery for and I will give them to him as he does all the local sports and schools. Typically the really cheap ones I'll just toss.

I'm with you on the dash plaques 100%. I'd rather get that and a nice plaque to hang on the wall. I keep all of those. One of the reasons I always like the BPG event they give out a really nice plaque to the show winners and a dash plaque. The All Buick MAGNA show I'm running next month that's just what I did. I had some really nice plaques made up. Much better then a plastic trophy IMO.
 
I got beat by a 87 Iroc with rainbow BadBoyz stickers on it. Louvers, goofball wheels and it wasn't even really clean at all and had over 80K miles. Got revenge leaving the show though,....ttarider
 
Ahhhhh yes, the politics of the local car show.....
thats why i keep mine parked in the garage and just spectate rather then participate.....
 
My TTA lost a couple years back to a 92 Lincoln Mark POS with shitty chrome under the hood. I haven't bothered since. They don't know what it is. Had the 6500 mile TTA next to my Turbo T (24,000 miles) and maybe 5 people knew what they were. Sad. Only took it to one and probably will never bother again.

And yeah - they did deserve a flippin trophy next to that Lincoln.
 
See now this is what I'm talking about. Kills me to hear stories where people got short changed and now they don't really show anymore because of it. It could be a 1902 Ford or a 1969 Shelby Mustang in my class. It's all about just judging the cars properly. I don't know how people can appoint judges at shows and not make sure they know what the hell they are looking at. And it's all about attention to detail that's all! It don't matter what the car is. And this is why the caliber of cars I have seen at shows over the years is dropping off.

I'm running the all Buick show in Cecil next month for MAGNA and I have hand selected some judges that I think have an amazing eye for detail. This will be my first shot at judging all Buick's only. There are a few local Buick owners who are trophy hungry but yet their cars are not well detailed. I guess they will get a surprise. :rofl:

And the fall out of all of these issues with the judging at cars show is.... popular vote! I won't even go anywhere near any of those shows. These places don't want to deal with hunting down good judges so they do popular vote. So you bring 20 friends to the show and vote on each others cars over and over and you win. Yea that's a lot of fun! Let's just slop a show together make it popular vote so all the people with junk cars get a chance to win because they would never normally win anywhere else! :wall:

I dunno maybe it's me. I'm just happy when any of my cars just get fair judged at a show. When I notice how bad the judging was it's even worse because like I said I really don't car about winning at shows. There has been many many times I won and was shocked because in my mind I thought there were other cars more detailed then mine but I guess others also wondered why I won. Some day I'll figure it all out. Maybe I need to start a car show judging bussiness... hmmmm :eam:
 
To expand on your comment, PhillyTurboSix, I really dont care about winning either, but I thought a big portion of the "judging" aspect would be correctness, when it comes to the car options, trim, etc. My point being, if I am put in a class that is "stock", my car should represent itself as it did in the year it left the showroom. Not just stock as in engine. A particular car that placed ahead of me had aftermarket chrome rims, mismatched floor mats, etc and I just thought that was a bad call by the judges. No hard feelings, I can accept constructive criticism. But I agree with some of the other posters, I probably will avoid judged car shows from now on.
 
kymmee said:
To expand on your comment, PhillyTurboSix, I really dont care about winning either, but I thought a big portion of the "judging" aspect would be correctness, when it comes to the car options, trim, etc. My point being, if I am put in a class that is "stock", my car should represent itself as it did in the year it left the showroom. Not just stock as in engine. A particular car that placed ahead of me had aftermarket chrome rims, mismatched floor mats, etc and I just thought that was a bad call by the judges. No hard feelings, I can accept constructive criticism. But I agree with some of the other posters, I probably will avoid judged car shows from now on.
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Well that's another issue I've seen many many times and I figure if the judges can't figure it out then I won't be back to that show! We have a local guy with a Grand National with at least 20 mods and or things that are not stock anymore. Yet I see him all the time in the stock class. I see that a lot actually. If it's bad most times someone will say something to them around here.

Well one thing is for sure at the TTA reunion you'll get judged properly! Just another one of the reasons to make sure you make it to the reunion with your TTA! :hooray::hooray:
 
If I missed it I apologize but it seems so obvious to me that these local shows with judging actually give most of the trophies to their friends and I've seen it happen regularly ... I mean almost 100% of the time. Again if that was mentioned I apologize.

If you want your car judged you have to go to a national show and get a copy of the judges card so you have documentation. I would NEVER bother .... I drive my two cars and don't car if I ever win a trophy ...
 
I've got a fistful of similar "car show" stories. All with the same bias for and against certain cars or people. It's a poverty that even in this small world of collector cars and car shows that petty preferences and politics pollute us.
We've talked about this before but owning a TTA saddles us with a bias from even GN owners not to mention other pontiac owners. There,I said it, and you all know it's true. We are largely ignored and discounted at Buick events and sneered at at Pontiac events too.
I hear it at the track too. Every time I'm introduced to a fellow GN/T-type racer when they find out what I'm racing they poo-poo the boosted Buick relationship.
One time I introduced my self as a " turbo buick brother" racer they immediately said No, you're more of a distant cousin,a balck sheep cousin at that.

So that is that, and now I stay away from them and treat them like they treat me. Now,they'll chat it up with the GN owner I came with every time, so it's just the way it is.
Which is fine by me because I own the TTA because I like it and am not seeking validation from anyone else.

okay...off the soapbox now..


....
 
ive also seen pos's win ..... I think of car shows like dog shows ... the judge should be looking for the most perfect example of a certain model make of car.
 
I'm running the all Buick show in Cecil next month for MAGNA and I have hand selected some judges that I think have an amazing eye for detail. This will be my first shot at judging all Buick's only. There are a few local Buick owners who are trophy hungry but yet their cars are not well detailed. I guess they will get a surprise. :rofl:

I'm planning on being at Cecil next Month.Not sure if I will have the TTA there, but I am excited about seeing all the turbo Buicks. Maybe I will see you there. You taking any of yours down?ttarider
 
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