Judging seminar

The NJ Region of the AACA holds its biggest event of the year, the Spring Meet, every year on the first Sunday in May. This is a judged car show which at times has seen up to 250 vehicles in attendance. The cars are put into classes, and volunteer members of the Region perform the judging. Judges are arranged in teams of two, and with a dozen and a half classes to judge, the Region would ideally have 30 or more volunteers. As someone who has judged our Spring Meet for the last few years, I’ve seen how woefully short of that number we usually are.

In years past, our chief judge, Ed G., would hold a judging seminar a week or two before the Spring Meet. While well attended, the club still lacked the requisite number of volunteers. Several club members, including our new chief judge Anthony C., decided last year to expand the number of judging seminars. As covered in this recent blog post, the first such seminar was held at Dick B.’s house in late January. This month, your humble blogger agreed to play host. We started with a 9 a.m. breakfast (assembled by my most gracious wife, who allowed a dozen NJ Region members into her dining room), followed by a 10 a.m. start in the garage.

The seminar was again ably led by our “pro tem” chief judge Craig K, with my two cars, the ’67 Alfa Romeo and the ’93 Mazda Miata, as the objects of our collective scrutiny. The focus of the training exercise was “class judging”, with cars evaluated for correctness and condition in 4 areas (exterior, interior, engine compartment, and chassis). However, both of my cars are HPOF, “Historical Preservation of Original Features” and would not normally be subject to a point-by-point evaluation. Still, it was good practice for the Region members to analyze the cars on a 40-point scale (10 points for each of the 4 areas). I kept my lips zipped as horrors such as faded paint, door dings, a dirty bellhousing, a semi-opaque convertible window, worn upholstery, window decals (!) and other atrocities were critiqued. Still, on a 40-point scale, the group reached a consensus that each car earned a total point score in the low-to-mid 30s. Similar to what we learned last time, each “defect” would result in only a ½ or 1 point deduction out of 10 available points. The goal should not be to deduct as many points as possible, but to treat each deduction relative to the 10 available points. A car would need to be in very poor condition for it to earn a loss of 7 or 8 points out of 10.

We finished up around 12 noon, and Craig and I were pleased to see a number of new faces in the crowd. Attendance at a judging seminar is not a commitment to judge, but it certainly is our hope that with 2 training sessions done and a third one scheduled for April, we should see an uptick in volunteers at our May Spring Meet.

Craig (in blue jacket) begins the session

Each participant was invited to judge each section of the car

Craig reminds the crowd to not touch the car without the owner’s permission!

Chassis judging requires someone willing to get down on all fours

Points were lost for “non original” window decals seen here in upper left

Trainees correctly noted that in some areas, newer Miata lost more points than older Alfa

Correct judging position requires that convertible top be up

The NJ Region of the AACA has held its annual Spring Meet (car show) on the first Sunday in May for as long as I can remember, and probably much further back than that. Traditionally, the Chief Judge for the Meet holds a judging seminar a week or two before the show. Last year, our long-serving Chief Judge retired from the position, and with a new Chief Judge comes a fresh look at the way we do things. Our new Chief Judge Anthony decided to make two rather simple changes: one, conduct more than one judging seminar, and two, conduct the first one a few months before the show. The overall intent is to increase the number of volunteer judges.

Our newsletter editor-in-chief, Dick Bettle, graciously agreed to make his garage available for the first of these seminars, which was held on a ‘balmy’ (40-ish) January Saturday. Including our host, 17 members of the club turned out, which I felt was an impressive showing. Craig Kunz, our Regional VP, agreed to stand in for Anthony, who is dealing with some medical issues. We surrounded Dick’s 1930 Ford Model A Coupe which was our vehicle exemplar for the day.

Several attendees are experienced National AACA judges, having judged at Hershey and other National shows around the country, and their input is valuable at these kinds of seminars. At the same time, AACA uses a 400-point judging system and drills down to a microscopic level which our Region does not. The NJ Region’s judging sheet uses a 40-point system, with 10 points each assigned to exterior, interior, engine compartment, and chassis. One of the major learnings which Craig successfully delivered was understanding the difference between the National 400-point judging sheet and our 40-point one.

It was a fun exercise with Dick’s Model A. Most club members are all too familiar with this car, as Dick and his wife Bobbi routinely put 4,000-5,000 miles a year on it (that is not a typo: four THOUSAND to five THOUSAND miles a year). To the casual observer, this is a bone-stock 1930 Ford. However, Dick, a life-long car fanatic whom I consider to be one of the most technically savvy people I’ve met, has executed dozens of modifications to this A. Among other upgrades: radial tires on smaller-diameter wheels, an alternator, a Honda distributor, a performance cylinder head, and upgraded electrics including a navigation system (yet he has retained cable brakes). On a 40-point scale, we ended up deducting 13 points for a final score of 27. The radials and the engine mods were major deductions. While some attendees wanted to score a “0” for the engine compartment, Craig and other judges noted that the car retains its original engine block, so only 5 points were deducted.

After two hours in the garage, Bobbi entered the room to announce that lunch was being served upstairs, where we found homemade lasagna, meatballs, water, coffee, and various cupcakes (some club members admitted that they were really here for the lasagna). Dick and Bobbi were generous to a fault by hosting and feeding this crowd of hungry car guys. Oh, and the next judging seminar is in March at my house. I need to go clean the garage.