[RagTop]

I was in a car show on Saturday and the group my car was in was 69-73 Mustangs. This was a participant's choice show and my convertible took a third place in the group. Second place went to Nitmare and his gorgeous black 70 convertible, but the first place trophy went to a guy who had not entered his professionally restored 69 428CJ factory 4 speed Mach I in the Mach I class. He probably would have won that class as well since the car was a professional restoration and was dead bang beautiful. I mentioned it to the show personnel. They agreed the car was misentered but the said the voting had already begun, so there wasn't much they could do about it. It seemed the club personnel staging the show should have seen this clear error as they were parking the cars in their respective categories. They could have even disqualified him from the class he entered, but instead they gave him the first place trophy. This might be sour grapes I suppose, but the guy (who was very nice) hadn't gotten a smudge of grease on his hands in the restoration of this car and knew very little about the car except that he had one when he was in high school and this one had cost a ton to restore. Anybody else ever had this happen and, if so, what did you do?

 

[Laurie_S]

That's bs about not being able to do anything about it. A responsible club can make appropriate changes even after voting has begun. If they didn't want to make changes, then they should have awarded two first places in your class and moved everyone up appropriately.

That is one of the things my club is very careful about--especially since I'm the show chairman of our regional MCA show. The cars' classifications are checked at registration and tech-in and if the owners have selected the wrong class they are changed at that time. Having the wrong car in a class can cause a lot of problems and hard feelings--clubs must be careful to make sure that what you described doesn't happen.

 

[RagTop]

Thanks for the input Laurie. After I wrote the post I remembered that this was the second time the same thing happened at this show. About four years ago they had a Mach misentered in our class but that time they forced him to move over to the Mach I class. I also thought of the dual first place trophys as a solution but it doesn't seem they did.

 

[Guest]

I think the show personnel made a mistake by not reclassifying that car. I think you should lodge a formal complaint, and maybe next year they'll actually exert some effort to check out the cars as they check in.

 

[aslan]

Hey Ken
I could be wrong but there was a highly modified 67 or 68 next to Dave's car that was entered in the "stock" class! (It was the purple one with the gray front end.) Just my 2 cents.
Stan

 

[jdaigle]

The best thing to do at a car show is to check the box 'do not judge' on the window sign. I have won and not won car shows, but every time it turned out not to be fun to show a car.

 

[Guest]

I could be wrong but there was a highly modified 67 or 68 next to Dave's car that was entered in the "stock" class!

Yeah, I saw that one too, it was right across the aisle from me. I thought that classification was odd as well, although in my opinion it wasn't the best car in either the 67-68 class nor the modified class, so it's misclassification probably didn't detract as much from the voting.

 

[Guest]

Laurie is absolutely correct. They should have corrected the mistake.
When we ran shows we always had extra trophies so that we could award ties to any class or level. No one left our shows unhappy.
When show promoters do not do the right thing do the only thing that they understand,Do not attend their shows

 

[Guest]

I agree, either award 2 trophies or move him. We had a '86 SVO in my un-restored class at a show last year. I asked him about the color change on his car. He said an unrestored car can have a color change! My club prez asked him if he wanted to change classes, he said no! We emplored him, again no! I finally said" You think a repainted SVO with a color change can compete with my '65 & it's original paint(which was better than his) then you're welcome to stay in URA!" Needless to say he wasn't happy. Our club tries to see that everyone gets a trophy. If there's not enough to go around, we(the members)wait until more can be purchased so the out of towners can get theirs. Seems fair to me. If a person doesn't know the rules & you can't explain it to him... so be it. If the club won't change it, stay away & tell everyone that'll listen!

 

[Ernie]

Want to see misclassed cars on a grand scale go to the Ford Nationals at Carlisle. Stock can mean anything from a restored (to original build sheet specs) to hey I made my coupe into a conv't.....and yes people vote for them anyway. Actually overheard, I can't compete in modified, I can't win there. i guess to some it really does not matter, as long as they win.

Yes, I am a little competitive by nature and yes it does steam me, but I get over it and more on (Still Sucks!).

 

[sharkmouth]

AHHHHH, you car show competitors.......

I'll personally stick with folks racing other folks cars as competition, but then again, nice paint is my LAST priority when it comes to cars.

 

[johnpro]

To our show this year, we've added several more categories. I was getting complaints form all the late model guys that they been beaten out by a Roushe, the last 2 years. One of the classes we added was a Roushe/Saleen class.

At our show, if the car is obviously in the wrong class, I'll move it (I'm the chairman, so that's my perogotive /forums/images/icons/wink.gif). Sometimes there's a real gray area though.

The one that frosted my butt was the winner of the "work in progress" category 2 years ago. That car was NOT in progress ... it was DONE. Maybe he needed to do some detailing in the glove box or something. He just wanted, and ended up getting, a cheap trophy.

 

[69grandecj]

Ken: The same thing basically happened to me at one of there shows about 6 or 7 years ago. I had my '89 in the stock class and some guy with a modified '86 (made to look like a '87 -93 GT) and highly polished engine compartment was entered in it. They were supposed to move him but never changed his window card so he still got votes and the 1st place trophy.

 

[Guest]

Well my car is a stock bodied Vert, with my thinking is my car has mods the int has non stock seats & the engine is also midified but i usually put it in the stock class becouse of the rareity of these cars there is not usually enough to make a class so me & Ken would get shoved into other classes like Mach's or some other class in wich we would have no chance of an award. What can you do? that was a Joke of a show very un-professional

Peace!
The one & only Nitmare