All,
As the TUXXII chair, I thought it best that I simply stay out of this
discussion of the Concour as my position would hardly seem impartial. But
since a few points were never brought up, I thought I might reopen the
discussion.
First of all, the Harrington Tiger. Bill Van Velkinburg has been showing
this car in the stock class for as long as I can remember. And, for as long
as I can remember, no one has ever complained about it's classification. Why?
Because "Harry" is a stock Harrington Tiger. The only thing different about
this car is it's coachwork. Other than that, this car is as stock as they
get; original engine, original carb, original oil filter system, original
radiater, original color scheme, original trim, original style battery, etc.,
etc., etc. Bill, in fact, has spent a LOT of money and time to bring his
"Harry" up to what it is today, as close as he can get it to the way it was
when it left Harrington Coachworks. Personally, I believe this car deserves
the recognition it gets. If we had put this car in a special vehicle class,
then people going for Lord Rootes would complain; if we put this car in the
personalized class, then those people would complain; and the same with the
modified class.
Secondly, the lawn. The idea to use the lawn at the Marina came from our
contacts in Eureka including the Visiter's Bureau. In December of last year,
Julie and I scouted the area as did Tom and Bette Hall. At the time, we found
the lawn to be well maintained and considered this site to be a good spot for
our activity. Norman and Margi inspected the Marina again in April and found
no problems. So how were we to know that the grounds personnel were going to
stop watering the lawn? And how were we to know that the seagulls were going
to use our site for a potty box? Certainly, if we had known and had enough
time for the paper work, we would have gone elsewhere.
And lastly, the judges. The real issue here is not the judging at this event,
but is much more far reaching. Remember last year in Bakersfield when only
cars going for Lord Rootes were judged and the rest were done by popular
vote. People complained then also. Don't get me wrong, I didn't like the way
the Eureka concour was done either. I also didn't like the Bakersfield
concour. But the worst of them all was the concour I chaired in Tahoe; that
one was a disaster. In Tahoe, I tried to put on a typical concour as we know
them, with judges judging all the cars etc., etc. What was the problem, you
say? Simple. No one wants to be a judge and of the few judges I had, most
were not qualified. Then, everyone gets bored and wants to leave in two
hours. Add a little afternoon sun and many of the judges won't look at more
than one class of cars. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - it takes
30 judges to judge 50-60 cars in two hours and still do a descent job. How
does that break down? Well, 12 judges for stock, 12 for personalized, and 6
for modified. In Tahoe, STOA provided 12 judges and CAT none. Seems the
president told the members at a meeting that judging was STOA's problem and
besides, who wants to be a judge, it'll ruin your whole day. Of course, when
we got to the event, the CAT registrants were all pissed off , because
judging was biased toward STOA. Most of the judges quite after the first
class, then I was in a mad rush to find replacements. I ended up with close
compeditors judging one anothers cars. And where were the qualified judges?
Well, it seems that people like Terry Taylor, Steve Alcala, Norm Miller and
others had done this job so many times in the past that they wanted a well
deserved break. Then, with about 10 cars left to do, people start taking off
for the rally.
All we have seen these past two years is an attempt by the event organizers
to get though the concour in a shorter period of time, while still providing
reasonable results, and all the while pissing off the least number of people.
The way I see it, there is only a small number of people who go to these
events who care about the concour judging and I quess we've just heard from 3
of them. Fortunately, events like these aren't planned to please the few, but
rather to please the many. To that end, I believe Norman and Company did an
outstanding job considering the opposition within STOA, meager Tiger
community support and the use of a new location.
But hey! Next year it's going to be even better, right.
Til next time - Event Chairman? Who?
Paul Reisentz
Lame Duck TUXXII Event Chair
STOA TAC Chairman
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