> Hummm. . It's always been my understanding that the judges couldn't (and
> shouldn't) be judging a car if it was in his/her entered class. Seem like
> a conflict of interest to me.
Indeed that would be a conflict of interest. The VTR Rules are fairly
clear on this:
> The Vintage Triumph Register Concours Rules
>
> by George Rabey, VTR Chief Judge
> 22 May 1997
[snip]
> 5. HOST CLUB RESPONSIBILITIES:
...
> 5.3 CLASS JUDGING TEAMS: Class judging teams shall consist of volunteer
> class team leaders and judges. A team may judge more than one class,
> i.e. TR-2 through TR-5. It shall be legal for a member who has a car
> entered in concours to be a judging team member PROVIDED he/she does
> not serve on the team which judges his/her class. It is highly
> recommended that team leaders be certified by the VTR, or readily
> accepted as experts in the cars of the class they will judge. They will
> act as supervisors of the volunteer judges who will work under them.
As far as I am aware, the judges all knew of their responsibility to
judge outside of their classes, and Duncan was trying vary hard to make
sure this worked the way it was supposed to. We did not have enough
judges and got several from convention attendees, some of whom were not
able to make the judging meeting Friday, from what I understand, and
were "coached" on Saturday. It is possible that these people were
skipped somehow in the confusion of finding enough judges and then
getting them all set to judge on Saturday, or they may have
misrepresented themselves for whatever reason; however, I assure you
that the rules were followed carefully and particularly up until that
point, at least, and this was one of the top priorities for the event.
There will always be problems at the last minute; all I can say is I
apologize for the confusion and hurt feelings if things happened the way
they are being described. I also believe something should have been
brought up to Duncan or George at the National the instant anyone
noticed anything amiss, and an offending judge could have been
reassigned.
Another note -- about the Best of Show problem with the TR6: I still am
not entirely clear on what happened (only working off of hearsay), but I
discussed the matter with several VTR officials and the bias of a judge
could not have spoiled the chance for a competing car, since the top
cars selected for Best in Show contention
1) were NOT only the top point finisher in each class -- several in the
top RANGE were considered, and
2) they were rejudged by the head judging team to even out the bias
between regular judging teams. This is an important point, since the
team that judged Spits may have judged a little harder than the team
that judged TR4's, for instance, and the rejudge evens out any
differences.
Was the person with whom there was a question in the TR6 class part of
the head judging team or a regular judging team? I do not know this.
If he was on the regular team, there is no problem in my mind (except if
he was judging in his class, which should not have happened). If he was
a member of the head judging team, there is a problem.
Let me know...
Keep Triumphing,
Susan Hensley
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