Let’s Start the Speculation

In reply to bigben :

Seems like they were scoring harder in general this year. Several repeat cars from last year did worse these year, despite being better. I don't think we can compare concours scores year over year, just like how we can't compare raw autocross times because the course changes each time.

bigben said:

Where can we get the break down of our concourse score? I thought I would have scored better this time than I did at my first challenge, but instead scored lower. I'd like to see which aspect of the judging I need to improve for next time.

You can copy paste the spreadsheet linked on the results page to excel and see the scores from individual judges. I doubt they loaded the actual score sheets from the judges to be able to breakdown further than that. Take a look at the top concourse cars, talk to them, see what they did. This being my first challenge since 2013 concourse scoring has changed a LOT. Uber cleanliness like the Cadillac  and the Volvo would have been top finishers then, now the weighting tends to favor radical engineering Like the Datsaniti, the Sprit, the v6 Miata and the Studebaker. Concours has always been a hot topic post challenge. It's stoll subjective so someone will always feel shorted, but it has improved.

In reply to evildky :

Mine had pretty radical engineering (maybe not as deep into the structure as the Datsaniti) but I still scored pretty average.

I'm thinking I just didn't sell it well enough. Pretty much everything on the car was a research and design project to get it to fit and work together.  I guess it comes down to communicating that in just three minutes in a way that the judges get a good grasp of what's really there.

bigben said:

In reply to evildky :

Mine had pretty radical engineering (maybe not as deep into the structure as the Datsaniti) but I still scored pretty average.

I'm thinking I just didn't sell it well enough. Pretty much everything on the car was a research and design project to get it to fit and work together.  I guess it comes down to communicating that in just three minutes in a way that the judges get a good grasp of what's really there.

Which car were you? 

bigben said:

In reply to evildky :

Mine had pretty radical engineering (maybe not as deep into the structure as the Datsaniti) but I still scored pretty average.

I'm thinking I just didn't sell it well enough. Pretty much everything on the car was a research and design project to get it to fit and work together.  I guess it comes down to communicating that in just three minutes in a way that the judges get a good grasp of what's really there.

What was your car number? I kept copies of all my scoring sheets and I have the numbers from others, just not their notes. I do not know if we need to break this out into another thread, but this discussion tends to get pretty long.

In reply to bigben :

It's absolutely how you sell it. I think your car is awesome. 

Unfortunately the time is so short you cannot expect judges to see anything you don't specifically mention. And they can never see work you did engineering, or testing, or decision-making.

Figure out what the most unique but important parts of your build are and highlight them.

Bigben has the sr20 poor man's Corvette if I'm not mistaken.

In reply to stafford1500 :

Car #71

As I reflect more on it, I think what I did wrong was just rattle off the long list of parts used from various makes models and didn't go into what it took to get them to work together or what engineering problem each was solving.

Last year Stampie did the "crime scene" strings to bring attention to different parts of his build and force the judges to notice. This year machienbau wrote Nissan, Infinity, or Insanity on various parts of the car to highlight what was what. 

I always try to remind people that it's not a car show, it's a car show and tell. Your ability to articulate why the car is amazing can have a significant impact on the score. One thing I commonly see in this crowd is modesty. People are uncomfortable pointing out the hard work and creativity and problem solving because it feels like bragging. 

Robbie said:

Bigben has the sr20 poor man's Corvette if I'm not mistaken.

Oh hell yeah. That car was awesome, and the fix trackside was amazing. You should have crushed the concours. 

Details on car 27 please 

I will get to both BigBen's and Byrneon27's breakdown later this evening, after I help carve up some pumpkins with the family.

I will give you my best recollection of my thoughts and how I scored comopared to the other judges.

The judging was probably a little bit harder on the builds this year since we had a specific car build to target as the "perfect 12 point car". This was the MR2 listed/pictured in the rules. We were reminded of it again right before judging as well.

In reply to stafford1500 :

Can I just say that post-challenge Stafford judging breakdowns are one of the best things to happen to the concours event?  Thank you for doing them!  Last year's discussion had a huge influence on how I tried to present Betsy when it was my turn this year.

In reply to stafford1500 :

I just looked at the example MR2 for the first time and came to two conclusions:

1. My car needs more lipstick and mascara.

2. I'm glad I'm not one of the judges.

Innovation and presentation categories seem like they'd be fairly straightforward to keep consistent, but execution as described would be tough. The example talks of docking points on a 30 year old car for a dash crack when some cars don't even have a dash. I mean trying to compare the street car to the ratrod to the gutted full race car on any even playing field would be very difficult. I'm glad I don't have to be responsible for making that comparison fairly.

Regarding the concours: We TOTALLY berkeleyed OURSELVES out of a top 3 overall with our lack of understanding/preparation on the "new" (to us) concours format/scoring. That's on us.

None of our #dreamteam of three is salty with anyone but ourselves.

The Canexican and I had a 6 hour truck ride to discuss how to bring an A-game presentation next year.

Thanks to all who candidly explained where/how badly we berkeleyed it all up. Good lessons are hard-learned. Won't happen again.

PS: To whoever rammed something into the rear driver-side fender of the car between Friday evening and Saturday morning, you could've at least left a note. Bad things happen to bad people. Cap'n Karma comin fo yo azz.

OK, so there is anew thread dedicated to the breakdown of the concours scoring

over here 2019 Challenge Concours scoring discussion

head over and try not to laugh or cry too much...