Challenge Town Hall extended - Concour feedback

To me , a car with a high concours score would seem more road worthy of a car.

 a race car can score high in funtionality but not comfort.

 If you choose to sit out a portion of the event you get 0 points,

but what would it take to get a nicely finished race car to score the same as a nice 'road' car, and vice versa, because to me 'concurs' is about finish/cleanlyness.

Part of the concourse is innovation. I can bring the world's cleanest well sorted C4 on Hoosiers and it's going to score poorly in the concourse because there's about zero innovation in slapping Hoosiers on a Corvette. That's just the way it is.

In reply to alfadriver :

Adrian & his Tercel teammates have done well both times I’ve seen it at the Challenge, and he had a Florida State Championship trophy as well as several others. I don’t know what their concours scores were, but there’s tons of innovation and great execution on that car. 

SVreX said:

In reply to Andy Neuman :

I can’t speak for this year, but I can confirm that in 2017 stock-ish Miatas were consistently punished with low scores for innovation. 

Yep. My supercharged Miata had some suspension mods and home made aero stuff. Otherwise, it was "well bought" with the supercharger already installed. My score was 14.25. I didn't expect any better, in fact a couple of competitors talked me out of taking the 12.

Pete Gossett said:

In reply to alfadriver :

Adrian & his Tercel teammates have done well both times I’ve seen it at the Challenge, and he had a Florida State Championship trophy as well as several others. I don’t know what their concours scores were, but there’s tons of innovation and great execution on that car. 

Out of curiosity- what class does it run in when autocrossing normally?

In reply to alfadriver :

Fsp I think.

It's an SMF car (I think) and the engine bay is full of cool stuff with CAD drawings in the build book. It was a neat car that I'm pretty sure drove one of them to work this morning. 

Edit: yes FSP, not SMF. 

The micro van got an 18.6.  Was their innovation bringing a tube chassis racecar with no firewall and hosing down a pro driver with hot coolant? The rules I read should have sent them home without running at all.

In reply to alfadriver :

Good grief. 

I am certainly not brushing you off. In fact, I have bent over backwards for years to try to talk you into coming back, because I think you have a lot to offer. 

However, Eric, your argument is getting really tiring. You bring a really negative tone to this every single time you talk about it, and you always say the same thing. 

You don’t believe an autocross car can do well in the Concours. I get it. Your point is made. We disagree.

I think listening to you rehash it dozens of times qualifies me as having never brushed you off. 

Nice job on the Alfa. In 2004. 

Justjim75 said:

The micro van got an 18.6.  Was their innovation bringing a tube chassis racecar with no firewall and hosing down a pro driver with hot coolant? The rules I read should have sent them home without running at all.

Jim, that car was pre-approved by a request to the staff prior to the event, in accordance with the rules. 

While I'm not a fan of the concourse it is in the rules and needs to be considered seriously. At 20% of the total score , a one point improvement  was the equivalent of about a second in time. How much effort would each of us put into going a second quicker? Did you put an equal effort into concourse preparation? Last year I didn't and I knew it before getting to Gainesville. I chose to spend my time prepping for the autocross and I got a trophy for that. There are plenty of trophies handed out , 3 for each discipline, plus a few others. Target one and treat that as your goal. As for the rest just sit back and crack a beer and relax. An overall win requires an awful lot of time and commitment. I'm not prepared to spend huge amounts of my time to do that, but I will challenge myself to build a better car and see if a I can move up the finishing order. To do that I know I need better execution and better innovation, so it's up to me to decide how hard I'm going to work at it.

I just know one thing for certain, I've enjoyed being there for the last six years and I will be there again in 2019, with or without a car.

"

OK, I have finally gotten a few minutes to compile my notes and the results from the ENTIRE competition, not just the Concour. Get a cup of coffee and sit back with your reading glasses.

First, let me say it was awesome to be able to hear everyone’s story and see their passion for the builds. There were some fairly unmodified cars and there were some heavily modified cars in the field and the spectrum between them was really difficult to wrap my head around going in to the Concour judging portion. I did my best to not get too nosey about builds ahead of time to keep an open mind on all the builds and one of the brothers from Orlando even noted I did a good job of hiding the fact that I was judging (wasn’t really trying but no real announcement of the judges ahead of time).

The option to take 12 points and relax was not really offered up in public ahead of time, but it is stated in the rules. Also stated in the rules is a section specifically calling out the Concour judging parameters.

They are (direct from the rules on the website):

The third venue will be concours judging. Cars will be parked in a centralized location, with hoods, trunks and doors opened for the judges and competitors to view. Entrants will have 3 minutes maximum to present their cars and share their story with the judges. If we like you and/or your story, some bonus time may be awarded. Cars will be judged on innovation, execution and presentation, and scoring will be as such:

Innovation:
0-10 points

Execution:
0-10 points

Presentation:
0-5 points

“Innovation”
covers things like design, engineering, creativity and modifications.

“Execution”
covers things like cleanliness, workmanship and attention to detail.

“Presentation”
covers things like originality, theme, showmanship, team spirit, moxie,
chutzpah, backstory and anything else that falls under the heading of “je ne
sais quoi.”

Realizing that not everyone reads the rules front to back and picks them apart is the simplest explanation for the discussion after the event each year. Since this is a competitive event, these portions of the rules are just as important to WINNING as any of the other rules. Sacrificing cornering speed to promote straight-line speed is a trade-off that can come back to hurt in the final results. Similarly, not being prepared to tell the judges about all the little bits of the car that you worked on, modified, fabricated, deleted, or just plain removed leaves the judges with little info about the car. The competition is about the car, otherwise the magazine would have articles about people with the cars a sidebar item. As you prepare a car for the event, try to keep in mind how you want the highlight the changes you are making.

As judges we are susceptible to outside influence. Some have stated that the judges may get tired. Below is a plot of the results sorted by the judging order and I see no significant fall off at the end of the judging compared to the start. Bribes are a reasonable way to try and garner extra points. Make use of this if you are really trying to get every ounce of Concour performance out of the car. Score consistency with regard to moving expectations of the builds was addressed early on by trying to re-calibrate the judges and help keep all of us reasonably similar I did not score any cars that were perfect in any category. This may be due to the fact that I spend my working days around professionally built cars and the level of fit/finish/detail/engineering/cleanliness jaded me somewhat. I was stingier with points than the other judges, but we all ranked across the same range. I had several cars that I scored below 12 points. However, if you are trying to present your car, I and others, felt that some sort of benefit was deserved for the effort, which resulted in most of the scores being above 12 points.

The subsets of the judging are listed and can be considered working directions for a Challenge build. If you break each of the categories down and make sure you have included (and described/displayed) them in your build the chances of a very high score are quite good. Use the lists above as just that Checklists for the preparation and make sure to point them out. We are not likely to see the custom doodad you fabricated out of roadside trash and chewing gum under the car unless you point it out. Below is a plot of the cars ranked by Concour results, with the dynamic results stacked on top. You can see that the best Concour cars were not necessarily the best dynamic cars, but the benefit is still significant.

And now a few directed notes to commenters that had questions/issues:

Robbie started this thread wanting to know a breakdown of the cars he was involved with. The Saab Ute, in my opinion and scoring, got 6 for Innovation, 3 for Execution, and 4 for Presentation. Based on the categories above the innovation was due to the creativity and modifications, with little for design and engineering; the execution was lacking as the car still had some rough edges and fitment issues; the story presented and description of use got you the above average presentation. The MR2 Parking lot build, in my opinion, scored 6 for innovation, 3 for execution, and 4 for presentation. The car did not require a lot of design or engineering changes to convert but the modifications and creativity that went into getting the wrong parts to work sort of correctly did; the execution was a little messy but what can you expect from a car that was literally thrown together in 36 hours; the presentation again was above average because of the description of the effort required to get something simple like a running car out of a lot of mismatched parts.

JustJim wondered about why he got a low score with a clean and good looking Miata, but did not keep the innovation and presentation categories in mind. The car looks great and was eye-catching, but there was not a lot of modification and the story was good but not better than average. I hope you do reconsider after reading some of your other posts above mine and come back next year.

Stampie and PimpM3 both scored similarly. The Conestoga wagon idea was awesome and definitely outside the box for the sub-class and the effort to keep the car underneath capable of being returned to a car afterwards worked for me, it was very well executed, but the presentation was average. Stampies presentation was spectacular, with lots of extra effort going into pointing it all out, however the innovation and execution were just a bit better than average. This puts these two cars very close for very different reasons.

AlfaDriver has concerns about trying to use the car in other venues after the Challenge. He specifically called out a few SCCA classes and he is correct you will probably not win the overall with a car built to a specific formula that is not the Challenge, but you can do well. The Tercel that runs FSP and is nationally competitive is taking advantage of every bit of the rules allowed to make the most of his 110HP. The car could be made more competitive for the Challenge with some simple weight reduction (it still had a full interior), even more aero mods (I suggested a few after discussing the car on the grid for the autocross), more tire is always a benefit for grip and they were still running the max allowed for their class. Small changes to a car built for another series/class can be great performers for the Challenge. The Tercel was better than average due to some interesting engine and aero mods that were well executed and the team was really excited about the build which came across as a good presentation score.

In summary, I had a great time and learned how to prepare myself better for the future events. I had a great time and got to see all the details of how and why the cars were built the way they were. It gave me a less narrow-minded view for future builds and hopefully this little novel helps some of you guys out too. Previous judges like Paul (SVRex) are trying to answer questions and not step on peoples toes, so please try to be civil with each other. If anyone has questions about what I have posted an wants private feedback, let me know.

Thanks,

Steve Stafford (Stafford1500)

In reply to stafford1500 :

Thanks Steve that explains it a lot.  The graphs also show how it's really two different competitions. Do you mind telling me the three scores you gave us?  I'd rather take a tough scoring so I know what to improve.

In reply to stafford1500 :

Excellent explanation Steve. Thanks for taking the time. Hopefully I'll be referring back to this and other posts about Concours scoring in about eleven months.

TLDR: Prior planning prevents poor performance. 

Stampie said:

In reply to stafford1500 :

Thanks Steve that explains it a lot.  The graphs also show how it's really two different competitions. Do you mind telling me the three scores you gave us?  I'd rather take a tough scoring so I know what to improve.

Stampie, I scored you at 6 for innovation, 6 for execution, and 5 for presentation. The innovation score is due to the fact that the car is basically a stripped car with fresh paint. The execution score is due to the effort and attention to detail in chasing those ounces/pounds. The 5 for presentation is due the fact that you were able to point out the nearly endless modifications with a novel reminder system that helped you recite the items and for us to find them on the car. You obviously have a passion for the event and that came thru in spades.

My scores were a bit lower than the average, but I was equally tough on everyone.

In reply to stafford1500 :

Thank you for making such a detailed writeup- I think the scores for the PLB and Saab make sense.  I wish I had watched Stampie's presentation!

In reply to stafford1500 :

Thank you sir. You actually scored it higher than I did but I wasn’t listening to my presentation. 

In reply to stafford1500 :

Thank you! Very useful.

In reply to stafford1500 :

Great explanation. I think it’s hard as a competitor because we don’t have time to listen to every build and the work that was involved to get it to where it is today. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

The under hood of the S-10 was striking. That level of clean on Stampies car would have turned it up a notch.

As found in garage 

Thank you for the well thought out explanation!  Do you happen to have the score break down for the c4 wagon?