Robbie wrote:
One thought I had about this over the weekend:
I think many of us are familiar with autox competition, some of us familiar with drag, and very few with concour. What do 'real' concour events do to handle the problem of many cars that all need to be judged in a short period of time?
Maybe we should be looking to those who do this a lot for help.
I've been lucky to be involved in concours events as both a judge and entrant. Plus, obviously, I cover them when wearing my Classic Motorsports hat. Tim has shown and judged, too--way more than me, in fact.
Most all concours break cars up into classes--figure 8-12 cars per class. Sometimes the classes are wide in scope (race cars) and sometimes they narrow (open-top British sports cars 1960-1969 or Mercedes-Benz 300SL). It kind of depends on the show and what cars they're getting. This year Pinehurst had 14 classes. That sounds like about the right number when you figure that the average concours contains about 200 cars.
Then each class will be judged by a team. At Pinehurst and Hilton Head, we have two judges. Pinehust gives each team a student judge, too. PCA uses bigger judging teams at their national events. Judges are usually matched with the cars/classes that they know (hence why I'll judge race cars or European cars vs. brass era or prewar cars).
When judging, usually we're just looking for a winner and an honorable mention. That's it. Sometimes we have a scoresheet to track things, and sometimes it's just picking the "best" car. What makes a car the best? It's a combination of presentation, story, rarity, condition, etc.
We'll usually have 90 minutes to maybe 2 hours to judge our class, so basically everyone gets 10 minutes or so. Afterward the judges will go over their scores, make sure they're on the same page, and hand them in.
I'll be honest: When we're just looking for one winner, it's usually fairly obvious as soon as we take to the show field. You look at 10 cars, and right away you'll see things that discount a few of them--wrong color, wrong wheels, poor presentation, less pedigree, etc. And at the other end, the top cars usually stand out.
Even so, we visit with everyone and--here's the big thing--thank them for showing their car. This is their chance to be in the spotlight. Even if the car isn't perfect, we don't point out faults. And it could be a rough car with a great story. Let's hear it. I want the entrant to feel relaxed and proud of their car.
At the end of the day, the best in show is then chosen from the class winners. Each judging team usually has a vote.
