Challenge Town Hall extended - Concour feedback

Justjim75 said:

So if it weren't for the year to year inconsistency, it would seem smart for me to dispense with ALL concours prep and put an extra 50 to 1000 hours into making my car better on track(s) and take the 12.  Now you've got a butt ugly car in the winner's circle for the magazine.  

Concours strategy number 2 would be to maybe screw some really dangerous stuff to it for laughs.  

My "innovation" was to bring a reliable Miata on Hoosiers to a 80% autocross competition. 

And thanks for all the compliments, for starting with, and I quote, a "Smurf sperm blue" car, I think it, looks rad and I drove it to work, stickers, green wheels and all today to show it off

Those are viable approaches. That’s the beauty of this event. You can come to win the race, or come to win the party. 

However, I can tell you no one is EVER gonna win the overall if they “take the 12”. 

Tom Suddard said:

Robbie said:

David S. Wallens said:

Before signing off on everything, the judges (and myself, the judge liaison or whatever I am) looked through a spreadsheet of the scores. Our big question: Did the cars land in the proper order? In other words, was the "best" car at the top of the rest below in an order that, to us, seemed fair. You can argue that some cars should have received less than 12 points, but in the end, the order wouldn't have changed. 

Did you consider the cars that 'took the 12' when you did this exercise? Or only the cars actively judged?

We saw the problem during this exercise, but the rules unfortunately prevented us from correcting it mathematically, and it would have taken hours to fairly re-judge every car for every category to distribute the scores in a way that made the 12-point cars mid-pack as was intended. 

Makes sense, and your immediate response to my first post in this thread made it clear you were thinking about it already. That's all I ask is that we ID the problem and work on a good solution.

I completely understand where svrex is coming from and the rules give bullet points for the judging criteria.  Focus on the bullet points.  I like the science fair type display board so you can peg those talking points.  

stafford1500 said:

In reply to NordicSaab :

If you were going to enter a competition in something you had never tried before, would you at least look thru the rules?
I think Paul is trying to suggest making a plan for success, which includes deciding what is the most efficient path for your team.

Outright speed and handling are the biggest point gains for the entire competition and everyone wants more power and grip. Consider the concours when you decide how to get that power and grip, prepare the vehicle so it looks like you thought it out and do your best with the 3 minutes to enlighten the judges with the what/why/how of getting to the point you are at.

This entire coucours discussion is a formula, but a formula with ever changing variables because there is no set way to get all of the performance from every single entry. If it were then it would be a formula that resulted in a spec class, with final detailing taking the win.

I agree with all of this. My only point is the current formula has a significant amount of subjective value which could be reduced by a better procedure... that is all. 

Justjim75 said:

So if it weren't for the year to year inconsistency, it would seem smart for me to dispense with ALL concours prep and put an extra 50 to 1000 hours into making my car better on track(s) and take the 12.  Now you've got a butt ugly car in the winner's circle for the magazine.  

No you're totally wrong. We do have 1000s of man hours in our car.  99% of that is to make it better on the track.  That 99% also directly applies to innovation and execution.  I'll give two examples that I think impressed the judges. Last year we built half shaft loops and made spring seat inserts for the rear that are removable.  That allows us to take out our autocross springs and put in our stock springs for the drags. The half shaft loops were required for our drag tires last year. Neither of those mods were needed for this year but we left them in. I mentioned them during the Concours and noticed a couple of judges raised their eyebrows. So yes spend those 1000s of hours but tell the judges what you did to make your car different.

In reply to NordicSaab :

You’re right. 

And unfortunately, the event is designed to create editorial content. Editorial content is inherently subjective.

In reply to NordicSaab :

This concours is inherently subjective. There will be no way around that.

I disagree that no car should receive a perfect score; that makes no sense to me. You give no rationale for that thought. Why shouldn't a car (or multiple cars) receive perfect scores in concours subcategories?

I also have no idea what an MBA or Six Sigma would have to do with this event other than hootus waving. In fact your position seems more like someone without Six Sigma experience telling you how it's supposed to work.

In reply to dculberson :

Ouch. On that note, I'm done with this thread. Good luck all. See you next year. 

Tom said the 12 points was supposed to put those who declined judging midpack.  If my 13 puts me slightly higher than midpack then I'm fine with my score, maybe even pleased.  But I still feel like it's unfair to hand out midpack for free when us 13s busted our ass

Stampie said:

Justjim75 said:

So if it weren't for the year to year inconsistency, it would seem smart for me to dispense with ALL concours prep and put an extra 50 to 1000 hours into making my car better on track(s) and take the 12.  Now you've got a butt ugly car in the winner's circle for the magazine.  

No you're totally wrong. We do have 1000s of man hours in our car.  99% of that is to make it better on the track.  That 99% also directly applies to innovation and execution.  I'll give two examples that I think impressed the judges. Last year we built half shaft loops and made spring seat inserts for the rear that are removable.  That allows us to take out our autocross springs and put in our stock springs for the drags. The half shaft loops were required for our drag tires last year. Neither of those mods were needed for this year but we left them in. I mentioned them during the Concours and noticed a couple of judges raised their eyebrows. So yes spend those 1000s of hours but tell the judges what you did to make your car different.

I gotta give props to Stampie. He quickly explained what he did, pointing out a ton of work and innovation. I don't remember how he scored, but he made a solid impression. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Thanks David.  I think Concours finally clicked for us this year but we're already discussing how to score better next year.

You did well this year. I'd suggest cleaning up the car, especially under the hood. Your car is innovative--and you sold that point. You removed half a ton from an Infiniti sedan while adding some speed parts like the DIY camber plates, limited-slip, etc. I'd suggest cleaning up things in order to score more execution points. When you open the hood, you want people to say, Dang, that looks clean!

Talk to Jeremy about underhood detail. At the $1500 Challenge, he detailed his engine with Armor All or something simple like that. The judges, one of whom has shown cars around the world, was impressed. That's one of the things done to the Tetanus Miata this year: They cleaned up the engine bay--just a lot of Simple Green, rags and time. 

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

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Oh yes that's on the list.  It took a long longer to do those stickers and strings than I thought it would. Thanks.

Yeah, that looked like some work. Very clever work, too. 

So here's one of my (mute) beef's with the concourse...

Lets start out remembering why the challenge happened in the first place- it was to show people that they could build a race car on a budget and have a lot of fun- with the looks constraint that it needed to be nice.

So IF you choose to actually go autocross with it- like in the real world- you are constrained by the rule book.  For this group, mosty SCCA, but I don't know the class rules for NHRA- but I suspect that the SCCA rules are much tighter.

If you built for the Stock class, you would have no chance on the concourse.

If you built for the Street Prepared class, you'd have a very limited chance on the concourse.

If you built for Street Mod or CAM, it would be a limited chance.

Prepared- somewhat of a chance...

Etc

Even if your car was so fast that you got a trophy at some major championship, other than the Challenge.

The point being- the rules put HUGE limits on what people think is innovative or engineering.  So if you read the reasons to why this needs to be a competition, did it, with the goal of going racing, reasonably competitive, but legal, there's very little chance you could win overall, even if you had a fast autocrosser and fast drag racer.

That seems kind of opposite of the point of why this whole thing started.  Now it results in mostly one event cars.  Which is fine- but is actually a huge time and money spend for one event a year vs. building a car that you can use 10-20 times a year.

In reply to alfadriver :

Andrew Nelson would disagree with you. So would Pat, or the turbo Dodge guys. 

All of them have brought top finishing cars that they have raced competitively at other venues. 

But THAT part of the event isn’t the part you are passionate about. 

I have heard you make a compelling case that a solid legal SCCA autocrosser could be built for budget. Now you seem to be contradicting that. 

Stock class?  Well, I would suggest that a stock autocrosser probably can’t run 12’s, and that is what it would take for an overall win.  So, that game plan is a bad fit for this event.

But the Tercel did quite respectably...

Justjim75 said:

Tom said the 12 points was supposed to put those who declined judging midpack.  If my 13 puts me slightly higher than midpack then I'm fine with my score, maybe even pleased.  But I still feel like it's unfair to hand out midpack for free when us 13s busted our ass

Jim, you are letting your hurt lead your comments. 

I’ve asked twice, and you haven’t answered.  What would you honestly score your car, based solely on the rules?

I am suggesting that your score was largely predictable. If you had read the rules carefully  before coming, you may have guessed approximately where your score would be. 

If you had predicted in advance that the efforts you were putting in would potentially score 13 points, you may have chosen to “take the 12”, popped open a beer, and enjoyed the show. 

There wasn’t anything “free” about “handing out 12’s”. Everyone who chose that made the choice to not be a top contender, and to not get the feedback from the judges. This option was available to everyone, so it was perfectly fair. 

What if you had scored less than 12?  Would that have made you feel better?  Some people DID score less than 12 in 2017.  

In reply to SVreX :

I do think that an SCCA car can be built on a budget.  But it stands no chance in the concourse.  That's the point of my post.  Kind of defeats the purpose of taking the car all the way to Florida if you have no chance to win.  Yea, I know the whole "just come down and have fun" line- I didn't do that- I came with the intention of doing well.

And, with all due respect to the drag racers, the original name to the magazine is Auto-X.  So I'm far from the only one who leans that way over drag racing.

In reply to alfadriver :

I understand there is a lot of leaning that way. Which is not a problem. 

But THIS event is designed to attract a different audience, which includes drag racers. Because THAT audience is who the GRM staff sees as their magazine audience, regardless of what the original name of the magazine was. Note, they DID change the name. 

Ok Paul, that's the last time someone accuses me of being hurt, or whatever.  Stampie just helped me out the mosg, especially when he said, and I quote "there were several cars that got 12s that deserved fives" and "drag racing requires no skill so it doesnt matter who drives"

For me, if you don't drive your car, or someone on your team doesn't drive it, you're a punk, and you should lose.

If you dont have your car judged, by the judges, in a concours, you should get a zero, and you should lose.

If y'all dont like what I just said, I'm good with that, I'm the new guy, an outsider I guess and I'm disagreeing with how you do your race.  I just wont participate next year and we can all be friends.  I'm grateful for the experience.

PS, if the lowest score is 12, given to anyone who asked for it, then that is the bottom of the scale.  Therefore, my score of 13 is one point from the bottom.  

In reply to Justjim75 :

Jim, I’m not accusing you. I was trying to help. I apologize. 

John Walsh did excellent in the concourse the year he brought the q45.  It was essentially a stock car.  The DJ and cheerleaders helped a little...

The only podium finish I received in the challenge was a 3rd in the concourse the year we did the trailerparkcet.  It had a theme, it was interesting, and I feel we executed it pretty well.

This year I was expecting to get a little higher score with the conestoga wagon but after listening to Paul's explanation I feel the score I got was appropriate. 

I think the issue this year is that the cars at the lower end of the concourse field got higher scores than should have been given to them.  My car was 8th in the concourse yet my concourse score was less than 5 points higher than the 4 door Saturn that looked like a drop cloth.

In reply to alfadriver :

I see no reason why an autocross car can’t do well on the Concours.

 I understand that you are not going to change your mind. This probably isn’t your game. 

Occasional participant here...  To back up what I understand SVreX is saying, it took me several trips through the judging tent/pavilion to get it through my head that Challenge Concours Judging is not a wet-sanding and car wash competition.  Maybe it's because I associate the name with the Concours d'Elegance and things like that where to me it seems like it's all about shiny and pretty.  It's actually more like a Science Fair for Cars where the most realistic baking soda volcano is never going to beat the nuclear bomb built out of mom's colander and some stolen plutonium.