National Rally 2006 - Judging / Raffle

[Chris Wickers]

Following the article in the last Driver, the new format of judging was put in place yesterday.

From the feedback I have recieved from everyone I have spoken to it has been well received. Having looked at several of the results and compared them to how they would have been under the old criteria, the winners and runners up would have remained the same in the classes checked.

If anyone has any comments (good or bad! or just suggestions) I would be most interested to receive them, because although the next National is a year away, the extensive work on the revamp for this year's judging actually started around September last year!

The raffle was also by far the most successful in the history of the VOC - perhaps everyone wanted the satellite navigation? Any suggestions (sensible bearing in mind the relatively small budget! A full size genuine V70R would be a great prize, but sadly not feasible - and besides it would mean I would no longer be involved with the raffle as I would want to win it!)

Finally it was good to meet and put 'faces' to many of the people posting on the forum and I look forward to seeing some of the promised articles.

Chris

[93240se]

Although not taking part in the BKV, (never had the time to spend on my motor !) I Would add to Chris's comments about the Rally in general. Apart from a glitch with the toilet block, (out of the organisers hands), it was again a very successful meeting, record number of cars & visitors. The weather was good again, even the marquee was not freezing this year!

It was nice to see some younger members coming along, and being able to meet some of the web posters in person.

Ref the raffle, how about Nordic gift vouchers, in varying amounts as a suggestion?

The whole set up was a credit to the organisers, well done to all of you.
I am now under increasing pressure to get a caravan instead of the tent, will have to seriously consider it for the future.

Regards to all, Richard Hull VOC 3801

[TheJoyOfSix]

I realise that this is probably fraught with logistical nightmares, and that the BKV is just that - the best kept car, but how about a 'Nicest Car' award and runner up voted for by us, the members? Ideally it would be broken down into 'Nicest Amazon', 'Nicest 300' etc but this would probably be too much to organise.
That way those cars that aren't pristine but are tidy, or those with the most innovative alterations (eg the 340'GLT' that had Subaru Impreza front brakes and 400 series discs on the rear), or rare cars like the 1982 760GLE that was there would be in with a chance of winning something. It would also help the members feel that they were contributing somewhat in their own club.

[Chris Wickers]

Thank you for the suggestion.

Prior to changing the scoring of the National, I contacted around 20 other car clubs for their methods of judging - and a couple did indeed adopt this method. Another method was for the judges to cosume many, many cans of lager and then stagger round the field to decide which was the best car - this was my favoured approach but somehow did not seem very fair!

Member judging seems to be used with smaller line ups (maybe 20 vehicles in a show?) as opposed to the 114 (from memory) which we had this year. I have also experienced this recently at another rally and the problem there was convincing the members to mark every car in order to obtain a result.

Although this year the majority of judges were club officials, I have absolutely no problem should any club member wish to be involved in the future (the ideal number of judges is around 16 -18) - It is good fun, but please bear in mind it is a commitment of around 4 hours on the day. Please feel free to contact me.

I also would have no problem with the members voting for their favourite cars and awards (maybe 1st and 2nd in the show) being given and will discuss this with colleagues in the near future as this could be fairly easily managed. To have every car and class judged by members would be a logistical nightmare if every member voted on every car at one end of the scale, and no one voting at the other end of the scale - the mid ground could with only a few votes cast potentially produce some weird results which no one would be happy with.

I will however look into this further, particularly with regard to member involvement.

Chris

[foggyjames]

I was actually thinking something similar myself - a "people's vote", if you like? Does the person who pours all of their effort into keeping a standard car in perfect condition deserve to do better than one whose time is split between alterations and cosmetic maintainance? I guess it depends on how you define 'best kept'!

Pettaw probably lost points for converting his 360 to run on a modern programmable engine management system, in place of the crappy stock old-tech Bosch system which returns poor MPG and performance...yet in terms of maintainance of the car he's worked a wonder.

I think the criteria for allocating cars to the non-standard section need to be clarified. In my opinion, non-standard ought to be reserved for custom cars - the 740-pickup (which was absent this year, but usually a fixture!), a T5-swapped 360, etc. Cars like my own (altered in a factory-esque fashion) ought stay in their series-classes, and not be penalised for non-stock items.

I explained at the gate that my car was non-standard, but used (almost) exclusively factory parts. The man on the gate was adamant that I MUST enter it in non-standard. I then pointed out that I WON the bloody 300 series class last year as-is (although rather less rusty!), but he was quite firm that I couldn't enter the 300 series category.

This really needs clearing up, especially while cars which to the untrained eye aren't modified at all are appearing in non-standard. I'm a hypocrite for mentioning this, as two years ago I entered NS simply to be near my associates - the only modifcations were factory-spec accessory gauges and a big stereo! I fully admit that this isn't playing the game, and had my car been a minter and won (which, of course, it wasn't and didn't), I think my competitors would have been right to have been angry.

It also occured to me that many of my cars current faults - a punctured tyre, worn front wheel bearings, etc, cannot be judged in the BKV. It'd be funny if a car would fail an MOT, yet win the BKV! I know that it's the nature of the beast...just poking a little fun

cheers

James

[MissDMeanor]

Originally Posted by clwickers

If anyone has any comments (good or bad! or just suggestions) I would be most interested to receive them, because although the next National is a year away, the extensive work on the revamp for this year's judging actually started around September last year!

The raffle was also by far the most successful in the history of the VOC - perhaps everyone wanted the satellite navigation? Any suggestions (sensible bearing in mind the relatively small budget! A full size genuine V70R would be a great prize, but sadly not feasible - and besides it would mean I would no longer be involved with the raffle as I would want to win it!)

Finally it was good to meet and put 'faces' to many of the people posting on the forum and I look forward to seeing some of the promised articles.

Chris

Hi Chris, nice to meet you yesterday

I don't know if someone's already done this, but what about approaching Volvo UK and asking them to donate a fairly decent raffle first prize? They may come up with something?

[MissDMeanor]

The other thought that occured to me about the judging is that should VOC staff be winning awards?

In my class, the modified section, a volvo official came second. His car is a lovely example and well worthy of winning.

Could VOC staff with show-worthy cars go through the motions of showing and filling in the form but not actually be judged or win anything and give members a better chance of winning something?

[Dan F]

This is as good a-place as any I suppose.... WHOOOHOOO! 1600 posts!

[IC]

Congratulations Dan

[cassell]

Well done to everyone involved in the organisation for Sunday, a really enjoyable event.

Picking up on a previous comment from someone in this section, it was just a little suspicious though to see at least three VOC officials either win or take runner up in the BKV judging. Particularly the one who took runner up in the class that he actually judged when there were some 8 other cars to choose from!

Just a point!

Paul