Hey all! Hopefully I can give you some insight into the judging. I am VP of our Indy NexGen Club as well as a member of CICC. CICC was tasked with running & judging the car show. The exceptions to this were the Mod/GM Awards and 2 Awards which Adams selected.
We had 5 teams of judges (2 per team). It was a 100pt system broken down into 4 - 25pt subcategories (interior, exterior, engine, overall appearance). Interior, Exterior, & Engine were further broken down into 5 - 5pt areas.
I felt as a judge I was pretty firm, with so many awesome cars you have to be. We picked different areas to start out so we all judged different cars. Of course there will be variance between judges, but I heard most scores fell in the 60-70 total points range.
I can only speak for myself, but here is how I judged. If you had a brand new 2013 right off the showroom floor that was spotless - you did not get perfect score (more like 3/5). If your windows were up and I could see in the interior (and it appeared clean), I gave 15/25 for interior. If the windows were up and totally blacked out to where I could not see in, you got 0/25. If the hood was down you got 0/25 for the engine section. The judgement call was made not to judge trunks or penalize them for being closed since it had rained (so people would not have to empty them).
If you car made 1000rwhp, it still got penalized if it was filthy. We understand people travel long distances in the cars and take that into consideration. Believe it or not I rated most of the exteriors pretty high. I found most problems with the interior or engine. It really is subjective and I don't want to get into examples or details. But if someone did not genuinely earn the points I did not give them (just because a car is new or stock).
Please understand we all volunteered to help with the show. This took time away from us that we otherwise could be out racing more or enjoying the fest.
If you want my 100% honest opinion.. This is Camaro5 Fest - there should not be judged car show awards given for 1st-4th Gen. No offense to my fellow CICC members who own those. Very few of those show up and they sometimes win by default. It is clearly a 5th Gen heavy show, and I personally feel there should be a TOPxx as well as numerous specialty awards for 5th Gens only. Adams provides awesome trophies and spends a great deal of money on them. I think most people would be pleased to get a "lesser" quality trophy, say if you could give 20 of them away.
Congrats to all that won - I wish more could have
