Rough day at the AACA fall meet

[thej63]

Sadly this year did not go as planned. My wife and I entered our '51 dragon for the fun of it last year -2018 (with no intention of winning) just to get the judge's feedback on what needed to be improved on the car. To our shock, we won our first Junior! There were a couple items pointed out to me by the judge (a junction box and a couple hose clamps that needed to be replaced but that was about it).

Sadly two weeks later we moved out of state and the car stayed behind so no changes or improvements were made since then. Fast forward to this past saturday. I showed the car (exactly as it had been the year prior) knowing that I was going to lose some points but I kept my fingers crossed that maybe....just maybe we could get our senior as we were the only car in that class going for it.

The judges spent a while going over the car and deliberating until finally the team leader comes over to us to have a talk....and we could tell right away it wasn't good news. He starts off saying he doesn't want things to be taken the wrong way and doesn't want to discourage us but that the car has some "major major deductions going on under the hood" and that he finally had to tell his team to stop adding them all up. During this conversation with him, he mentions 3 times that "I honestly have no idea how this car won it's Junior", "this car never should have won a junior", "where did this car get it's junior? who judged it?".

I realize it wasn't mean spirited but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about that...and it's my understanding that this kind of discussion isn't supposed to happen on the show field. Needless to say my wife was pretty upset with the whole thing because it's one thing to say "hey I'm sorry but some things need to be fixed, better luck next year" and a whole other to say, "this car never should have gotten as far as it has and doesn't deserve the award that it was given."

Even after all of this and constantly saying how happy he was that we brought it and how we just need to fix a few things and we'll have no problem getting a senior....he then throws out that there are some cars in our class that have "do not judge on them because they just want to show their car and that's fine"....which with his previous comments felt a little back handed.

Either way, I still plan to make the corrections and repairs that I had planned to make from the beginning. Like I said from the start, I never expected to get junior and I knew it was a long shot going for senior but the "talk" that the head judge had with us felt very unprofessional and could easily deter others from ever coming back after that.

[joefrazer]

I watched your car enter the show field on Saturday and I liked what I saw. Don’t let your experience deter you from making any changes to the car and having it judged again. AACA judges are not marque specific experts and sometimes what happened to you will occur.

[thej63]

Thankfully I'm one of those people that when I'm told it isn't good enough it makes me double down to make it better.

I've started the list, there's rust on the manifold and on the distributor, there's rust and corrosion on contact points, clips, the starter, the battery holder, the wing nuts for the battery, the wire ends. The wires are dirty and starting to have their covers fray, the battery cables are starting to crack, there are 7 wrong hose clamps.

There's absolutely work to do. Thankfully now that it's arriving with us in florida this week, I'll be able to start doing the work that it needs.....speaking of which, when it comes to the wiring, would the better course of action be replacing the wiring in the engine bay or trying to re-wrap the wires?

[joefrazer]

You would be better off replacing the wiring that's questionable. Cloth covered wire is available and can be spliced into your existing harness.