Recently I attended a car show the was put on by one of the local Vette Clubs. One of the other clubs that attended had one person from their club fill out all of the ballots for their members soon after they got there and before registration closed, voting only for the club member's cars. This club ended up taking home almost every award given. My question to the Forum is do you agree with this type of partisan voting at a show just so your member's get the awards even if there are other cars that truly deserving of recognition?

 

A car show is just that, to show your car, and look at other cars that may interest you. Unless you attend sanctioned auto car shows, judging on the cars will be as fair as the amateur judges want to be.
Personally, if your going to car shows to win a trophy, then your wasting your time and energy worrying about it. Go to see other cars, be pleased that your car is nice enough to show, and don't sit in your lawn chair too long or you will get sunburned, or cramped up.

As you can tell, I think entering car shows is a waste of time. Sure, it is more of a "long" social event. I don't mind walking around for an hour to see the cars, and talking to a few people, but to sit there for hours is boring. I'd rather just drive my car, than sit behind it in a lawn chair. That is my opinion only.

 

Amazing Paul, Not only do we have ours and our wife's careers in common, but your opinion of car shows fits me to a T. I always feel silly sitting for hours looking at people looking at my car. I'm ready to leave less than an hour after I get there. Friends talked me into registering in the Plastic Fantastic all Corvette Show a while back and my wife informed me on the way home, that was the last show she would be attending.

 

That's what I want to do.

 

Each car show is different in the way they're judged. I personally don't worry about it and go to see people and enjoy the outing.

 

Car shows are places to interact with people of similar interests and to look at the cars being displayed. If your goal is to win a trophy then you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed.

 

I personally am not interested in winning the awards, lots of times I will leave after a few hours. Just happened to stay to the end of this show. It just struck me as self-centered and egotistical that the one club would vote for just their own cars regardless of the merits of any other cars.

 

I like car shows but sitting somewhere for 6 hours is a bit much. I like cleaning my 08 but I know I will not win anything its a daily driver and as such shows some wear and tear not perfect like the garage queens. Those that attend car shows tend to vote for the fancy modified cars and trucks not regularly driven cars. We will do a couple hours. The friendships and meeting others is great seeing the other cars is great but sitting on a hot asphalt parking lot is not fun

 

First of as already been stated, if you are going to a car show with the intent of winning a $5 trophy then you are going for the wrong reason. The vast majority of the shows I attend are raising money for a charity, so therefore I am helping out the club putting on the show for their charity. I normally tell then when I arrive to not judge my car as I am not there for the trophy, but to simply hangout with a bunch of people that have the same interest as myself.

As far as the one club winning most of the awards, I am not sure how that would happen the way you described it. Lets say the club has 20 cars. Each car has a ballot to vote with. Unless every car in the club is in a different class, then the one member voting using all the ballots, there would not be but a few winners at the most. Lets face it at any given local car show, the Corvette's attending are mostly C5 and C6 and C7's with a few C4's and C3's. I would think that the cars that won also got votes from other people. What I have seen at this type of show is that a club will select one or two cars from their group and everyone votes fpr those cars so in that case there would be a few winers from that club. Again, if that is mthere desire, then so be it, and fopr the ones that won a trophy, it should not really mean much as they would know that they won base on stuffing the box and not on a truly show winning car.

 

So far, I have enjoyed entering my car into a few of the local shows but agree with others. Don't expect to win. Most of the people know each other and have been doing these events for years.

 

In 2008, I had just got my Atomic Orange vette, and my neighbor talked me into entering it into a local car show. I won the "People's Choice" trophy, primarily because (I believe) there were a lot of kids that talked their parents into voting for my car. The show was fun at first, but was not for me, i was bored and hot, and would have left by noon, if I could have.

I felt kinda bad getting the trophy, because there was some serious show cars there, that I felt deserved it more than me.

But I still have the trophy though!

 

Cronyism is the rule when it comes to car club awards. Many will have an "awards dinner" afterwards, where members will accept their trophies like an amazed Sally Field winning an Oscar. They pat each other on the back. Yes, lawn chairs have been scientifically linked to sunburn and boredom.

 

They're all rigged. Go for fun as others have said. I go to look at the cars and get ideas for mine. And to make fun of the people that put all of their trophies, and other gimmicks out by their car to help persuade the voters.

 

I belong to a club which puts on a show each year, at a great venue with all of the proceeds raised from entries, Silent auction, 50/50 raffle, etc. donated to a charity.

We do judge cars, but only the PARTICIPANTS vehicles.

Typically, we have about 90 Corvettes entered, with over 50 club member cars also on display in a separate area. Thus, on average we have about 140 or so cars for the public to look at.

The club members cars CAN win a specific "Club Member First Place or Outstanding" trophy, but those votes are cast by the PARTICIPANTS only of the show.

Agreed with all of the other statements, go and enjoy the day, atmosphere, people and vehicles, and don't worry too much about trophies or "winners" as everyone who owns a Corvette should be considered a winner!

 

Most shows around here the club putting on the show does not let their members enter the show. Their cars are on display in a special area. I like this system as it allows other people to win. But as others have said the main goal is to have fun with people who have the same interest as you.

I go to shows but no longer enter. To many little problems on my 153,000 mile daily driver to compete with non road cars.

 

That's bad. A club putting on a show should not have their cars judged with the other participants. That's just dumb.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. My car is a Corvette. Period. I love to drive it...hate to show it (it's just a car), so I don't.

Not all, but some sure are. Our club puts on a show each year and we have 3 judges for each car. Some of the judges are in our club, some aren't. The score is the average of the three. Seems to work.

 

Just to be clear the club that put on the show did not participate in the voting. All other registered cars were each given a ballot to fill out. With one of the other clubs having one person fill out all of their ballots as soon as they got them pretty much ensured their cars would receive the majority of the awards. If you automatically receive 25 votes out of 60 or 70 regardless of merit it does not leave a lot of room for anyone else to break into the top 3 categories or the top 15 cars.
The point I am trying to make is if you do go to shows to be judged, vote and hopefully receive an award I just feel there should actually be some honesty in your voting.
Listening to the disbelief coming from the other participants as each award was announced just made me wonder why a club would make themselves look bad so obviously.

 

That's how it is most of the time. I was at a show a couple years ago,I had the only GS there,got beat in the corvette stock catagory by a C4, that one of the members owned of the local club that was sponsoring the show. Lol

 

I entered one car show in Topeka, KS with my C4 Z07, won in class, and never did it again once I started to Autocross and Track Race. Some people like it for the interaction... just not my cup of tea.