confused on onwership change & awards

[novaman]

From the judges manual

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">6. CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP

When a SENIOR vehicle changes hands by sale or transfer, the vehicle reverts to the status of a First Junior award winner. The Senior Tab is re turned to the National Headquarters by the sell er or person trans fer ring the vehicle. If the vehicle has received the A.G.N.M. FIRST PRIZE plaque, the plaque will be re turned to AACA Headquarters. (This plaque may be returned to the previous owner, stamped “RETIRED”, for a cov ering fee of $5.00.) If the vehicle is an Annual National Award

win ner and has received a Na tional Award winner tab, the tab will remain the property of the seller and must be re moved from the vehicle upon transfer of ownership.

7. OPTIONAL CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP

Effective 2006, it is permissible for an AACA class judging award winning vehicle to retain the awards it has previously won. In this case, the owner can continue entering the vehicle in national meets and pursue the next eligible award. For example, if the highest award the vehicle has previously won is a Senior, then the vehicle can compete for the Annual Grand National Award. Please contact National Headquarters to advise us of your purchase and judging status of the vehicle. </div></div>

I'm understanding it as in sec 6 that Senior will be removed and turned in, but sec. 7 says it doen't have to be. Seems to me to be a conflict there. To confuse things more I was told that the change of ownership to a relative without it affecting the awards which was new for 2006, was changed to anyone, not just a relative for 2007, which apears to be sec 7.

My biggest concern is over the allowing just anyone to buy a vehicle and keep the award. My feeling is if it was a realitive that bought/inherts "uncle fred's" car most likely they are going to respect it. My concern has been if "john doe" bought "uncle fred's" car and thought it would make a nice rod, there is the potential for a street rod to be an AACA National award winner.

[charlier]

It would appear that sections #6 and #7 conflict or even contradict each other.

Call me old fashioned but I think section #7, as written, should be stricken from the judges manual.

To me it seems wrong for the buyer of an award winning vehicle to be able to "buy the award" as well as the vehicle.

What is so wrong with the new owner of the vehicle having to spend the time and make the effort to achieve awards for the vehicle they purchased?? The original owner of the vehicle had to do that. Why is the new owner exempt from going through the process?

Maybe the author(s) of section #7 can chime in here and enlighten everyone as to their thoughts behind it?

[DaveBerg]

The rules on change of ownership were amended last year. Now when a vehicle is sold or changes hands within a family or not, it is up to the new owner to decide from the following three choices:

1) The vehicle can keep all of the awards it was won and they will transfer to the new owner. So if the vehicle is already a Senior winner all it could compete for would be Preservation awards.

2) The vehicle can follow the old rule and revert back to First Junior winner status. The next time shown at a National Meet it would compete for the Senior award in the new owners name.

3) If it has been ten years or more since the vehicle received its First Junior Award the new owner would have the option of #1 or #2 above or... Removing all awards from the vehicle and starting over again. This is essentially the old ten year recycling rule that we have always had. Now it applies to the new owner as well.

We realize the judges manual needs some help and I suspect our VP Technical Matters and VP Class Judging will be correcting anything improper for next years edition. The manual changes generally have to be in place by October of the year prior to publication. If something is decided at the Class Judging Committee meeting at Hershey it doesnt always get into the manual right away. Or sometimes in a rush to get something new in you forget to take the old something out.

I hope this helps to clear it up some.

[novaman]

Thanks Dave, that cleared up how that is handled.

BUT..... I foresee an image problem for AACA with that. That problem is when someone goes out and buys an AACA Winner, proudly wearing it award badge and the new owner modifies the vehicle to suit himself, and leaves that badge on the vehicle. Now AACA has a vehicle out there with a junior, senior, Grand national award and the vehicle wouldn't even qualify for a junior award at one of our meets. I don't have such a problem with the vehicle that changes hands within the family as most likely it will stay as the orginal onwer had it, but if an "outsider" would by it, there is no telling what they'd want to do to the vehicle. I'm afarid we are opening ourselves to someday going to a local meet and seeing an AACA Grand national winner street rod.

[DaveBerg]

That is an interesting point. Hopefully that will not happen. The problem was that virtually all of the vehicles that were getting sold with award badges on them were not getting returned anyway. So I suppose the same thing could have happened that way as well. Still I agree with you that is not something we would want to see.

[MCHinson]

Maybe a rule change could be made that would make it clear that the vehicle badge is the property of AACA and subject to revocation. A system could be set up to allow the class judging committee or some other national level committee to review any reported inappropriate display of awards. The committee would probably never have to meet on that subject, because it would probably never happen, but a process could be in place that would allow removal and return of the badge if a flagrant abuse ever existed and became known.

[ex98thdrill]

David, in 2006 the Family Certification was implemented to allow the awards to stay with the vehicle so long as it was passed onto another family member. In 2007 I don't see it in the manual. I talked to Fred Young at Binghamton and he said that it was still in the rulebook, but I don't see it.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My biggest concern is over the allowing just anyone to buy a vehicle and keep the award. My feeling is if it was a realitive that bought/inherts "uncle fred's" car most likely they are going to respect it. My concern has been if "john doe" bought "uncle fred's" car and thought it would make a nice rod, there is the potential for a street rod to be an AACA National award winner. </div></div>

Good point, but chances are if the car has an AACA award, and if it's been modified to such a degree, it wouldn't get to the next level anyway. Whether the car was modified, misjudged, etc. if it's been modified that much, the vehicle probably wouldn't get a Preservation Award, let alone a Senior Award, 1st AGNM Award, Senior AGNM Award or a repeat Senior AGNM.

As these award winning vehicles age, and/or pass through owners, the previous rules would've destroyed the need for AACA's form of their progressive award system.

If AACA were to police their award winning vehicles, I could see where it would set a negative tone on AACA. A vehicle that has earned a Senior AGNM award may not win that same award 30 years later, but may still be good enough to win a Repeat Preservation Award today. If a vehicle won an award, the new owner, or the aged vehicle shouldn't be penalized.

The national award winning badges on the front of the vehicles have the year on them. I think when most people look at these awards and see the year on the badges, most people have a pretty good idea on how well the vehicle has been maintained.

[nearchoclatetown]

A system could be set up to allow the class judging committee or some other national level committee to review any reported inappropriate display of awards. [/] How would the committee go about removing the badge from the new owner's car?

[MCHinson]

As I stated, I don't think it would ever need to occur.... but if the award was the legal property of AACA, a letter of demand to have it returned would probably be sufficient. If it did not result in return of the award, there are several legal avenues all of which would probably be overkill.

I realize that those of us who carry a gun and a badge for a living probably look at this sort of thing from a little bit different perspective than most members....

[Steve Moskowitz]

Pat,

The guidelines were changed to open the possibility to continue the awards whether you were family or not. In the beginning it was just family. The club expanded the rule to assist ALL members in making decisions on how they wanted to continue in our judging program.

As a small instance, you just bought a car from a very close friend and wanted to honor him by keeping the car exactly the same, oh and you paid $75,000 for it. You can now do it. Or, instead you bought the same car and could care less about the guy and wanted to start over from scratch...you can now do it. It gives our members options! Remember, we judge the car not the owner! Let's also give credit for the new owner who is not seeking major awards such as a First Junior ar an AGN and is willing to participate at national meets for just a preservation chip!

As far as badges on cars, etc. Guys, AACA can never police this. If people want to sell a car or display a car using a badge from someone else or another car we can never stop that. We rely on the honesty and integrity of our members. AACA has neither the time nor the resources to put more constraints on our system. My opinion only.

I will bring up our President's advice to everyone again, if there is something you feel is wrong with our manual, rules, etc. <span style="font-weight: bold"> </span> contact the VP of Class Judging, Hulon McCraw and present your case. <span style="font-weight: bold"> </span> The class judging committee meets several times a year and can effectively deal with your thoughts. The forum is a great avenue for communication and discussion but your concerns can be handled best in the committee that has the authority to make or recommend changes to the board.

[novaman]

I'll do that as I've got a couple items but I posted this here it see if I was missing something and anyone esle saw/felt the same as I.

[ex98thdrill]

No Steve, there's no problem on my end. The issue that I always had was under the old rules you could only enter a vehicle into a meet under one name, when all of our vehicles are co-owned and co-insured. Under the old rules, if something happened to either one of us, the vehicle would be stripped of all of its' awards. The old rules were kind of like the mentality of "sorry to hear about the death in your family, now turn in all your awards and start from the bottom if you want to keep showing your vehicle."

I was only questioning it for fear that the rules had gotten changed back to the way they were.

[SolidAxle]

The AACA rule as it is currently written is consistent with CCCA as well as other mark specific organizations like MCA & NCRS. In fact AACA provides even more flexibility to the new owner to revert back to 1st Junior, should they desire so.

The issue of badge display on modified vehicles is not unique to car transfers. Once an award is achieved, nothing is preventing the owner from making driveability other modifications which would not normally be accepted by AACA. Again this issue is not unique to AACA as CCCA, MCA, and NCRS award winners all have similar potential.

My view is that the vehicle won the award, not the owner. We are just the caretakers until our cars pass to another.