Shop Rat

OOPS!! Make that the Nifty-Fifty Club.

Happy Birthday!!! I was that age three years ago. Glad to have another member in the Nifty-Fify Club.

Brewing and driving....Hmmmmm.

Hopefully the patent number will help you find what it is. Whatever it is it sure seems to be in good shape. Can't wait to find out what that thing is for sure.

Is there only one outlet from the tank? Several of our friends with T-Models have add-ons on their cars for cooking dinner while they drive down the road that attach to the manifold. If there is only one outlet, maybe it was for a tap like on a coffee pot to get hot water out for either making hot drinks or adding hot water to a radiator that needed more water. Is there a patent number on it?

Jump in the water's fine!! My husband was also under the impression that each catagory was 100 points when I asked him. So someone told both of us the wrong thing. And it may well have been the same person years ago. Sad to say I saw one car at Hershey several years ago that should have gone negative numbers. Instead we just walked around politely and "visualled" that one. Busted boards, cinder blocks and trash in the trunk and you can't even imagine the interior. I would swear he had been living in it. Very scary.

Okay. Now that makes more sense. I have heard it said that each area, exterior, interior, chassis and engine were 100 points thereby making up the total of 400 points. Somebody told me wrong. But now, thanks to you, we all know better now. I just thought it was new math. Thanks Dave.

In making copies of the master juding sheet to send to a couple folks here, I color coded the deductions to bring their attention to them. In doing so I noticed that a non-authentic body (one that was not available for that make/eara) is a mandatory 40 points. Using a non-authentic material (fiberglass in an early car) is a mandatory 40 points per component up to a total of 120 points. With only 100 points available per exterior, how can you take more than 100 points off? In fourteen years of judging I have not judged a car that had a wrong body or incorrect material used, so I did not pay any real attention to that until now. Anyone know the answer to this one? Can a catagory go "negative" points?

You will learn something new from every judge and every captain you serve with. That's what helps keep this interesting. And be sure to go to your CJE each year and get a more in depth look at different aspects of the catagories. You can go to more than one CJE per year, but you can only get credit for one until you hit the 25 point increments, then you can take two in a year and get credit for both.

I just wrote that information down and will put it on my calendar next year. That way I will know when to hear from about how it went. You have eight months to get ready.

I think that is a problem at just about every show. Razor scooters can move so quickly. People, adults as well as kids, think they are good on bikes and scooters. All it takes is looking the wrong way and they are into a car or someone walking. And don't even get me started on people that feel that their dog should be there on the hot asphalt. Or the parents that look at you like you are crazy when you ask their kids to not get on, or get off of, the running boards of a car. "Well what do you care? It's not your car. He just wants to see inside." AGGGG!!!!!!

Howard~Sadly that is true. And more and more I see not only bad parents but bad ones that fully support how terrible their kids act. Even down to violence and bullying other kids, and the parents back them 100%.

Great, you got it. I thought you might find that information helpful. When is the show that you are going to take it to? Please let us know after you how what you thought. Hey, you were going to go anyway so you might as well enter it with it's peer group. You know it may not win anything but it will be where I think the most people will see it. I know the man that originally set up the DPC class. Very nice man (he also judges) and his wife is such a wonderful person, she also judges. We just saw them at the Asheboro show. They didn't make Hershey this year.

As a judge I have a request. Come and enjoy the cars and talking to the owners. But by doing one simple thing you can make the day wonderful for the team of judges. When you see that team of five people with clipboards approach the car you are looking at, please step back and let them do their job. They will be done quicker and you can go back to talking to the owner and taking photos of the car if you like. Having to maneuver around spectators standing around the cars makes our job so much harder. I have actually had spectators ask my judging team to move away from the car so that they could take a photo.

Howard~I am in total agreement that the youth program should not be abused as daycare. That is not what Doug wanted it to be. And shame on anyone that did abuse that. Several years ago I jumped up and down to the AACA about a captain that I had at Hershey who brought her horrible two kids on the show field with us. (Well actually, she was going to have one and her husband one but in no time flat we had both of them with her.) The daughter was loud and asked unending questions about the scores where a deaf person could have heard her. And the two kids, a boy and girl, were climbing the decorative trees and jumping on the branches. It was a nightmare. Shortly after that they made a rule that no kids were to be with judging teams. We all know that at times there are going to be exceptions. But when they happen the children should be well behaved. The flip-side is that at a Greenville, S.C. show one man brought his grandson, about age 11 or 12, and he was so helpful. Quiet, stood back away from the cars, and it was a day that rained and then would stop and get hot and humid. This boy OFFERED to hold umbrellas when we were judging and rain gear when it stopped. You could not have asked for a better behaved young man. I think that one of the biggest problems with Hershey is not the judging. It is the lack of available parts at reasonable prices. In years past we found many things and bought them. This year my husband did not buy a single part in the three days of walking we did. The few, and I mean few, items he found were way more than he was willing to pay. Many people feel that with Carlisle just the weekend before that the vendors are short on items to offer when they come to Hershey. They have no time to go home and get things they might have there. And with the walkie-talkies the pros are going through several fields at once comparing prices and buying up the parts. We have seen a lot of that in the last few years.

Hey Howard~We were able to be done in an hour for two reasons this year. Five no shows and four of the five that we did judge were very good cars. One thing that I have wondered about is that younger (and some older) people lots of times have children/grandchildren and may have nowhere to leave them while they judge. Doug Drake started a wonderful program for the kids that came. But it is not available at all shows. Wonder if that holds some of the members from getting into judging or staying in it once children join their family? And like you, I have heard negative comments by many judges about Hershey. And they are made by people I have seen at other shows so I know that Hershey is not their only experience. Several judges at Asheboro told me they were not going to Hershey this year. By it's very size it is going to be harder and take longer. And you are right, trying to judge cars while politely asking spectators to move away from the car while we do that is taxing. And if you happen to get a car that has throngs of people around it, that is the pits. Some people are nice and move away and some look at you like you have lost your mind when you ask that they let you around the car. Just one of the challenges of Hershey.

Howard~I was 39 when I started judging. I got tired of Bill coming back to the RV with stories of all the great people he met. I wanted to meet great people also! And I have in the fourteen years I have been doing this. One of the first teams I was on I met Joe Vicini (and have judged with him several times) and I even knocked over my soda and got a small amount of it on him, and he was still willing to be the one to give me my fifty credit pin last year. I know that someday it will be my turn to step down. I just hope it will be many years from now.

Wow. Congratulations. I am 205 short of that mark.

It is sad when that happens no matter what hobby or sport you participate in. But most people will face it at some point and have to decide when to step down. Thirty-four years. I have to ask, how many credits did you retire from judging with?

Very well could be. I could look back at my team lists and see who she was. I have saved most of them from when I started. What eras did you and your wife tend to judge when you did?

Very solid project car but needs total restoration. Has been sitting in a garage for years and now must be sold. If interested I can get the phone number for you. We went to see it with a friend in Bristol that restores and buys and sells antigues and a few street rods in Bristol. The car was being offered to him but I don't think he is interested as his guys are working on several cars for customers right now.

Welcome to "the dark side". Just kidding. You will meet wonderful people when you start judging. Both owners and other judges. This is a wonderful hobby for women as well as men. One of the best engine judges I ever had was a young woman that had started learning in her dad's auto shop at age nine. If there is a judge in your local club, you might be able to talk them out of their 2004 Judges manual and it has copies of the judging forms in the back. Or at least they might loan it to you for you to read. I am sure a few things will change for next year, but the basics pretty much stay the same.

We have a 1939 Dodge four door project car also. Not many of them around. After pricing just the woodgraining, we decided to modify it a little and just enjoy it. Our 1963 1/2 Falcon Sprint convertible is going to be the AACA showcar someday. Hopefully soon. Know anyone that wants a chassis for a 39 Dodge? We have a spare one in very good shape.

Whew!!! Amen on that one.

Thanks. I always try to be fair and to help people, especially when they are at their very first show and they are sweating bullets. You would think that some of them were entering their child in a Beautiful Baby contest they are so nervous.