National Award

[Guest]

I have just discovered this thread and I must say it has been very helpful. I am a fairly new and younger member to AACA. I received my Junior and Senior first award this past season. I also received one letter from each show nominating my 69 Plymouth road runner convertible for the Walter P. Chrysler award. A real honor!<P>I have done all of the restoration of my car myself. I do not own a dealership or a body shop. I am a musician by trade and a true hobbiest when it comes to cars. I restored the car with "date coded" parts and factory original markings, etc. So much so, that I won first at the Mopar Nationals in Columbus, Ohio. A standard far greater than AACA since they judge numbers matching, factory assembly techniques, mopar only parts, no aftermarket batery cables or components, etc. So yes it is possible to not be rich and not have connections to get nominated for this award and have sucess showing cars in this day and age of "pay big bucks for someone else to do the work, I get the trophy."<P>I must say when I received the "sorry you didn't win letter" I was very disappointed. I am eager to see the car that was deemed as more preserved as original than mine. It was an honor to be nominated and I hope to continue to show the car at a Grand National event this year. <P>I do have one complaint about my experiences with AACA. Lack of comunication. Without reading this thread I wouldn't have known anything about this process. I have not been able to get any judging sheets from each show since I won the award I was seeking. I have purchased the books on Judging, yet I still do not have any feedback or know where to improve the car. It must need to be improved since it was not selected for the National award. I am sure it is difficult to comunicate with everyone but currently the sub par cars get feedback while the winners do not. I understand that you probably do not wish to get into an argument with the car's owner by telling him his car is fantastic, but not fantastic enough. I do wish that would change. I for one welcome any imput I can get. Without feedback how can one improve. Sorry this is so long and please do not see it as "sour grapes"<BR>Greatfully,<BR>Mike Wilkins<BR>Mwilkin@lifeway.com

[Guest]

Mike ~ I am NOT a member of the National Awards Committee so what I say is NOT official. It is an effort to give a little of that missing communication you mention.<BR>My credentials are that I served about 8 years on National Awards prior to retiring 4 years ago.<P>Look at it this way. Your car was shown at 2 Meets and was nominated twice. That means it was evaluated by 2 different judging teams. Perhaps another vehicle competing for the same award was shown and nominated at 6 Meets and was therefore evaluated by six judging teams. Now suppose your car scored 398 and 399. The other car scored 396,399,399,398,399 and 398. Who would you give the award to? I would give it to the car with more evaluations and always receiving high scores. Its scores would carry more weight because it simply had held up under greated scrutiny.<P>But that's just my opinion.<P>hvs

[rodlars]

Just a quick follow-up to Mopar Mike's post re: hobbyist restorations. I wanted to provide another example of a "grass roots" restoration success story. Although I purchased my latest vehicle in an already completed state I must offer a tip of the hat to the guy who lovingly restored it in his own garage, doing all of the work himself except for the paint (he did try to paint it himself first but decided it was a job best left to the pros and had it redone immediately). The car has won first in its class at the Mopar Nationals, 1st jr, sr and was nominated for an AACA national award. The gentleman who owns the 71 Cuda which won its class at the Mopar Nats this year also did the majority of the work on the car. Just goes to show that personal effort and dedication is a competent match for deep pockets on the show field.<P>Re: National Awards. At the two shows I have been at this year, Charlotte NC and Hershey, PA, I have been exposed to some outstanding restorations. If I were giving out awards to the top cars, I would probably need a couple of hundred trophies. :-) If your Runner is the red conv I'm thinking of Mopar Mike, I would say that you have nothing to be ashamed of and I wouldn't lose too much sleep over trying to improve it. In this Mopar owner's humblest opinion, the B-body Plymouth class at the Nats has to be one of the toughest on the planet and 1st place there speaks for itself. <P>Rod Larson<BR>70 Dart Swinger

[Ron Green]

I to got the sorry you did not win letter but consider it a honor just to be nominated. It is amazing how many nice cars are shown that are near perfect. Next year may be my turn? My car did get a invitation to the Amelia Island Concour's for March of this year so I will do my best to make the AACA proud! Anybody know anything about this show?

[Steve Moskowitz]

will try to help you with questions about the amelia show....bill warner does a great job there and the cars keep getting beter and better every year. may be involved in having several cars there this march.