[TR] P/C @ VTR & Driving Requirements

[Dave1massey at cs.com]

In a message dated 11/1/2010 1:13:40 PM Central Daylight Time, 
akgraves at cox.net writes: 
> I'm chiming in a little late.  Regarding the driving requirement, if 
> Concours is as if the car just came off the showroom floor, then all 
> mechanicals would be in perfect condition.  Judges do not check this (with the 
> possible exception of lights), so the driving requirement essentially verifies 
> the mechanicals.
> 
The thread that wouldn't die.

This is a good point.  But it only verifies that the stuff works.  There is 
no evaluation that it works well.  In a perfect world the cars should be 
evaluated on how well the DRIVE, too.  If a car has brakes, fine.  But how 
well do they work?  How do they feel?  Do they squeal?  Is the steering tight 
or vague?  Does the seat support the driver/passenger in a comfortable manner 
or so they just look nice like the seats at Denny's but are not suitable 
for long term habitation?  How dies the exhaust sound.

These (and many others) are all critical to driving experience.  But these 
are not evaluated.  We only have a few minutes per car to evaluate them and 
we gotta draw the line somewhere.  Remember, the cars are judged AT NO EXTRA 
CHARGE to the attendee.

And it's all for fun after all.  There are professional concours judges and 
they charge good money for their services.  We are volunteers and we do it 
to add a dimension to the convention experience.  The awards given out are 
worth a few bucks.  There is no cash prizes involved.  So we give then a 
quick visual check and pick our favourites.

But a contest I think would be kind of neat is an exhaust note contest.  We 
set up a panel of judges on a stretch of straight road and the cars drive 
by and points are awarded for the exhaust note.  Purely subjective but with 
enough judges we can get a good consensus.

Just a thought.

Dave