Originally Posted by rocketraider

Suffice to say I'm not too happy with the '09 OCA judging results either. There are a whole lot of cars and owners going home with first place awards that did not deserve them. I'm embarrassed to say the two classes I judged are among them. I was the engine guy, and I and the undercarriage/wheels guy were the only ones on that four-man team who judged their areas properly. The cars were nice, but no way did some of them have zero point deductions on their paint, interior, trunk and brightwork.
Yah, they tell us not to be overly critical, but if I have my car judged, I want to know its weak areas so I can correct them. If the car is judged by a different crew next time out, who does its task properly, there's gonna be some mad-*** owners around because they got a first this year and a second next year.
The show itself was good. But given the judging results, and a couple other things that happened, a 2009 OCA National Award is going to be severely diluted IMHO.

Originally Posted by rocketraider

Don't get me started. As an OCA Zone director I pushed to get a formal judges' training program in place, with training and qualifications on specific carlines. It was like running up against a brick wall- the judging committee didn't want to hear about it (or anything else that would have put any work and responsibility on them), and then some of their number got really good at creating diversions that took priority over cleaning up our judging program. One in particular really should have pulled some jail time for some of the shyt he did. And that damn Keystone Kops judging video they did in the early 90s was an embarrassment to anyone who took their judging role seriously.

The performance classes generally have better and tighter judging than the others, by people who know something about the cars. Starfires and Toronados are the same way. But it's pretty obvious some judges are totally lacking in any knowledge of the car they're supposed to be critiquing to an as-built showroom standard. If it's pretty, they'll give it a first.

There was a 1967 Delta Custom Holiday Coupe that had made it to seniors with high-gloss black paint on everything underhood that is supposed to be black. Gorgeous car and one of my favorite Oldsmobiles, but sorry Charlie- the General did NOT make them that way. To my thinking, that car should never have made it to junior best of class with all that polished black underhood.

Originally Posted by wmachine

Tough to do with Oldsmobiles because there is little centralized knowledge bases. And what is correct continues to be debated. And knowledgeable are dying, quite frankly.

Originally Posted by TK-65

I overheard one of my class judges (64-67 perf) ask if the 66 442s came with a rear sway bar from the factory. Questions like that should be heard at the local benefit car show, not a national event.