The National Rally & BKV - does it really exist ?

[foggyjames]

FWIW, I love the idea of a "members choice" award...so that's exactly what we did (as Chris mentioned) for the 2010 event. What Chris presumably doesn't know (or has forgotten!) is that we had to fiddle the results, as the "official judges" and the attendees had chosen exactly the same cars!

If worn door hinges don't get you marked down at a "best kept" contest, what will?! If a car is well kept, worn parts will be replaced. I know of quite a few cars (all of mine included!) which aren't clean enough to win anything, but I tend to enter for fun anyway. I don't understand the complaints, though...if you're a concours enthusiast, go for it. If you want to enter for fun, go for it. But if (taking a cold, hard look at it) your car is not concours-standard, don't be offended / surprised when it doesn't win a concours competition! Am I going mad, or is that not obvious?! I happen to think that concours events are silly, but good fun, for what it's worth.

I love the idea of having the Saturday as dual day - camping / lurking / setting up for Sunday on-site, or attending an 'action' event elsewhere, then driving to the main site ready for the entertainment.

cheers

James

[Laney760]

I've read a lot of the thread as posted during and since BKV but have skipped through a lot of totally pointless and utterly childish bickering :-(

I didn't make BKV this year despite really wanting to due to yet more chaos in my life but if I do manage to make BKV next year I am happy to pack a tent and volunteer my help in setting up with anything that needs doing (as long as it's not to do with corpses of my friends (hogs) :-) )


Ellie

[Chris_C]

Originally Posted by Dan J

I might be completely missing the point as a relative newbie to all this BKV stuff but as far as I can tell it seems to reward those with the money and space (or situation) where they have a car they rarely use and can keep garaged and polished over those who actually look after regularly used vehicles very well.

It is very easy to keep a car you've had from new/nearly new/pristine second hand condition when it sits in a garage most of the year, never goes out in the wet or salted roads and you've got the time to polish the thing. I'm much more impressed when I see a 200k car that is used every day on the school and work run that someone has taken considerable time, effort and money to retain in excellent condition than one with 30k and mint condition. I mean seriously - worn door hinges? They're worn because the car has been used for its intended purpose! Everything wears out when you USE it...

My point of view, as I mentioned the worn door hinges. For people who don't know me, every year I enter my motorsport car (which doubles as my daily doing 15,000miles a year, I have a second car, a Corsa, for when the 300 is being repaired) in at least both the National and Southern rallies. The main flavour of motor sport I do is road rallying, which means it goes down narrow hedge lined roads and as such the paint is scratched to anything. It was also sporting a rather large dent at both this years National and Southern as it was written off for me last October.

*However* the reason I picked up on the door hinge pins is to me it's something that *would* be fixed on a car used everyday. They cost 89p from Volvo and it's a half hour job, anyone who uses their car regularly would get too annoyed with the problem to not fix it surely? That to me is more important that having the shiniest paintwork. I've been very frustrated judging a car at a BKV before that has been polished to within an inch of it's life (matching the criteria for the judging) but had sills so rusty (but only visible from underneath the car) that I would not have driven it on the road. That isn't to me "Best Kept Volvo" but "Best Polished". Similarly I've seen 700s with a failed engine mount, you can tell that car isn't driven no matter how shiny it is.

Best kept to me is just that. Someone who has put time and effort into making their car not only as shiny, but also as mechanically well looked after as possible. My car may have the roughest paint of most 300's around, but it also has (again, in my epically biased opinion) the most work maintaining it and has never wanted for a part, be it OEM Volvo or custom designed and CNC machined engine mounts, suspension components etc. I can't afford for my car to let me down! This is the area I want to talk to Simon about and try to help come up with a way to quantify.

The great thing that always comes from this discussion is how everyones views are completely different. We are never going to please everyone, but please do come and have your voice heard. We are always short of judges, if you want to put in your tuppence have a go at judging, see how it is (and your opinion of a lot of the cars *will* change, the shiny suddenly look less appealing a lot of times) and how you think you can improve it. It's the only reason I started.

[sunnyvic]

I havent beenn to a national for a couple of years but one question to ask is do we still have a Masters class..regards sunnyvic

[Prufrock]

Best Kept has (perhaps) become too much of a catch all and too narrow, and as such is no longer able reflect the interests of the Volvo community.
The issue appears to be about there being not enough categories to enter...distill it down and there are subjective categories (i.e member's favourites), and objective categories, viz Vic's suggestion of a Masterclass.

A Masterclass would be for the concours enthusiast - the car that is typically driven only to shows.

A Masterclass should be by its very nature an objective event in that the car is judged and awarded points against predetermined and specific criteria - not just"shiny".

Other categories could be more subjective...member's favourites, best modified, best custom etc.

But even Best Modified should have objective elements with it, for example, the criteria might be the modifications should be largely sourced form the Volvo parts bin - i.e a 244 with a T5 engine, a 744 with a 940 HPT unit...

Best Customised might be more tolerant of"alien"components, for example a 744 with a Ford V8!

However one common factor they all share is that they're all Volvo's.

Prufrock.

[Chris_C]

I didn't see a Masters class this year Vic. Prufock, Master's previously (not sure of exact classification) is something along the lines of someone who has won their class is upgraded to Master's.

Keeps all the polishers together, as well as giving them a fair competition against other polishers!

Whilst I do see where you are coming from about more classes, the issue I have is something along the lines of if there are 20 classes and normally ~100-120 per National, that's 5-6 per class. So, are we going to give away trophies for "Best 1989 blue 340GL with 16V engine swapped from a Clio Williams with adjustable suspension used in motorsport as well as driven daily" (one that I'll surely be able to win ) in which case, we might as well just line up 120 1st place trophies and give them out as people turn up.

I'd be more radical and reduce it. Best car over 20 years old, best car under 20 years old, best modified and runners up for each. Less presentations (which to my mind go on way to long as it stands) and it puts forward the point that this is a National Rally for the Volvo Owners Club. The shiny car contest is only a small part of that.

[TheJoyOfSix]

I tend to agree with that.

Whilst having lots of categories is a fine idea, it does tend to become troublesome to organise. Not in the marshalling, parking side or even in the cost and transport of the trophies themselves, but purely with regard to judging. This year the person in charge of the judging had managed (he thought) successfully to twist the arms of 20 people to agree to be judges only to find that, come the day, nearly half failed to turn up. This meant a hurried charge around the field to try and find 8 or 9 willing victims to fill the ranks. When you think that at least 3 of those victims were actually part of some of the stands/displays we had it did lead to problems.

This is where having the members vote wins, however, that isn't infallible either. As Foggy says above this was tried at the 300 Series National Day and, probably due to the relatively small numbers involved, worked fine with the 'Best Kept' categories, failed miserably with the 'Peoples Choice' awards with the same cars winning both categories. It seems that given the choice most members will revert to a 'Best kept' style of judging rather than a 'Favourite Car' style.

This means that we could have members doing the BKV judging, but not be able to introduce a Favourite Car/Peoples Choice category. It's a shame because at this years BKV the one Volvo I wanted to take home (and thus would have won my 'Peoples Choice' category) was the 740 with the T5 engine. Yes, it wasn't quite finished (no headlining, missing headlight trim etc) so it would never have won a 'Best kept' award but these few faults are easily rectified and you'd have a smart looking car with some rare accessories and an absolute stoater of an engine!

[Prufrock]

Originally Posted by Chris_C

I didn't see a Masters class this year Vic. Prufock, Master's previously (not sure of exact classification) is something along the lines of someone who has won their class is upgraded to Master's.

Keeps all the polishers together, as well as giving them a fair competition against other polishers!

Whilst I do see where you are coming from about more classes, the issue I have is something along the lines of if there are 20 classes and normally ~100-120 per National, that's 5-6 per class. So, are we going to give away trophies for "Best 1989 blue 340GL with 16V engine swapped from a Clio Williams with adjustable suspension used in motorsport as well as driven daily" (one that I'll surely be able to win ) in which case, we might as well just line up 120 1st place trophies and give them out as people turn up.

I'd be more radical and reduce it. Best car over 20 years old, best car under 20 years old, best modified and runners up for each. Less presentations (which to my mind go on way to long as it stands) and it puts forward the point that this is a National Rally for the Volvo Owners Club. The shiny car contest is only a small part of that.

I see your point Chris, but I think you're also taking mine to the extreme, my point ultimately is to try and reflect the"Volvo movement"more than the club currently does at this time.

Your car for example would go in the, I would suggest, in the"customised class" - if there was one; along with my Ford V8 powered 744.

Your point about best car over 20 years old would mean all my lovely(!)700s are then lumped in with the Amazons/140s/200s etc.

There needs to be more categories but we need to be sensible - and don't forget we don't make the decisions!

Prufrock.

[Prufrock]

Originally Posted by TheJoyOfSix

I tend to agree with that.

Whilst having lots of categories is a fine idea, it does tend to become troublesome to organise. Not in the marshalling, parking side or even in the cost and transport of the trophies themselves, but purely with regard to judging. This year the person in charge of the judging had managed (he thought) successfully to twist the arms of 20 people to agree to be judges only to find that, come the day, nearly half failed to turn up. This meant a hurried charge around the field to try and find 8 or 9 willing victims to fill the ranks. When you think that at least 3 of those victims were actually part of some of the stands/displays we had it did lead to problems.

This is where having the members vote wins, however, that isn't infallible either. As Foggy says above this was tried at the 300 Series National Day and, probably due to the relatively small numbers involved, worked fine with the 'Best Kept' categories, failed miserably with the 'Peoples Choice' awards with the same cars winning both categories. It seems that given the choice most members will revert to a 'Best kept' style of judging rather than a 'Favourite Car' style.

This means that we could have members doing the BKV judging, but not be able to introduce a Favourite Car/Peoples Choice category. It's a shame because at this years BKV the one Volvo I wanted to take home (and thus would have won my 'Peoples Choice' category) was the 740 with the T5 engine. Yes, it wasn't quite finished (no headlining, missing headlight trim etc) so it would never have won a 'Best kept' award but these few faults are easily rectified and you'd have a smart looking car with some rare accessories and an absolute stoater of an engine!

This reads to me like an argument for the Status Quo, I don't think it is an organisational challenge, I volunteered, no-one one said ok see you there, so I assumed no-one wanted me!

Clearly the point is that a change is needed in order that the National is more inclusive.

There is also the point about promotion (of the National), assuming this was done we'd have more attendess and a bigger argument for more categories!?

Prufrock.

[sunnyvic]

Now i maybe wrong and probably am ,but looking back over the years when the Club had a Masters class that the car of the show would go to Masters class and not be judged for a 3year period with cars in there own class of the bkv,this would mean that someone else had a chance of going in to the masters class if they became overall winner then those cars in the Masters class lineup would be judged by the club members,,Those in the masters class were actually Concours cars.
Come on there must be someone with better memories than me ..regards sunnyvic