2014 Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational Overall Results

[71RS/SS396]

Looks like Kyle had issues on the road rally since he only received 5 points, otherwise he would've finished 4th with the full points given. I'm also curious to know how some received the full road rally points when they didn't drive their car but had someone else handle that task?

[SSLance]

Originally Posted by 65_LS1_T56

Rick I think only the performance driving events (Speedstop, Autox, and Hot Laps) counted for that award. So Road Rally and Design didn't apply. We're all still waiting for the actual results for us commoners below 50th place that get a "1" in the individual events. As of now, the Design portion totally dictates our final position.

First thing I noticed as well. I guess when you have 25 points divided by 100 entrants, that averages about .25 points per... You kind of run out of points pretty fast.

Bad part for me though is, for places 50 thru 100...the finishing positions are determined subjectively, not by a stop watch. That's why I quit going to car shows a long time ago.

[ArisESQ]

Not sure I understand how style and design is judged... is 25 a perfect score? How did the Ridler car not get a 25?

[73CPCAMARO]

Originally Posted by 71RS/SS396

Looks like Kyle had issues on the road rally since he only received 5 points, otherwise he would've finished 4th with the full points given. I'm also curious to know how some received the full road rally points when they didn't drive their car but had someone else handle that task?

If he got the full 25 points, he would have finished 18th instead of 69th.
46.2 + 20 more points = 66.2. He would have just edged out Mark Stielow for 18th.

[Matt@BOS]

Originally Posted by ArisESQ

Not sure I understand how style and design is judged... is 25 a perfect score? How did the Ridler car not get a 25?

It has a very polarizing design, and design is subjective.

[James OLC]

Originally Posted by Matt.A

It has a very polarizing design, and design is subjective.

and you are assuming that it earned all of the 15 "free" points that are available to all competitors. That is not always a fair assumption - especially with a car that has only attended the one event. Plus - to continue with what Matt said - design is subjective and not all good designs are well engineered.

For those that seem to have a hard time working through the rules and scoring system they are quite well documented in the rules at http://ultimatestreetcarassociation....Rules_v7-1.pdf

[ArisESQ]

1. 5 points – will be awarded to each participant that presents their vehicle, within the designated timeframe, to the designated location for judging.

2. 10 points possible - points will be awarded for each of the following “street car” functional features: (all items must be in working order at the time of judging)

a. 2 points – Glass - All glass as required by law per the date of manufacture
(windshield and all side glass must be DOT, rear glass can be Lexan). Driver
and passenger glass must be roll up as of date of manufacture - can be
upgraded to electric. In the rare case where an OE car did not have side or rear glass, an exception can be made pending USCA official approval.

b. 2 points - Exterior Lighting - complete lighting package including headlights, backup, turn, brake and running lights.

c. 2 points - Interior electronics - working fuel gauge, horn (audible at 200’), basic or advanced audio system (proof or evidence of radio delete option is
acceptable), HVAC system (AC is optional), dome or interior lighting.

d. 2 points – Interior – OE style or better carpeted or soundproofed interior w/finished door panels and dash – does not need to be stock.

e. 2 points - Street Drivability/Comfort/Ergonomics – vehicle has the ability to negotiate basic street obstacles; all weather drivability that includes windshield wipers; capability of being sealed in case of poor weather; driver and passenger ease of ingress and egress; occupant comfort and visibility while driving.

3. 10 points - A panel of qualified industry-expert judges will use USCA developed, confidential, consistent and exacting criteria to further evaluate each car on its overall function, design, engineering, theme, creative use of parts/materials and overall fit & finish. Points will be broken down into tenths (0.1) – giving each judge appropriate latitude for scoring vehicles that may be visually similar but differ greatly in design or construction quality.

4. Five qualified judges at each event will judge each vehicle in the Platinum category - the high and the low score for each vehicle will be disregarded in order to eliminate positive or negative bias.
5. There will be two awards in the D&E category
a. Platinum winner - determined by judges and points total
b. Gold/Silver winner - determined by popular participant vote

The 15 "free" points for having a streetable car make plenty of sense to me, and I appreciate that the rules pretty clearly penalize a gutted race car.

I don't really consider those last 10 points all that well documented though. I'm in no way implying that Danny Popp shouldn't have won, or that anyone got robbed, but those last 10 points awarded in the design category aren't really clear to me.

[71RS/SS396]

Originally Posted by 73CPCAMARO

If he got the full 25 points, he would have finished 18th instead of 69th.
46.2 + 20 more points = 66.2. He would have just edged out Mark Stielow for 18th.

I must have used common core math
I added the 20 points to his placing not his points doh!

[ironworks]

If I'm understanding the scoring system and making one assumption that JF got all 15 points then he only got 5.7 points from the judges. I think my assumption is fair that he met most of the street car requirements as the car has plenty of stuff on it so its not like its lacking anything or was not intended to be a street car. I doubt they took points away for the perfect paint.

So under that assumption it only scored 5.7 out of 10 points. That seems kinda thin. Are those judges judging on their personal taste only? If so I would say they did not like any of the cars at the event. If all cars got 15 points then Most cars probably scored 2 - 3 points out of 10 from the judges. That does seem pretty harsh. Taste in a car is pretty subjective, Everyone likes different things and just because someone likes different stuff does not make them wrong. It just makes them different. Sure we might laugh at their different, but that is reality. Heck some guys like Fat chicks.

They could award points in a descending order with the most liked car getting top points and the bottom car getting the least. It would harsh to say, you car is the worst, but so is being the slowest guy. Somebody has to be the slowest and least liked.

I had a great time at the event and enjoyed using the car for more then we ever really intended. Except for the road rally portions. This Chevelle has nearly 4000 miles on it and my 1 year daughter loves to ride in the car and laughs when we I get on it. The event motivated my customer to want to make some changes to the car to possibly do some more track events next year with the car. ( stiffer springs ) During the road rally, my wife sat in the back seat and Georgia was in the front in here car seat, and we had the windows down and the drove straight now the strip on Saturday night. It was a good time.

[Musclerodz]

Originally Posted by James OLC

and you are assuming that it earned all of the 15 "free" points that are available to all competitors. That is not always a fair assumption - especially with a car that has only attended the one event. Plus - to continue with what Matt said - design is subjective and not all good designs are well engineered.

For those that seem to have a hard time working through the rules and scoring system they are quite well documented in the rules at http://ultimatestreetcarassociation....Rules_v7-1.pdf

In just reading the rules, I noticed that all 100 competitors are being judged by one standard in the final points system, but the road coarse section of the rules clearly has 3 classes of competitors. Would it not be beneficial to seperate the drivers into 3 different classes to level the field some?