please read the following:

Model contests can be humbling, challenging, invigorating, stressful, eye opening and fun. If you entered and didn't do as well as you believe you should have, fear not, for there will surely be another along in the near future. Maybe it was the subject matter, maybe it was the the workmanship, maybe the photography. My personal guarantee to you is that the voting was as fair as it was diverse. Many of those that originally entered but could not finish were called upon as judges. No judges entered an entry. I yielded my own voting to Nani. The Grand Prize (the first time we have ever had such a thing) was chosen by Fritz (builder of the 1:1 Roswell Rod bubble topped show rod) and he did not vote in the judges or peoples choice selections. Fritz told me in a telephone conversation, as we were honoring Elden Titus, his decision would honor Elden as well.

Unspoken but 'known' , The Grand Prize winner was withdrawn from the panel of judges tallies. This was also not revealed to the panel of 12 judges. Points were shifted up from 4th to 3rd. 3rd to 2nd and 2nd to 1st where the withdrawn entry was on that judges list. Point values were assigned to 1st (100 pts), 2nd (50 pts), and 3rd (25 pts). Anyone who was nominated by one of the panel of judges should feel especially proud. Last years Open Showrod Challenge was only marred by a flawed and easily irritated voting system. I think we're getting close. 

The People's Choice rating system is a revamped revival from our 2004 Tom Daniel Contest. Everyone who voted assigned a point value (1 to 9) for each entry. Those values were summed and then averaged based on the number of ballots received which arrived at an average rating. (This eliminated biased balloting).

When the judges started sending in their choices, many of them added quantified verbiage detailing how they reached their selections. This from one of the judges and is probably one of the best write-ups in how judging should take place. This is from one of the judges I personally consider to be a pro-builder. 

...Paul,... I consider this job first a great privilege and second a daunting task.
There are some amazing builds on that page. It was very tough.

These things matter to everyone and all the builds showed a lot of effort.
I knew I had to do the best I could to pay tribute to all the entrants. I
decided to set up a criteria to help me decide

1) Wow or Gotcha factor. Have I ever seen this before? Does it want to make
me look further? Is the idea original? This is a show rod site, so
originality and POW are a big part of the game.
I will admit that a custom build will have stronger start than a box stock
build because of this. There were some excellent box stock builds and mild
interpretations that were on the first and second list.

2) Execution. So you have good idea, how did you pull it off.
Do we have continuity of design? (I tried to overlook the plethora of
skeletons - What's up with that?) Does the theme move form one end to the
other of the car?
Do the shapes flow together well? Are all the angles following the flow of
the lines. A large hiccup on a body line shows that there was missing
thought in how to make a design work.
How is the construction? All wheels sit square? No missing paint spots?

3) Scratch building.
What parts were made or highly modified? How was the execution and did they
fit the theme?

4) Can I see it? Decent pictures are pretty necessary in an online contest.

In case of curiosity, there's about 80 hours of work invested on my part to this. (still way less than building any of the judges picks). Many hours, however, were 'wasted' chasing down emails to accounts I do have, but not where I was building pages and cropping pictures. In the future emailed entries will not be an option nor will they be accepted. FWIW the average web programmer makes $50 / hour. So though you may have opinions on how to run a fool proof on line contest, be prepared to pay me to listen to your opinions. 2 hour minimum / payable in advance. no checks. Paypal only.

To me though, it was a labor of love. And I saw a lot more than what was revealed on the pages. Some entries came with in progress build up detail pics. I did not include them to be fair to everyone else. There's a LOT of believable engineering in the Pie ALA Cart that surely would have changed it's ranking and the Dutch Treat as well. And I think though whimsical, the Night Rider may have earned extra points with the short story. That will need to be reviewed. 

To those that this was the first time entering one of our contests, I'm sure it was enlightening. When I spoke to Bob Paeth after the OSC last year, he realized THEN that a few small pictures wasn't enough, and that many large higher resolution pictures would have more of an advantage.

But fear not Coffin Corner Contest newbies. Learn from what you have seen and be proud you got your entry finished and submitted. There are many long time klowns that went missing. And when they see the prizes they gave up their shot at, you'll recognize them from their whining and crying. Whatever flaws you may see in your own presentations, we all see. So grow from that and make sure you don't see them next time.

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