[DML] PF concours competition comments

["Grimsrud, Knut S" <knut.s.grimsrud@xxxxxxxxx>]

I had the pleasure of participating in the concours competition at the
PF event again, and I wanted to share my experiences and comments with
everyone. I'm sorry my message is a bit late in coming - I have been
running around with my hair on fire since the PF event and have been
struggling to catch up (those of you that have met me know what a sight
it would be for me to run around with my hair on fire).

 

I always think it's such a thrill to get the opportunity to closely
inspect some of the finest and most meticulously prepared examples of
the DMC marque. Congratulations to both John and Dan for their
outstanding cars and my thanks to both of them for sharing their
exquisite cars with us. I was sorry to see that the third car scheduled
for the event had last-minute issues and unfortunately missed the event.
I don't recall the exact point count, but for those that were not at the
PF event, Dan Deutsch (not the evil one) took first place honors with
his car. 

 

Ken really outdid himself this time with the accommodations, and the
concours got top billing with the cars taking center stage for both the
judging event and for display the rest of the evening. I hope those at
the show got a chance to examine the cars Saturday afternoon while they
were on display.

 

This time I got a chance to work with Andy (Soma) who served as judge's
assistant. His assistance not only made the judging a lot of fun but he
was extremely helpful in verifying sightings and scribing all the
information we attempted to cram into the limited space on the judging
sheets. Thanks, Andy, for all your help during the show - I hope you
also found the judging to be interesting and fun. Andy and I were
assigned the undercarriage this time, and of all the different
categories I have judged to date I found the undercarriage to be by far
the most challenging to judge.

 

I learned a lot from inspecting the undercarriage of the cars. The first
was that when inspecting the undercarriage, doing it indoors at Ken's
show with a clean floor is probably the best situation you can ask for!
The original valve stem caps have apparently become as rare as hens
teeth. I checked my show car as soon as I got home and was disappointed
to see that when I had my tires replaced last time the tire shop
replaced my original caps with the run-o-the-mill plastic ones. If you
have the original metal knurled valve stem caps, I would suggest you
keep close tabs on them and take care to avoid a helpful tire shop
replacing them for you. With both of the competing cars having been
brought in trailers, both cars showed marring of the tow hooks (which I
presume were used for tie-down during transportation). On both cars I
noticed that the trailing edge of the lower control arms appeared to
have a noticeable deflection, and at the time I presumed it was damage
resulting from someone hooking to the lower control arms for tie-down or
for towing. With both cars having the same feature, I suspect now that
it is instead an artifact of the stamping process of the lower control
arm resulting in the training edge having an unusual deflection (I'll
have to look into this). With both cars having the same artifact, it was
not material to the judging. The only other common issue I discovered
with the cars was that a few of the Philips head screws used to secure
the rocker panels were either corroded or marred. The marred fasteners
gave the impression of having been over-tightened resulting in the
Philips head of the fasteners "puckering." This is easy to notice by
running your finger over the fastener and checking for noticeable
protruding sharp edges. I'm sure the hardest part of the prep work (and
the judging) was surely the undercarriage detailing. Having seen how
clean the undercarriage can be and how impressive it looks when dressed
up, I'm inspired to spend some time under my car.

 

Thanks to the competitors and to Ken for supporting the concours
competition at the PF event. I really enjoyed working with the other
judges and the competitors for the event and look forward to the next
time I might have a chance to participate. If you have considered
participating as a contestant, I would encourage you to do so as the
experience can be quite rewarding. If you have questions about the event
or would like insights on participating, please feel free to drop me a
note.

 

                        Knut

 



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