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I'm famous! I was flipping through a recent issue of the Goodguys Goodtimes Gazette. When I got to the Rodders Respond page (yeah, I turned there first), I saw that they'd published my letter, name spelled right and everything. I had written to Gazette editor Kirk Jones to applaud him for his right-on-the-money editorial column on the topic of car show awards. Kirk's point, if I get it, was that show participants should enjoy the event, instead of sitting around all weekend waiting for a judge to come along and give them an award. I don't have anything against awards. In fact, Rod & Custom gives out "Top Tin" picks at several Goodguys shows every year. But you probably won't see us crawling all over every car, knocking off points for microscopic paint flaws or unaligned oil pan bolt heads. Here's how we do it. If your car grabs us, we'll take a closer look. If we continue to like what we see, we'll look for the owner to learn more about it. Our final selections (and our photo choices) are based on a variety of things. It could be overall excellence, but it could also be an unusual body style, an interesting history, or the fact that it was homebuilt on a budget. None of R&C's prizes contain the word "Best," because that kind of judgment is too much pressure-and we want to enjoy the weekend too. If you think your unselected car really is better (better built, better looking, faster, newer, shinier, costlier, whatever) than the cars we picked, you might be right. In which case, you've already got a better trophy than anything you could win! Even so, everybody likes winning. So, what's the secret thing you can do to increase your odds of going home with an award, or getting a photo of your car in R&C? Spend a pile of money? No. Know the right people? No. Use a lot of aftermarket products? No. Fill out the window tag? Bingo! We're always surprised at how many participants don't bother to do this simple thing. Sure, they're big and ugly (the tags, not the participants), but they serve a purpose. We're pretty good at identifying the year and make of most rods and customs, but it's really hard to ID an engine through a closed hood, and even harder to guess a participant's name and hometown. So help us out and fill 'em out. Then you can be famous too!
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