Just fantasizing a bit here on a cold winter evening, wondering what it would be like if POC sanctioned shows had a class entitled "High School" or "First Car".
To be assigned to this class, your car would be displayed as close as possible to your first car, featuring some or all of the following: blue dot tail light lenses, J.C. Whitney necker's knob on the steering wheel, Honest Charley decal on the dashboard, fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror, glasspack(s), baby moon hubcaps, (or red wheels and no hubcaps), fake whitewalls (Port-A-Walls), Kendall motor oil license plate topper, chrome plated dipstick handle, beer tapper gearshift knob (I got two Star Model beer tapper handles, one plastic and one chrome, by shamelessly begging a former employer for them - still have them), church key in the glovebox, scratched front bumper and dented bumper guard from push-starting your buddy's car.....the list could go on and on....when I inherited my mother's '50 Chevy in 1962, before I bought my '47 Plymouth, I had a chrome plated Mack bulldog that my grandfather gave me for a hood ornament.
Maybe this class could be a buffer between the purists and those who drive their cars. It might even get more "drivers" to show up at car shows. It would be a "fun" class, with no judging, and no one getting excited over the lack of originality.
As soon as some one decides that trophies should be given out for such a class, it will only be a matter of time before certain criteria are set in place to earn points, and those not winning a trophy will complain that the criteria are unfair or that the judges are clueless. I've said it before and I'll say it again, as long as the POC has minimum point requirements to even qualify for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, the trophy hunters will have legitimate reason to complain. It is one thing to have standards that will cause a deduction in points, it is quite an other when some one has the nicest car in his class and only gets a 2nd place trophy. I can read the PB as well as any one, unless there is a tie, there can only be one 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place winner. I am not so cluless as to believe that a class where only one car receives a trophy (and that being a 2nd or 3rd place) was the only car in the class. All cars getting a certain number of points above the minimum standards do not get trophies for hitting that standard as some have tried to claim. If the POC really wants to shed its image as purist, they need to have at least one national meet each year that doesn't give trophies. Kudos to the Tall Pines Region for blazing that trail.