Who's going to Blue Lake (Oregon) show on 8/10/08?

[Mike B]

By the way Arne was awarded with BEST 240Z. Vary good Arne . There was some great 240s to judge, and to be picked #1 speaks highly of your Z.

Gary:laugh:

Congrats Arne! Its good to see a nice original Z win a local popular vote show for once, and not just the shinniest one that has all the wrong parts on it.

-Mike

[Arne]

Who was selling the white Z ? License says DATMAN?

Didn't meet the owner, Mike. Fairly clean and straight car with a Chev 350 crate motor in it. He was asking $6000 for it - probably a good buy for a V8 car.

It was a good show, 140 cars/trucks . The weather was great and the Zs were to. By the way Arne was awarded with BEST 240Z. Vary good Arne . There was some great 240s to judge, and to be picked #1 speaks highly of your Z.

Gary:laugh:

Well, I wasn't going to bring it up myself, since I wasn't there to try to win anything. I didn't even clean the bugs off after the 125 mile drive to get there.

BTW, since he squealed on me, I figure it's only fair for me to note that the Second place 240Z was Gary's yellow car...

Congrats Arne! Its good to see a nice original Z win a local popular vote show for once, and not just the shinniest one that has all the wrong parts on it.

-Mike

Well, it wasn't a popular vote deal, Mike. There was a team of 4 judges who handled it all. All in all, I think they did a pretty good job balancing shininess, originality, overall condition, and quality of mods (if any). The 240Z awards went to my mostly original car, and to Gary's obviously non-stock car. The top 510 four-door award went to the bone stock dark blue car from BC, but the best pickup awards went to a wildly modified (but beautifully executed) blue 620.

[Mike B]

Well, it wasn't a popular vote deal, Mike. There was a team of 4 judges who handled it all. All in all, I think they did a pretty good job balancing shininess, originality, overall condition, and quality of mods (if any). The 240Z awards went to my mostly original car, and to Gary's obviously non-stock car. The top 510 four-door award went to the bone stock dark blue car from BC, but the best pickup awards went to a wildly modified (but beautifully executed) blue 620.

That's interesting. I am glad to see at least one local show then that has judges. I have been to Canby, the Seattle ZCCW show at Performance Nissan, and the one in Vancouver BC and all were popular vote shows. So they didn't have different catagories for stock and modified cars? That seems odd and difficult to judge.

-Mike

[Arne]

So they didn't have different catagories for stock and modified cars? That seems odd and difficult to judge.

T'would seem so to me as well. But that has been traditional for this gathering, as I understand it. I think they were more concerned with the overall quality of the cars and whether the vehicle's intent (original vs. period-correct vs. modified) was consistent than anything else. That's about the only way you could mix it up that way.

In fact, some of the categories were a bit curious, to say the least. There was a single category for 240Zs, and also one for 350Zs. But all 300ZXs were lumped together, and 280Zs and 280ZXs were combined as well. No category for 260Zs at all. Three separate categories for 510s (2 dr, 4 dr and wagon), a single category for any Maxima, and one for 240SXs. But if you had anything newer than '79 that didn't fall into one of the above, they were dumped into the catch-all "1980-2008 modern" category.

Edited August 11, 2008 by Arne

[beandip]

That's interesting. I am glad to see at least one local show then that has judges. I have been to Canby, the Seattle ZCCW show at Performance Nissan, and the one in Vancouver BC and all were popular vote shows. So they didn't have different catagories for stock and modified cars? That seems odd and difficult to judge.

-Mike

I believe at Canby the only award that was popular Vote was Peoples Choice Award. This is my understanding.

Gary

[Arne]

I think that at Canby the People's Choice vote was open to all attendees. The other categories were selected by the registered attendees. I think.

[Mike B]

I believe at Canby the only award that was popular Vote was Peoples Choice Award. This is my understanding.

Gary

Anyone in attendance could vote for the Peoples Choice Award, but the other awards were voted on by the people with cars entered in the show. I guess I still consider that a popular vote instead of having judges score the cars. I'm not sure that someone with a truck or a 510 is qualified to vote which is the best stock 240z, for example.

-Mike

[EScanlon]

Chiming in while on the road:

Sorry I missed the show, but glad to see there was a good attendance there. Almost had my car finished when unchangeable plans put it on hold. I'll post pictures of it much later, now I'm waiting for a speedo cable.

As far as the lack of categories, without re-hashing old tales, it's mostly due to the lack of participation. It gets hard to have trophies and awards for Z31 and Z32 models when only one or two show up. Conversely, due to the many and varied attendees over the years for the 510 model, they've expanded those awards.

As I've been telling people, Blue Lake is a fun and laid back good time.

The more we promote these local PDX shows, regardless of which club is the sponsor, the better the whole Datsun/Nissan experience is for those of us lucky enough to be in the PDX area. There are at least 3 strong clubs and a couple other "semi-organized" groups just in the Portland/Vancouver/Salem area, maybe more. I think it would be great if there were 4-5 PDX shows every summer, and why not a cooperative one in the winter? Northwest Z did a fine job at the Roadster show in the Rose Garden earlier this year.

Often we'll see posts of someone complaining that all the "cool" shows are down south or east or north and.... heck, we have some excellent shows here, all we have to do is attend and make it fun. It's up to us in the NW to make the other parts of the US envy our shows.

FWIW

E

Edited August 11, 2008 by EScanlon

[Arne]

Anyone in attendance could vote for the Peoples Choice Award, but the other awards were voted on by the people with cars entered in the show. I guess I still consider that a popular vote instead of having judges score the cars. I'm not sure that someone with a truck or a 510 is qualified to vote which is the best stock 240z, for example.

Looked at that way, this was still a 'popular vote' event, albeit a vote of only the four judges. There was no scoring, and the judges weren't trained or schooled in any of the various models. They were just Datsun enthusiasts. My understanding is that they were selected from volunteers with an eye towards not loading the panel with people who all had 510s, for example. Since there is a very active Z-only club in the region, the sponsoring club is pretty light on Z membership. So I don't think any of the four judges were truly Z-knowledgeable. Regardless, I think they did a very good job of picking the best cars, regardless of the fact they happened to pick mine as best 240Z.

Chiming in while on the road:

Sorry I missed the show, but glad to see there was a good attendance there. Almost had my car finished when unchangeable plans put it on hold. I'll post pictures of it much later, now I'm waiting for a speedo cable.

As far as the lack of categories, without re-hashing old tales, it's mostly due to the lack of participation. It gets hard to have trophies and awards for Z31 and Z32 models when only one or two show up. Conversely, due to the many and varied attendees over the years for the 510 model, they've expanded those awards.

As I've been telling people, Blue Lake is a fun and laid back good time.

The more we promote these local PDX shows, regardless of which club is the sponsor, the better the whole Datsun/Nissan experience is for those of us lucky enough to be in the PDX area. There are at least 3 strong clubs and a couple other "semi-organized" groups just in the Portland/Vancouver/Salem area, maybe more. I think it would be great if there were 4-5 PDX shows every summer, and why not a cooperative one in the winter? Northwest Z did a fine job at the Roadster show in the Rose Garden earlier this year.

Often we'll see posts of someone complaining that all the "cool" shows are down south or east or north and.... heck, we have some excellent shows here, all we have to do is attend and make it fun. It's up to us in the NW to make the other parts of the US envy our shows.

FWIW

E

Good background. And the thought that we need to support these events regardless who is sponsoring them is very true. I just wish some of them were held closer than 100 miles away...I'm getting pretty tired of that jaunt up I-5, these cars were meant for back roads!