Proposals for Consideration by the JCNA BoD at the Fall Meeting

Obviously Pascal strips off extra spaces and tabs. In the future it's dots.... ;-)

Why do I now see him furiously coding to strip out excess dots?

Daniel,

The only change that would be required to the scoresheets would be at the bottom of page 1 (the OV page). Currently it reads:

SCORE SUMMARY
MAXIMUM POINTS 1000
MINUS DEDUCTIONS OF _____
FOR TOTAL GROSS SCORE OF _____
Divided by 10 for Champion Division _____
Divided by 100 for Driven & Special Divisions _____

It would be changed to:

SCORE SUMMARY
MAXIMUM POINTS 300
MINUS DEDUCTIONS OF _____
FOR TOTAL GROSS SCORE OF _____
Divided by 3 for Champion Division _____
Divided by 30 for Driven & Special Divisions _____

or 250, 2.5, and 25. In other words, we're only changing three numbers on one page of the scoresheet.

Nothing at all changes for the judges, they score exactly as they always have. For the scorekeepers, the only minor change is that they divide by 3 (or 2.5) and 30 (or 25) -- a tad more difficult than moving a decimal point one or two places, but I don't think it's insurmountable considering they have calculators handy. ;-)

Seems a lot easier just to change the points threshold at which you award instead. Don't have to rewrite any score sheets, look at deduction amounts and how the affect overall scores or anything.

I am not a math guy. Simple is better IMHO, I couldnt even make it a third way through your table, made my brain hurt. :)

D

Daniel,

Yes. but if we're agreed that the cutoffs for placements are ridiculously low, why not take the oppportunity to bring the scores into the realm of reality for 99% of the North American population by the simple device of starting with 300 points and dividing by 3 for Champion/Special and 30 for Driven. Then we don't need to change the threshholds.

Here are how the scores would change:
(current)
Deducts 1000?À10 300?À3 250?À2.5
----------- ------------- ----------- -----------
0 100 100 100
-0.01 99.999 99.997 99.996
-0.1 99.99 99.967 99.96
-1 99.9 99.667 99.6
-2 99.8 99.333 99.2
-5 99.5 98.333 98
-10 99 96.667 96
-20 98 93.333 92
-25 97.5 91.667 90
-30 97 90 88
-50 95 83.333 80
-60 94 80 76
-100 90 66.667 60
-150 85 50 40
-200 80 33.333 20
-250 75 16.667 0

If you start with 300 points, the cutoff for 1st would be what is now 97, 2nd is 94, and 3rd is 91. If you start with 250 points, the cutoffs would be what are currently 97.5, 95, and 92.5. I agree those are a little low, but way better than before.

It's not an either or, however. If those numbers still seem too high, there's no reason why we couldn't adjust scores and still change the cutoffs. Keep in mind that if we codify the awards per Stevo's proposal, the question of cutoffs becomes moot. But despite his good arguments, I think it's better if we leave that up to the clubs.

Remember that local concours are usually about 90% local cars, so it's really important that the clubs meet the expectations of their members. If that's 3 trophies for every class, so be it. If they'd prefer to put some or all of that money toward six super nice trophies for the top 3 cars in Champ and Driven, then they should be free to follow that route.

I think the best JCNA rule that we could enact in that regard would be to direct the clubs to indicate their JCNA awards on their registration forms. That way everyone knows what's happening going in and can choose to attend or not. it still leaves the clubs with the freedom to do what will work for their members. After a year or so, we'll have some data to see what works best and if we set up a Concours Chair forum, they can pass that information around.

Pretty obvious that the current thresholds for awards at 90/80/70 are absurd based on the spread of scores you see at our current shows, but rather than mess with the entire scoring system which seems to more or less work in separating the very best cars from the merely excellent, I would solely suggest altering the scoring thresholds to a more reasonable level for award qualification.

In my opinion those levels would be 99/98/97 9.9/9.8/9.7 for driven. Maybe that would have no effect on the award distribution if every car at every show scored higher than these levels, I don't know. What I do know is I have seen 99 and 98 and 97 point cars, but I have never seen a 80 or 70 point car. I agree, I doubt I could write down every deduction in 15 minutes. To score 70, I figure the entire surface of the car would have to be covered in scratches, dings and worn paint.

D

A few responses and comments, not in any particular order.

1) I know some say that there are no ÔÇÿrulesÔÇÖ regarding local awards, but there are customs and expectations. Most clubs (if not all) award trophies to 3 deep within a class. Maybe there are some clubs which donÔÇÖt, but they are a few and far between. Also, this is what people ÔÇÿexpectÔÇÖ. I understand that if there are no JCNA rules or guidelines, then local clubs can do what they want, however as some have expressed here, there might be some upset participants who ÔÇÿexpectÔÇÖ an award because ÔÇÿit has always been that wayÔÇÖ. By having a set of rules at the JCNA level, then all clubs can make their awards competitive and not have to deal with the potential fall out, since ALL clubs would do the same.

2) With regard to the Enthusiasts Division proposal, I did specifically say that it was optional at a clubÔÇÖs discretion. But the point was to make it more widely known and encouraged by having the JCNA organization officially endorse it and promote it, plus suggesting a way of class organization. But classifying the cars would be strictly up to the local club. The more this idea is pushed from the top down, the more clubs will get on the bandwagon and give it a go. So it is not a rule change per se, but rather a ÔÇÿpositionÔÇÖ to be taken by JCNA through consistent and coordinated efforts at all levels to get on board with the concept while getting rid of the stigma of a ÔÇÿDisplay OnlyÔÇÖ class.

3) Do we have too many classes? Sure we do. When the largest concours to date has the same number of cars as the number of classes, doesnÔÇÖt this convey the problem? As I mentioned in another post, this year through 15 concours we are averaging 25 entries, with the largest concours at 42 cars. The proliferation of classes is the root cause of the non-competitive nature of the awards we give out at local concours. Is this 1st grade or what? If you show up, you get an award; how childish and immature is this type of system? My local award proposal has the intent of making all local awards competitive (even if we are not interested in reducing the number of classes from 42 to 22 as in one of my three proposals).

4) The scoring system is out of whack with reality. Nobody gets less than a 90, yet we have rules that award a 3rd place to a 70 point car, and 2nd place to an 80 point car and a 1st place to a 90 point car. It is apparent that the award thresholds were based on a typical school grading system concept, but that the score sheet system we have in place does not mesh with these thresholds; a total disconnect. IsnÔÇÖt it obvious to everyone? In the JCNA scoring system, a 90 point car does not deserve any award, much less a 1st place designation. And a 70 point car? That would be ready for the proverbial scrap heap. The thresholds are an embarrassment to our club concours scoring system. So, if we are not going to step up and make the classes competitive by either reducing the number of classes, or by instituting mandatory competitiveness to get an award, then by God, letÔÇÖs at least change the awards threshold to reflect reality.

5) If we are to keep the same scoring system we have now, then it would seem appropriate to change the thresholds to 98.0/99.0/99.5 (or even HIGHER). This means no more than a 20 point deduction for 3rd, 10 points for 2nd and 5 points for 1st. Of course, to anybody looking at the scores, they would think that they are way too stringent, but thatÔÇÖs the problem with the way the JCNA scoring system is structured. Alternatively, you could take the deductions from 200 points instead of 1000, and this would result in the thresholds being listed as 90.0/95.0/97.5 for the same 20/10/5 point deductions. Under this scheme, a current 90 point car (100 point deduction) would become a 50 point car, which more accurately reflects reality. While this revamping of the thresholds (with or without using a different base) would somewhat alleviate the problem of giving awards to undeserving cars, it doesnÔÇÖt guarantee competitiveness as I have proposed. Perhaps BOTH rules could be implemented? That is, to win an award in a class, a car must either beat another car in the class OR exceed the scoring threshold as outlined above (not the current threshold that has no meaning).

6) Some have commented that my proposal is not necessary because I only looked at a ÔÇÿsmallÔÇÖ concours (ours ÔÇô JCSNE); the question ÔÇ£WhereÔÇÖs the back up?ÔÇØ was asked. As I then posted later on, 25 is the average number of concours entrants this year, so our 21 was not too far from typical. But letÔÇÖs look at the biggest concours to date. Of the 42 cars entered, ONLY 3 did not receive an award. How would you feel if everybody got an award except you? Can you imagine listening to the presentation of 39 awards and only you didnÔÇÖt get one? We might as well just give entrants an award the moment they drive up on the field. Or how about this. Instead of announcing who won an award at showÔÇÖs end, letÔÇÖs announce who didnÔÇÖt get one; itÔÇÖll be a LOT quicker. Virtually all the time there will be NO announcements needed at all. If this doesnÔÇÖt illustrate the lack of competitiveness due to the absurdity of the JCNA class system, I donÔÇÖt know what will.

7) Lastly (about time, right?), I will analyze the 42 car concours to illustrate the effect of the various proposals described here and in other posts. This analysis is posted as a separate topic due to the absurd length of this post.

"What I'm suggesting is that rather than subtracting the deductions from 1000 and the dividing the raw score by 10 for Champion and 100 for Driven, we subtract the deductions from say, 400, and divide by 4 and 40. A 90 point car would become a 75, a 99 would become a 97.5, and you'd have to have a 96 under the current system to end up with a 90.

Mark Stephenson, JCCA "
------------------------------------------------------------
"Changing things is only going to confuse the club members and especially the judges, not a good idea.

Lou"
-----------------------------------------------------------
I agree with Mark completely. The scoring is ridiculous. A 90 point car is a POS and should be scored a 60, not a 90. Right now, a 90 point car is considered good enough for a 1st place award. Don't you see the disconnect here?

Lou, you keep throwing out the olympics or gymnastics scoring and then tell Mark that we shouldn't care about what others think. Don't you see the irony? MOST people think it terms of school experience. A/B/C = 70/80/90 and that's the way our scoring should be designed.

If we change our minimum for a 1st place to 99.75, most people wouldn't understand, they'd think it was way too high a threshold, but it really isn't. Tell someone who comes to a JCNA concours that a 90 point car is not deserving ANY award, and they won't get it.

Doing what Mark suggest won't confuse anybody, least of all the judges. They don't have anything to do with computing the scores. Just subtract the deductions from a different base and divide by the appropriate number and you've automatically spread the scores. Start with a base of 250, so the 90 point car ends up at 60 points, etc.

Any way, let's do SOMETHING. You (Lou) espouse the same old attitude I see in most JCNA members - it's too difficult, it's too confusing, the members won't understand, blah, blah, blah.

IMHO, if the scoring system were to be brought back to earth, the reason would be to bring it more in line with what other (Porsche, Corvette, etc) clubs are doing. Not that I'm an expert on those clubs or their systems, but the owners sorta get a chuckle out of the JCNA way of doing things, if ya know what I mean.

I *personally* don't recall seeing a car score less than 96 points (and those were pretty rough) although from reading the JCNA scoreboards I know it does happen from time-to-time.

With the way scores are presently skewed , a 95 point car is probably one that most of us would consider "a good candidate for restoration" and a 90 point car is one that was hauled onto the field after sitting in a salvage yard for 5 years :-) :-)

I can't think of any easy to change it....even if most wanted it changed, which I doubt.

Cheers
DD

That scoring system is used in all gymnastic meets, I just used the Olympic competition as an example. And yes, I have seen and scored (I have been a judge for over five years). cars with twenty or more points. In fact we have a class, S3, that is for cars with at least 35 points or more in deductions. What an auctioneer does should be no concern for us, and the fact that he uses that shows that it is a common way to score these events. Changing things is only going to confuse the club members and especially the judges, not a good idea.

Lou,

The Olympics comparison doesn't hold. We're talking about the best athletes in the world. A local concours is lucky ot have one or two of the best cars on the continent. Our Challenge Championship is the equivalent to Olympic qualifying and our local concours would be like an event held at a local gymnsatics school. You go to a local gymnastics event and you'll see lots of low scores.

Have you ever seen a car score below a 90? I think we've had one or two in the 17 years I've been judging. The perception to the outside worlds is that we're awarding everyone an A. Now if every car was deserving of an A, I wouldn't have a problem with awarding them. If their owners had spend a lot of money or time sourcing authentic parts and having them installed correctly, and detailing the car to the point that someone unfamiliar with JCNA scores would walk down a line of E-types and and congratulate the owner the same way they would congratulate a friend or relative for getting an A in a tough class, then they deserve As. But when they walk down the row and see an an E-type with a worn seats and treadbare carpet is that an A? That's a 96 point car by current judging parameters and that's where we depart from reality for most people.

You may not get to auctions a lot, but when the auctioneer attempts to play up a car they'll announce judging scores that cars received if they think it will help sell it. This car received 1st place with a score of 98.7 at blah-blah concours. To those who don't know any better, that sounds fantastic -- almost an A+. If you're hanging around with anyone who knows JCNA scoring, though, they'll start looking for where all the deductions are.

By most of the world's reckonning, a 90 would be an A-. With my B average in school, an A- is something I would have crowed about when I got home. Does anyone crow about a 90 in JCNA? Have you ever tried to judge a 90-point car in 15 minutes? A three judge team can't write the deductions down fast enough. It's likely one of the lowest scoring cars at a concours. That is not A- material. C material, maybe, but not A.

Those are some of the reasons that I'm throwing out this topic for discussion.

Mark, I disagree. In a few weeks the Olympics will be starting. I think the public is quite used to the scoring in gymnastics. The scores are almost the same as in the driven division. While there was some reform this past year in how they are scored, but the results are still very similar. In fact when I have talked to non-car people they marvel how we can have such close scores. No one has suggested to me that we spread the scoring out. Besides this is for us, not the general public. They could care less what a car is scored.

George,

I'm not talking so much about the vagaries of local judging as much as I am systemic inflated scores compared to what a regular person would consider a proper range. I'm talking about structurally high scores that are way out of line with what the public perceives as ranges 100-90, 89-80, 79-70, etc. which we relate back to percentages in school.

To use your example, only perhaps a class valedictorian would be upset to receive a test score of 95, but a JCNA score of 95 is pretty mediocre with a lot of flaws.

What I'm suggesting is that rather than subtracting the deductions from 1000 and the dividing the raw score by 10 for Champion and 100 for Driven, we subtract the deductions from say, 400, and divide by 4 and 40. A 90 point car would become a 75, a 99 would become a 97.5, and you'd have to have a 96 under the current system to end up with a 90.

Then again, would a 96 point car be an A? My very unoriginal XK120 can score a 96. My gut tells me it would be more like a solid B. Maybe we start with 300 and divide by 3 and 30. That would make a 96 an 86.67, a 90 a 66.67, a 99 a 96.67, and a 97 would be a 90.

That's the easy way bring our scores more in line with what people outside JCNA would expect cars of those calibers to score. The simplest option for judges and scorekeepers would be to not have to divide at all for Champion by starting at 100 points and re-evaluating deduction amounts to bring scores into comprehensible ranges. Personally, with the increasing availability of Judging Guides, I'd like to see the emphasis shifted more toward authenticity.

Robert well said--it is to a standard not the car on the field with you. Mark the current system does allow for no car to win a first if it does not come up to a point standard but as you say the scores are inflated--some places more than others. Your dropping the digit is not that far off and my musings to the JCRC were similar in that I think when we award a national first to a car with a 95 or so we will be getting close. For some the place is not as important as the score and anything less than 100% is some slight on their person (or parts there of).

Oh, I forgot to mention that a lot of the items Stevo proposed are not in the current rules. It may help if some if it is codified, but a lot of it, like Enthusiasts Division, can be left up to the clubs. This leaves the dorr open for innovation, much like what Doug Ingram and the Jaguars on the Island folks did up in BC. It was wildly successful and now other clubs are picking up on it. Who's to say that that idea won't become passe in a decade or so and some other club won't come up with an equally ingenious idea that will kick concours participation up another notch.

If we get too granular from the top down, we'll stifle that innovation.

What I would like to see is a concours chair forum (and separate forums for each of the club officers headied up by their JCNA-level counterpart or a BoD member) so that they can exchange ideas. If a person is taking on a club job, they should at least be interested enough in doing that job reasonably well. Input from their counterparts, both newbies and seasoned veterans at other clubs, should make doing a good job a whole lot easier.

Robert,

Or adjust the scores so that 90-100 is an "A," 80-89.99 is a "B," 70-79.99 is a "C," etc. Our scoring system is so skewed to the high side, that it is really meaningless to most people. I've often joked that if you dropped the first digit in the score (e.g. 99.14 to 91.4), you'd have a closer representation of the car for the average non-JCNA person. That's obviously an oversimplification, but you seem to agree that most people would consider a JCNA entry scoring around a 90 to be more like a C than an A-.

I've proposed changing the scoring to bring it more in line with a layman's sensibilities, but left it up to the JCRC whether they want to present it at the AGM. I don't push to hard on this stuff because I know a lot of times, they have bigger fish to fry.

Something to consider, though.

My thoughts:

1.I agreee with Daniel Arsenault. Let's find out if there is JCNA-wide problem before we start making a lot of fixes.

2. Re: Enthusiant Division? Class? I don't see the need for a set of rule changes if there is to be be no JCNA recognition. The indiividual clubs have the right to do whatever they care to with this group of cars, and whatever works locally should be great for them. BTW, I always thought that anyone that drives and/or shows a Jaguar was an Enthusiast.

3. Let's remember that the JCNA rules reflect the fact that cars in our sanctioned concours are competing against a standard, not against the car standing next to theirs. It's tough not to l;ook at that car and wondewr how it will score relative yours, but that's not in the true spirit of Jaguar Concours as it has evolved.

4. If an entrant has put in a lot of effort and money to bring a 99.999... car to a JCNA Concours, that entrant deserves a trophy no matter if his is the only entry in the class. Also, I feel that the entrant who brings an unwashed dog to the concour and scores 90.01 does not deserve a trophy , even if his is the only car in the class. This could be solved by raising the plateaus for first, second and third place to a level that reflects the reality. of cars that are shown today.

Steve,

I greatly appreciate the fact that you have taken considerable time to think this issue through, and to come up with good, solid, comprehensive proposals. However, in my opinion, this is NOT something that the Board of Directors should be dealing with. Rather, this is strictly within the province of JCRC, and that is where these proposals should be submitted.

What got us into this problem to begin with was that the BoD acted on something that was submitted to us by the JCRC. Whether rightly or wrongly interpreting what they gave us, the end result of the process makes it very clear that issues such as this need to be vetted by JCRC, and that any proposed rules changes must come from JCRC for submission to the AGM for approval.

If we learned anything from our most recent experience, it is that competition rules changes are not the job of the BoD. Certainly, the Board can consider such issues and make its recommendations to JCRC or any of the other rules bodies. But it is not up to the Board to decide what rules changes to make or what the rules should look like.

As I said, I think your proposals have significant merit and deserve to be fully considered and debated. But the right place to do that is with JCRC, together with continued input from the membership at large here on this forum.

I would also like to point out that there are some classes that we don't mind that there are single entries. The newest Jags fall into that class. Not many members have the new XKs for example, but as time goes on those classes should get populated. We have a new class for the XF and I bet there have very few if any entries there either. We are actively trying to get the new Jag owners to join. If we do, then these classes should fill out. Until then we need to be patient.

I guess the moral to my posts under your separate topics is do your homework, if you have a point and it can be borne out through analysis of the situation, then the board should consider the proposal, otherwise, I would say table it. From what I have read, you seem to base your proposals on an analysis of just your own club's local show and you really should consider that a proposal having effect continent wide needs to consider the needs of more than just one club.

If you have analyzed the results of the last couple years and it supports your conclusions, I apologize.