Well at the awards ceremony I sat at the back on the floor leaning against the cinder block wall, feeling dejected, knowing there was no hope to pull off a win at an event like this. I'm sitting there talking to the guy next to me and hear my name announced. At the stage I find out I was awarded 3rd Place in my category. I'm so elated I can't tell you. I mean us Monte types are used to rejection over the 49 Mercury, 57 Chevy Belair, 68 Camaro etc..
but that does not make the feeling any easier, being walked on by time after time.

My category was 1135 Conventional HardTop, 2000 to 2015 with 8 cars in the field. And believe me there were some really nice cars there in these years. And if I did my homework right the 1st Place was "Dave Kindig" (Tv's BItchin Rides Star)with a beautiful 2015 Dodge Challenger "Hurst Edition" and the other was from the Mustang club a 2013 GT-500. But the others being newer Camaros, Chargers, Mustang GT's, years 2015 and older etc. I get a win over them, hell yeah!!

When the event is over the you can go to the judges table to get your scorecard and on mine he had demerits but at the bottom was wrote "Neat Car" . I asked him why he thought it was neat and he basically says he see's many cars traveling around the country and he has not ever seen one like this. I was honored and still am giddy over this what I would call a "Huge Win" even if it was 3rd. We got some respect back gentlemen... I heard one guy talking to his buddy saying "This would have been a good car if it had an LS motor" and by the time he walked around to the front and saw the engine in almost the same breath goes "Aw dang", it made me smile...

I think the new headlights helped freshen up the cars image too, also had a professional paint correction friend come to the event and work on my Monte the day before the event doing his voodoo making the cars shine pop as much as possible...

Now time to go get a Rum and coke... LOL, not really, have to much work to catch up on, took a week off for this show prep and my place is a shambles...

 

Congrats man! Car looks great, amazing win!

 

Congratulations on the win, most of the time they just overlook your efforts and give it to the Mustang, Camaro or Chargers.
Pretty kool for sure.
Now when you go to another show and display your winning award you might get some well deserved kudos.

 

Congrats on the third

 

Showing up with a new car with a bunch of bolt on part's is easy. Doing something different and making part's by yourself is so much more rewarding. Great job

 

Awesome, congratulations!

A few of us have talked about doing the Detroit Autorama next year so we'll see.

 

Awesome job man! I do think these cars will stand the test of time. That said, I can't stand the snobbishness I used to experience at car shows. I had an immaculate black '92 Z28, and only the younger guys gave it any respect....

 

I see a lot of you are talking shows. I can say I get a lot of looks at shows in general but I do a lot better at judged shows because they're actually looking at the car and "judging" it the way it should be. Honestly, participant voting is all about who has the most friends. I have won a couple participant vote shows and to be honest I think I value those awards the most because they're much harder to win. These late model classes are especially hard to win because they often include a large span of years plus more people are showing brand new cars. Hell, last year I took a top-3 in my class at Livonia's show and a 1st place in my class at Milford's show and I was dumbfounded - both participant voting.