Count me in on that as well, provided someone can pick me up and drop me off at the ferry terminal. Otherwise it is another $180.00 in stupid ferry charges just to get there and back.

and the battle rages on......

this is the kind of a debate i'd normally find myself being involved in, but for some reason i dont seem to really care. hmmm.

well i must say i agree with you completly dave on the beer part! ummmmmmm pilsner!!!!!!

he comes up form W.A

Dave - If sanctioning is so useless, I don't see why you want to be certified (for free) and hold sanctioned events (for free). Your supposition that IASCA would get more out of it than you is weak.

Randy (goalie35) has a decent proposal.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought there was some training out west in either 2005 or 2006? Can't recall if it was local or down in Portland or something. I know some locals went down and got 'certified'. To be honest, some of those judges I would not want judging my car or holding their judgement to be of any usefulness. One guy was a fairly recent competitor and entrant into the world of SQ and now he's a judge? Me no likey. Like Jason said, just because you are a judge doesn't mean you know how a car should sound or how a system should be installed. For that reason, I support a judges training that lasts more than 1/2 day.

Jason, at a judges training session, do you just go over the rule book or do you actually go over specific items to look for in installatino for things like creativity and what to listen for on the CD, along perhaps with a sound system to show what you are speaking of? If you are, an online course wouldn't work.

There are some good points to take from this, but I think we are running into a transition problem between ability and availability with the exception of Dave's situation. I know for a fact that there are a lot of people out there in Greater Vancouver and Alberta who have fantastic ears and ability who have been around for decades and not bothered to remained involved in IASCA. Would they go to training...perhaps, but they are tired of being around for marginal events and/or personal reasons.

Then you have the availability that falls mostly on newer guys in SQ. They possess all kinds of availability, and so IASCA trains them and throws them out to judge. It becomes a tough call when all of the people with years of ability are not wanting to remain involved and perhaps some who are shouldn't be because of low levels of experience.

Reference plays a major part of this too. Generally you will find that judges who have not just heard, but also set up hundreds of cars along with really experimenting in them will go a long way. There references become a long list of cars, high end home (no, not your dad's kenwood home system) and listening to live rooms. You cannot gain this experience in 2 or 3 seasons of listening to a some cars, a demo room, or setting up your own saturday night. I know that it's not always the case, but experience does play a major factor.

I guess the problem is that IASCA has to pick judges from an availability standpoint in people, but from what I hear/read, they need some more from an ability standpoint.