Our awards are made available based on the number of vehicles in attendance for each class, and category over the years. We look over whether a particular class has the quantity of models in attendace to determine whether we'll award three trophies or up to that maximum of nine trophies. Our trophies are paid for by a gracious sponsor and we and our sponsor hate to see trophy's go to waste and not awarded because the attendance of certain models fell short in attendance that particular year. Trust me, we look over this each and every year to see that all trophy's paid for are awarded. You should know as we do certain models do lack in attendance at our event which requires us to place them in a joint class because they are of the same "family".
EXPLAINATION...
Class #5 (CJ6 - CJ8 - Commando)
All three are within the same family. Wheel base length & width are similar, parts are interchangable. Thus why the three are classified together. Attendance of these three vehicles individually is too low in number to have a class for each and award 27 trophy's for each within the categories of STOCK, MODIFIED, and UNLIMTED so we combined the three and award a 1st Place Trophy for each category of STOCK, MODIFIED, and UNLIMITED.
Class #8 (Grand Cherokee) This model was classified with the Cherokee for many years but we agreed they are two completely different vehicles and nothing is interchangable. Thus, we created a seperate class for the Grand by popular demand but also because of their lack of attendance to justify purchasing 27 trophy's we only award 1st Place for each category of STOCK, MODIFIED, and UNLIMITED.
It would be great to award more trophy's and create more classes but it's just not logistically possible nor is it financially justified if 15-20 trophy's go "UN-AWARDED" due to the lack of attendance of said models.
We go over our classifications every year to keep everyone's costs low. Is our format perfect?...NO it's not but it does group models produced and considered to be "family" that also keeps our "showfield" of Jeeps in accordance with proper production. Not everyone agree's and we know that. But over the past 15 years I've been the Chairman of this Jeep Show we have many numerous changes within the classifications of the Jeeps to try and please most. We'll never please everyone but do take great effort in pleasing 98% which has worked over the years. Re-Classification can take a couple if not a few years to justify on both and attendance level of a particular model and on a financial level with the cost of more trophy's.
I hope what I've conveyed to you helps explain things clearer to you. Understand that Jeep over it's history produced more models under it's name than any other manufacturer in the automotive industry. We do the best we can to please most and know we'll never please all.
