2015 Van Nats Sandman judging

[HK1837]

Is everyone interested in what we came up for regarding judging classes and what car won what class etc?

[Alien DNA]

Would be an interesting read.

[jason.ruff]

YOU BET

[RodneyHZ253]

Iam ready and waiting

[RAEME]

Hi HK, interested also in your take on the HQ white panelvan. It had a factory fitted small block chev 350 in it. Apparently one of only 3 made? What's its story? Cheers

[HK1837]

Hi HK, interested also in your take on the HQ white panelvan. It had a factory fitted small block chev 350 in it. Apparently one of only 3 made? What's its story? Cheers

I never found it, I heard about the story but didn't find the car - bonnet was probably down. I think the story is just that too. Did anyone have a look and see where and when it was produced? Ben has been through all of Dandenong and Pagewood records and the only 350 powered van(s) so far have been dealer built. In one instance he found the van with a Betsbac code as an L32 M40 and an LS with a Betsbac code L31 M41, but each car had the other's engine number recorded. The LS has since turned up, not sure if the van has yet. Dealer got the 2 x cars, swapped the drivelines and sold them that way. As per normal the engine number got reported back to GMH and entered against each PSN in GMH's mainframe.

[HK1837]

What happened was Fres had 5 x trophies and wanted 5 x Sandman categories, find a winner for each category and then rank the 5 x vans.

So the categories I came up with in consultation with Fres and Rod were:

A - Most authentic Sandman restoration.
B - Best surviving Sandman (best unrestored / least restored).
C - Best modified Sandman.
D - Most sympathetically modified Sandman - essentially least "non-factory" modifications and keeping the basic look of the original car but improved.
F - Encouragement award. This was left to be subjective on the day.

E was going to be best replica Sandman as we thought there was to be 6 x trophies, but I was glad not to judge a class E as there were 24 x Sandman vans to judge (that I could find) and with as much as 15 minutes on each car that is 6 hours straight and I needed every bit of it. There would have been another 15 at least replicas, even though I think the winner quality wise probably would have been the L36 M20 WB van done up as HJ - it was beautifully done.

There was never going to be a Concours class - it'd need multiple people and very hard to judge due to so many factors.
We also didn't judge the show class cars in the hall like Brutal or Street legal as there was no real way to have them compete against the modified Sandmans outside, and I think at least four of these were wearing Sandman ID plates.

A was the hardest category, there were some pretty nice restorations done. In the end given the time allowed per vehicle the incorrect items per car were listed and the car with the least items wrong was the winner. This was the Bordeaux HX van (photo in last post on page 4 of the photo thread by Sandman Sozza). Runners up (close) were the Chrome Yellow HQ van entered by Oz and then Rod and Jennie's Madiera Red van.

B was easy, the best fit for this class was the Atlantis Blue HZ - the van in the last 2 x photos on page 4 of the photo thread.

C was tough too, there were some nice modified vans and this is a subjective category as much as it is technical. My choice was the Tuxedo black with Chamois/Black trim HX (I haven't seen a photo of it yet). It was essentially Sandman to look at but had substantial mods to it. Could have also fitted into class D at a pinch.

Class D was a tricky one too, there were lots of Sandmans with subtle mods. The car that I really liked and was a car of very high quality was the Mandarin Red L32 M20 HJ XY5 (photo below, one of the few total car photos I got time to take). This car first strikes you as a very nice HJ, but look close and it has some very subtle but pleasing modifications.

HJ.jpg

Class F I ended up giving to the Chrome Yellow HQ L31 (2nd photo on page 6 of the photo thread). It needs a fair few things fixed but once they are done it would take out class A easily and probably be #1 ranked overall.

Afterwards Rod rang me and said they actually had 6 x trophies and wanted to make a 2nd encouragement award. After some thought I gave that to the HZ which is the 4th photo down in Innuendo's post at the top of page 6 of the photo thread.

Overall rankings I gave to (in order) B, D, A, C and then the 2 x encouragement awards.

In the end this wasn't an easy task, with so many vans to look at after I found them. Some I had to get Jennie (thanks Jen!) to help me find the owners as the bonnets were down and I couldn't tell if they were Sandmans or not. However it was a fun task - it took me from around 8am right through to about 3.30pm non stop. If this is ever going to happen again the classes and criteria would probably need some work, and probably multiple judges. And would need to have the owners entering the vans send all ID details in with the entry form so we could identify most of the Sandmans early making them easier to find. I was lucky that all but one or two Sandmans were easy to identify by the tags, the others all that could be done was to take the owner's word.

In the end my 3 x favorite vans of the whole day were:

The grey HD that Jennie posted up a photo of on page 6 of the photo thread.
The HJ van in this post.
This one:
Overlander.jpg

[Alien DNA]

Top read...thanks Byron

[Innuendo]

It's funny you mention Ian Saxby's X2 HD (Beautiful Van).
I was standing in the pavilion talking to John Strachan (Alley Cat) and Auctioneer on presentation night. Anyway this bloke walks up to me and said your the NASCO bloke right? I said OK I do play NASCO bits. He said yeah I got your business card of you at the All Holden Day a few years ago. Fair enough - good bloody memory! Can you fix some ignition locks for an EH and cut me some original keys? Sure no worries I said I'll do then during the week for you and post them back. Anyway I ended up going home for a change of clothes as we got pretty wet at Mt Panorama/Vanorama so I did the locks and keys for him then. Anyway I figured he'd own a stock EH all similar so when I met up with him again to delivery the locks I said, so your into early Holdens and he yeah mate love 'em. So what are you doing at the Van Nationals? He said showing my Van. Oh yeah! what have you got? The Gray X2 HD inside. Wow, Ian was there with his son and gave us the full run down about it. Absolutely fantastic.

Funny how people move in the same circles.

[Sandman_sozza]

Was lots of nice vans to choose from & quality of some was exellent . Good job judging cant have been a easy task . Congrats to all award winners & people who attended & all that took there vans. Good effort by all & a succedful event!