I was honored to be asked to judge Ferraris again at the Audrain Concours in Newport Rhode Island. It’s one of the few shows I agree to judge, because it uses a different guideline than say a Ferrari Club of America show, or Cavallino. Those shows use IAC/PFA (International Advisory Council for the Preservation of Ferrari Automobiles) rules, which I often follow when preparing a Ferrari to compete at one of these shows, but when it comes to judging, I prefer shows like Audrain that use what we call “French Judging.” Cars are not only judged by condition, history, beauty, but more importantly the owner’s passion, story, and connection to the car. The Audrain Concours constantly reminds us to consider the passion and spirit of the ownership can be just as important as the car itself. Sometimes it may be easier to judge a car on condition alone because at this show we were tasked with finding out who loved their car more than another! We had our work cut out for us.

My judging team consisted of myself, Victoria Bruno, and Rex Nuegen. Rex was the chief class judge and we also had the honor of Luigi Chineti Jr. on our team. I’ve known Chinetti Jr for many years, having been first introduced to him by Francois, my mentor 20 years ago.

We had about 9 cars to judge in the Ferrari class, but one Ferrari owned by Michelle and Steve Wolf, was not on our judging sheets. Steve had decided not to have his beautiful 212 Barchetta judged because he was happy enough to share it with the spectators, and wanted to give someone else a chance to win an award.

We asked him to show us the car, and he gladly obliged but I wondered if he knew his car was easily one of my top three in this class that day. I think owners like Michelle and Steve Wolf deserve recognition for their sportsmanship and generosity. I can tell you their decision to withdraw from having their car judged made another owner very happy! Thanks guys!