Judged scoring: scoresheets, judges, and how a winner is decided
Judged classes run on points from your own scoresheet, entered by judges on their phones. This is how the sheet, the judges, the aggregation setting, and the tie-breakers fit together, and why standings stay hidden until you say otherwise.
Updated August 22, 2026
Spectator voting answers “which car do people like most”. Judged scoring answers a different question, which is how a car measures against a standard your club wrote down. The two run side by side at the same show without touching each other, and this page is about the judged half.
The scoresheet is yours
Car Show HQ does not ship a fixed hundred-point concours sheet. You define the criteria, the maximum points for each one, and the order they appear in. A cars and coffee running three lines is using the same feature as a club show running fifteen.
By default a show has one sheet that applies to every judged class, which is all most shows ever need. A class that genuinely scores differently, say a survivor or unrestored class where paint should not be worth what it is worth elsewhere, can opt into a sheet of its own. That class sheet replaces the show-wide sheet for that class rather than adding to it, so a criterion you want in both has to appear in both.
A short sheet that works for a first-year club show:
| Criterion | Points |
|---|---|
| Paint and body | 0 to 10 |
| Interior | 0 to 10 |
| Engine bay | 0 to 10 |
| Stance and wheels | 0 to 10 |
| Overall impression | 0 to 5 |
Forty-five points, five lines, and a judge can finish a class before the coffee goes cold. Longer sheets discriminate more finely and take proportionally longer to walk. Pick the length your judges will actually complete on a hot afternoon.
Which classes are judged
Judging is set per class, not per show. Each class scores either by votes or by judges, and switching a class to judged quietly removes it from the public ballot, so spectators are never shown a class they have no say in. People’s Choice and Best of Show are unaffected and keep working exactly as before.
That per-class control is what lets a show run a judged main field with a crowd-voted favorite on top, which is how a lot of clubs already do it on paper.
Judges, and the code they get
A judge is a person attached to your show, not a user account. Each one gets a name and a short access code, and you read the codes out at the judges’ meeting or hand them over on a slip. The judge opens the judging page, enters their code, and sees the classes assigned to them and nothing else.
Codes are per judge rather than one shared code for everyone. That is deliberate: it is what makes every score attributable to the person who entered it, and if a code gets loose it affects one judge instead of your whole panel.
How a round actually runs
On show morning you assign classes to judges and open the judging window. Judging is a toggle you control rather than a stage in the show’s status, because plenty of shows judge while registration is still open, or well before spectator voting begins, and forcing an order would not match how real shows run.
A judge walks the row, pulls up each car by the number on its windshield card, and works down the sheet. Scores save as they go, so a phone that dies mid-class does not lose the class. If you want a paper backup, print the judge sheets; plenty of judges prefer a clipboard and there is nothing wrong with that.
While judging runs you can see which classes are complete and which judge is still out in the field. That sounds minor. It is not, because at most judged shows the slowest step of the day is finding out whether judging has finished, and the person who has to find out is usually you, on foot, in the sun.
Scores that supersede rather than overwrite
Judges change their minds, especially after seeing the third car in a class. A judge can revise a score any time before you finalize, and the revision is stored as a new scorecard that supersedes the earlier one. The earlier one is kept.
This is the part worth understanding even if you never look at it. Most scoring disputes are not really about who won; they are about whether anyone can show the count was straight. A tally that carries its own history settles that before the argument starts.
Average or sum, and why it matters
When more than one judge scores the same car, something has to combine those totals. That setting lives with your other tally rules, and it changes results more than people expect.
| Setting | How it combines | Fits |
|---|---|---|
| Average (default) | The mean of each judge’s total for that car | Volunteer panels where not every judge reaches every car |
| Sum | Every judge’s total added together | Rulebooks that say each judge scores each car and points add up |
Average is the forgiving choice and the right default. A car that two judges reached is compared fairly against a car that three judges reached.
Sum makes coverage load-bearing. A car one judge missed is genuinely behind under sum, through no fault of the owner, so if you run sum you should treat the coverage view as a pre-finalize checklist. Car Show HQ flags incomplete coverage loudly before you finalize, and then lets you finalize anyway. The organizer outranks the software.
Ties
Ties break in a fixed order: the higher aggregate score first, then the car more judges scored, then the earlier registration. The last one is arbitrary by design, because at that point the cars are genuinely tied and somebody has to be handed the trophy.
When results become visible
Judged standings stay hidden until you finalize. The public live leaderboard keeps showing vote-based categories while judging is underway, and staff can watch judged progress inside manage, but nobody sees judged standings early.
Half-judged standings are misleading rather than exciting: a car leading a class at eleven in the morning may simply be the only car in it that has been scored. Holding them back also keeps the ceremony worth attending.
Once you finalize, judged winners join category winners and People’s Choice in the same results view, and the awards script picks them up with no extra step.
What the scores leave behind
After you finalize, the winning car in each judged class goes onto your show’s permanent page with its year, make, model, owner name, and the points behind the win, drawn from the same scorecard records the tally used. The show page stays up after the day ends, so a class win from July is still citable at a swap meet in February.
The limit worth naming
Car Show HQ does point judging entered digitally. If your show runs a format that is not points on a sheet, a peer-judged ballot among entrants, or a walk-around where judges rank cars head to head without scoring them, this feature is not quietly covering that. It is better to know before you build the class list.
Keep reading
Judged scoring, answered
Do judges need to download anything or create an account?
No. Each judge gets a short code of their own. They open the judging page in a browser, enter the code, and see only the classes assigned to them. Codes are per judge rather than shared, which is what makes each score attributable later.
Can a judge change a score after submitting it?
Yes, until you finalize. A revised score is stored as a new scorecard that supersedes the previous one, and the original is kept. Nothing is overwritten and nothing is deleted, so if a result is ever questioned you can show exactly what was entered and what changed.
What happens if one judge never scores a car?
It depends on your aggregation setting. On average, the default, a car scored by two judges is not penalized against a car scored by three. On sum, missing scores genuinely put a car behind, so check the coverage view before finalizing. Car Show HQ warns about incomplete coverage but never blocks you.
Can judged classes and People's Choice run at the same show?
Yes, and most shows do exactly that. Setting a class to judged takes it off the public ballot automatically, so spectators never see a class they are not voting on, while People's Choice and Best of Show keep collecting votes as usual.
Can different classes use different scoresheets?
Yes. One show-wide sheet is the default and covers most shows. A class can opt into its own sheet, which then replaces the show-wide one for that class rather than adding to it. Each submitted scorecard records the criteria it was scored against, so editing a sheet mid-show never corrupts scores already in.
Try judging on the demo show
The live demo has judging seeded, so you can open a real scoresheet with real scores on it before setting up your own.
