This is not all inclusive nor is it intended to be biased toward any product, region or sanctioning body. With that said, this is also not designed to cover one sanctioning body's specific lane progression.  If you cannot take this information for what it's worth and at face value, stop reading now and move on to something else.  I have neither the time nor inclination to write a separate article on the EXACT lane movement and station guidelines for each individual sanctioning organization.

The following will try and help you avoid some of the pitfalls of building a national caliber mobile competition audio system.  This assumes that you are paying a shop to perform the installation for you. I will not be able to easily cover all of the details of an installation performed by the competitor.

The VERY first decision that needs to be made is "Do I want to seriously compete?" If you answer NO to this question, stop reading now. If you answer YES to this question, you need to ask "Am I serious about competing?". You MUST answer YES to both of these questions. Competition is HARD work. Competition is EXPENSIVE. Competition has caused more than one divorce. This is SERIOUS business. It is very expensive to take an average street system and upgrade it to a competition system. A competition system is different. Some of the installation techniques used to install your street system will have to be upgraded, changed or completely scrapped. There are many rules that need to be followed and many different things that need to be accomplished that do not apply to a street system. You would normally not upgrade the battery system of a 500 watt street system. You would be REQUIRED to accomplish this to compete. See what I mean?

I know you are thinking right now that "This guys is nuts! He has no CLUE and no fun when he competes!" Yes I am nuts. I like to win at just about any cost. In a phrase, "Losing SUCKS". I frequently wear a "No Fear" shirt to the shows that says "Second place is the first loser" and "If you don't play to win, don't play". Yes I have fun when I win. I know if I lose, I have a lot of work to do. If I win, I have work to do, just not as much.

The first rule of competition is attitude. A certain manufacturer had entire ad campaign based on attitude. They detailed a winning attitude and it's importance in competition. Notice I did not say whining. Whiners are annoying. To win a show you must WANT to win. If you have a winning attitude, you WILL win. Your attitude will rub off on the people around you, the judges and other competitors. If you want to win, you will do what it takes to win. If you are not willing to do what it takes, quit now because you will probably be destined to take home the "little trophies" for the rest of your life. There is a bright side to this competition. If you have a winning attitude at the show, this will carry over to the rest of your life. As you can see, this CAN be beneficial.

Now that we have attitude out of the way, let's get to work on the system. WAIT! Not yet. You probably have no clue about what power class you want to be in or even what competition is all about. Easily fixed. Go to some shows. See what is out there. Look at the winning cars and get some ideas. The ideas that are winning are usually good ideas. You will notice a few things when you are gathering information, most of the winning systems are very detailed and ultra trick. Even the stealth systems. One of the most stealth systems I have ever witnessed up close is Chad Klodner's Mustang. He probably spent more time rewiring the dash and engine bay than most installers spend on an entire system. He welded boxes into the floor for the amps and performed numerous other state of the art install tricks. I do not recommend going to this extreme but he did win all three national titles. He is definitely doing something right. Take pictures and talk to people. This will help you see what a winning attitude is all about and also help you remember what you saw. You WILL run into some people stuck on themselves. You have that anywhere. Remember, beating that person later in life will give you immense satisfaction. As a spectator, you have one advantage, you are not perceived as a threat. Some competitors consider other competitors a threat. I do that myself to a degree. I will show you my truck but do not ask to see my install book. I will not show it to you. Don't take this personally. I probably have 5000 hours (at least!) tied up in my install and some of the techniques are very unique. I don't want to show you how I did it so I will have to think of something new to beat you. You can get plenty of good ideas just by looking at the obvious things. Two things to obtain at the show is the sound quality disk and a rulebook. Both of these items are indispensable when building a car.

Ok, you have got a bunch of good pictures and some good ideas. Time to work on the budget. Take the most amount of money that you can reasonably afford and put this aside. We'll use $5000 as a starting number. This should get you some decent equipment. Keep in mind that the more power you want, the more it will cost. In competition, you get what you pay for. You can find a 1000 watt amp for $250 dollars but I will put my 50 watt amps against your 1000 watt amp any day.

Stop by your local reputable stereo store and have a look around. Are there trophies in the store? (a good sign) If there are trophies, are they all from the same year or same power class?? If they are all from the same power class or year, you may be dealing with a store that has a "one shot wonder". This is one vehicle or year they spent a lot of time on that won some local trophies. I have been to shops that put "fake" trophies up to impress people. The trophy should contain a power class and also the show it was won at. If not, be careful. The reason you are looking at the trophies is to make sure this shop has the skills to perform competition work and knows what it takes to build a winning system. I am not saying that all shops must display trophies to know what they are doing but this is a good, obvious indicator that they have "been there, done that". Usually there is a book of pictures laying on the counter. Don't be shy, LOOK AT IT! If the sales person takes it away from you, this is a good indicator to leave. Shops that do good work are proud of their work and like to show it off.

Talk to the sales person and get a feel for the store. At this point you are getting "qualified". This is the salesman sizing you up to see if you are serious about buying or just tugging his or her chain. Remember these people make their living selling equipment and to them, time is money. If they waste time, they lose money. A good time to stop at a shop to look is early in the day. The floor traffic is usually light and this takes the pressure off of you to buy and the salesman to sell. Be honest with the salesman. Let him or her know you intend to compete. This will let the salesman hopefully make some smart choices in the equipment department. This will save time and money. This will also let you decide how much power you need and can afford. You will probably find that $5000 does not go that far but this will let you know how much you have left over for the installation. If you get lucky, the salesman and shop may try to work within the $5000 budget to get you on the circuit. This is good. You will probably find that $5000 is not enough. Another decision, "Do I still want to compete?" If YES, plan on getting the money to get the installation done all at once. Do not piece a system together as this will be more expensive in the long run. It is also easier for the installer to install the system using the "big picture". I do my own installation and no matter how many diagrams you draw, something will always not come out as planned.

Time to drop the vehicle off at the shop. Yes I said drop it off. Leave it there. Rome was not built in a day and your vehicle won't be either. Set a date at this point when your car will be done. BE REASONABLE! A good install will probably take a minimum of 2 weeks to install. Make transportation arrangements because you will be without the vehicle for a while. Let the installer know you will be stopping by the shop every day if possible. You will need to be VERY familiar with the installation because you will be presenting the car to the installation judges in the future. If the installer has a problem with this, you better work out an arrangement or leave right now. A good competition installer knows you need to be familiar with the vehicle and should not have a problem with this. Also remember, once you have agreed on equipment and installation, DO NOT CHANGE YOUR MIND ON ANYTHING! This makes an installer's life a nightmare and makes you VERY unpopular around the shop.

During the installation, you should be listening to the competition disk to get as familiar with it as possible. Yes, I said CD. Tape is a waste of time in competition. That is my opinion as a Sound Quality Judge and you can take it or leave it. Anyway, find a VERY high end home system and listen to it. I personally use the local high end home audio store. Most of the salesman at these stores will let you enjoy their room for a while. If the shop that is doing your vehicle sells high end home audio, all the better. This will let you hear what the disk is supposed to sound like and will give you an idea of what your vehicle should sound like. Take a LOT of pictures of the installation in progress. You will need these for your installation presentation. I personally took about 400 pictures and used about 20 in my presentation book. Keep an eye on the install and wait.

The car is done and looks GREAT. Go ahead, play with it. It is yours and you paid good money for it. Make sure the system sounds as close to possible to the high end audio you have been listening to. Keep in mind that the vehicle does have some limitations for sound reproduction. All of the frequencies should blend evenly and the system should sound natural. If it does, thank everyone at the shop and take the vehicle home. You will be back at the shop in the future so I hope you did not leave on bad terms. You now need to find a show to compete at. In the front cover of "Auto Sound and Security" and "Car Audio", you can find shows in your area. They also have the contact numbers to the offices of the sanctioning bodies. You may have to call them to find a show in your area.

One thing about unsanctioned shows. The sanctioning bodies spend a lot of time and money training their judges. If you compete at an unsanctioned show, many times the shop that is throwing the show uses their installers and staff to judge. Think about it, they want their vehicles to win. If they win, they make more sales and hence more money. If other vehicles win, they will most likely lose business to the shops that do win. Get the picture. This does not happen at ALL unsanctioned shows but it WILL happen more often than not. Be careful.

You found a sanctioned show in your area and are itching to go. At least 2 days before the show, call the shop to get directions, get times and make sure the show is still on. If the shop says the show starts at 10:00, be there at 9:00. This will allow a cushion in case something happens. After getting to the show, get out and take a look around. Size up you competition. Talk to people. Some of the judges, myself included, may be walking around looking at the cars. They are "prejudging" the show. They are not picking the winners right then, they are just trying to "set the stage" to see how stiff the competition is so they do not get "backed into a corner" on scoring. They may talk to you and they may not. Do not press the issue. I am personally accomplishing a task to try and make the show run smoother. You will probably see the judges gather into a small group soon after that. Yes, they are talking about you and the other competition. This is my judges meeting. I am usually deciding lane assignments during this time. Soon after this meeting a competitors meeting is usually held. This will detail lane assignment, judging order (if any), lane progression and other issues. I usually open the floor to questions at this point. If you have any questions, ASK THEM NOW. If you have too many questions for me to personally answer, I will usually assign a judge to help you (temporarily) or send you to the sign in table.

You have your questions answered and are ready to get in line. Different bodies use different judging formats but they all share verification, installation, RTA and sound quality. I will loosely outline the American USAC and IASCA format since I am not familiar with the formats used in other countries. At the first station, verification will be performed. This is to verify your amplifier power in your car. This is to make sure you have registered in the correct power class. FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LOOK AT YOUR SCORE SHEET.

The installation judges will approach your car and introduce themselves. Most experienced install judges can tell when you are a novice so don't be worried. They are not there to belittle you, just to give you their honest opinion about how your installation numerically rates against all of the guidelines and other cars they have judged. You will then have 5 minutes to tell them everything about the installation of you system. I usually recommend starting at the front of the vehicle and working toward the rear. I have personally modified this procedure and you will too as you get more experienced. After your 5 minutes of fame are up, ask the judges if they have any questions, hand them your presentation book and step about 10 feet from the car. They will now start scoring your car. This process usually takes about 10 minutes. They will then get out, tell you about what they found and possible suggestions for improvement. Write all of this down!

The next station is Sound Quality judging. You will have very little interaction with the judges at this station. Show the judge how to work the volume and tracking and step away. The judge is only allowed to work these two features of the system. They will not make EQ settings for you. When the judge is finished, he or she will get out of the car and detail what he or she heard. Again, write everything down. You will need this info in the future.

The next station is frequency response or RTA (Real Time Analyzer). You will be instructed to play a track that has pink noise on it. Pink noise sounds like static. The RTA meter reads this noise and graphically shows you your system's frequency response on a 31 band scale. You are scored on the accuracy of the frequency response. This is the final judging station of the IASCA SQ judging format.

The final station in some competitions is SPL (Sound Pressure Level). This test measures how loud your system will get. Most people only play their subwoofers for this test. In the old IASCA format, the entire system had to be playing. This led to the early demise of numerous tweeters and a few mids also. Once the official software is loaded, you typically have 30-45 seconds to achieve maximum sound pressure. This station can be a real eye opener for most people. This graphically defines loudness. This also will have you rethink what you typically thought as loud. I witnessed the breaking of the USAC Outlaw World SPL record in Kansas City this year. The vehicle that won generated sound pressure over 160 Db! That system shook the whole convention center. Brute force is the only way to describe this. After the SPL testing, you will be instructed to exit the line and proceed to the parking area. Assuming that you have not locked your keys in your car yet (It will happen eventually!) this should not be a problem.

Finally trophy time has arrived. You will have probably already received your score sheet. Check the sheet for mathematical errors. You will probably compare your sheet to the ones around you. Do not be afraid to look at other people's scoresheets in other power classes. This will tell you how you stack up against the other competitors and experience levels. If you go to enough shows you WILL make friends and eventually some of their experience will rub off on you. When they call your power class, this is the moment of truth. I personally call out the total scores so you will know exactly where you stand after 3rd place is called out. If you are lucky, you will take home a trophy your first show. That is a GOOD feeling. If you don't trophy, don't worry. This show has been a learning experience. Think of the regular season as you paying other people to compare your car against others and give you help on improving. The more you compete, the better off you are. This will allow a wider selection of judges to evaluate your vehicle and also allow you to see numerous other competition vehicles. This will give you more ideas and in turn improve your vehicle and your competition attitude. Points are points and it doesn't matter how you get those points as long as you get enough to qualify.

Take your score sheet to your installer and have him or her look it over. This will show the installer what improvements and upgrades need to be planned. Remember, I said this sport is EXPENSIVE. Hopefully the installation is solid and all that is needed is a little tweaking and fine tuning. Accomplish everything that is required and go to the next show. Good Luck!

I hope this has helped you gain a better understanding of mobile audio competition. This article is written by me and contains my own views and opinions. No sanctioning body, manufacturer or person has paid or ask me to write this and no input was received by anyone before during or after the publishing. No part of the article may be copied, reprinted or altered in any way without WRITTEN approval by the author.

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