When was the last time you visited your grandparents? It seems like every time I visit mine (or any older relative for that matter), the discussion always turns to how hard they had it when they were young. "I had to walk uphill for 20 miles in the freezing cold and snow just to get to school," and so on... While kids definitely did have it harder in the old days, it probably wasn't quite as bad as they make it out to be.
A lot of the folks around here at Car Audio are the "grandparents" of the car stereo scene. We were around when things were just getting started, and we've watched the evolution of things over the years. I'm sure many of you long-time readers have seen it as well. Why, we used to carry sub boxes uphill for 20 miles in the snow just to get to a sound-off. Well, maybe it wasn't that bad. But seriously, it used to be much more difficult and intimidating to get into the car stereo scene. There was no format for beginning competitors to have fun and compete against cars that were in the same league. Even though IASCA had an Amateur class, many so-called "amateurs" had high-dollar installations that were almost impossible for the average competitor to beat.
IASCA then initiated the Novice class to address this problem. The only real difference between a Novice and an Amateur was the number of years their car had been competing. Many expensive installs started out in the Novice class for the first year, then moved up to the Amateur class after that. The net effect was a lot of big-buck cars winning the Novice classes where more basic (and affordable) systems should have been competitive. Of course, this intimidated many would-be new competitors enough to prevent them from ever trying their hand at a sound-off.
IASCA realized this problem, and last year they initiated a program to solve it: Back to Basics. The key to this new approach was to separate the "high dollar" cars from the true novice vehicles, and let them both compete against other similar cars. This format lets the competitor decide which class is best for him: Ultimate or Street. The Ultimate class is obviously for the big guns, while the Street class is for more typical systems that you might find, well, on the street. The real beauty of this concept is in the way the rules are written. The Street scoresheet is much simpler than the Ultimate sheet, with more points being awarded for safety and good sound rather than for fancy installation. This means that even if a competitor enters an Ultimate-level installation in the Street class, it won't necessarily score better than a more simple system. This is the one element that was always missing in IASCA's previous attempts at an entry-level class.
When we take a look at the Street class scoresheet vs. the Ultimate class one, we can see how this works. The Ultimate class awards 30 out of 190 installation points for creativity, which judges use to reward the cars with the craziest and most time-consuming installs. Ultimate competitors spend a great deal of time and money just to gain a few hard-earned creativity points. In addition to this, each section has potential points for integration and craftsmanship, for a total of 50 out of 190 points. This means that 42% of the install points are a result of the quality and creativity of the installation.
The Street class, however, is much different. There are no points awarded for creativity. The installation integrity section, worth 25 out of 65 points, evaluates how solid and well-built the system is. The rest of the score is based on the safety of the wiring and design of the system. It is not necessary to spend a lot of money to do well in these categories, as long as the system is designed and built properly.