Updates

Ocean City, MD – Each September, VW/Audi enthusiasts travel to the beach for a weekend like no other. H2O International has been going on for 17 years now and has sort of become the official end of summer gathering for the community. In it’s nearly two decades it has grown from a fun, laid back event strictly for VAG enthusiasts, into three days of peace, love, camber and burnouts all across town. The movement has become such a “can’t miss” event that all sorts of automotive enthusiasts are now coming in swarms to Ocean City just to be on the fringes of being involved in such a cool event. From Friday until Sunday there are countless meets and GTG’s planned all throughout Ocean City and the surrounding areas. These meets include just about every facet of the “scene” – from MK1 VW meets – to “outcast” meets for non-VAG cars that can’t enter the showfield – to meets for car enthusiasts to go for a bike ride together up Coastal Highway. Along with any event that grows to this sort of capacity, the town was forced to send out extra police force to keep people in line – and of course to pull over scene kids that rock excessive camber. Meanwhile, 20 minutes out of town, the actual car show has grown to be bigger and better each and every year. This year we entered nearly 700 cars into our eJudged iOS app software to be judged.

We had a great time and were extremely grateful to be asked to be a part of the event once again – after joining forces with the event staff last year. Saturday is more of a meet & greet day – formally known as the Big Ass BBQ. We did a WiFi site survey of the showfield areas in the morning. As we were wrapping that up and confirming coverage throughout the venue, we were flagged down by one of our friends at Rotiform Wheels. It was a huge honor to be asked to park in their mega booth, featuring AirLift Performance, Rotiform Wheels, and DubKorps clothing company – three brands that we respect and support. Our Ford Transit Connect Wagon was supposed to be more of an outcast for this Euro inspired car show, but we’ve learned this year that it fits right in and the people of the euro community love it! Each and every red light that we stopped at over the course of the weekend, the enthusiast in the next lane would strike up a conversation with us about how cool and unique our Ford Wagon is.

Sunday at H2Oi is “gameday”. That is to say that it’s the day of the actual car show. While a good deal of the competitors were still hungover from the previous night’s festivities, we decided to head over to the venue and grab a good spot next to the pavilion that we would be calling our home base for the day. We hosted the judges meeting and then our Mobile Command Station blasted a WiFi signal for the judges to score the cars on their devices. By mid-day the campground was filled end to end with hundreds of VW’s, Audi’s, a few BMW’s, and of course just the one Ford Van. We always see a ton of amazing and unique vehicles at this event – as people travel from all over the States, Canada, and even overseas to be a part of this show. The highlight of the show is always the Top Dawg competition. The Top Dawg process is secret, but if you are chosen to compete it is a huge honor and you get a special place to park as the main attractions of the event. These extensive builds always incorporate precision craftsmanship and attention-to-detail that is not found at most other events. Job well done to all of those builders!

Elysburg, PA – We’ve been saving the date for the first weekend in September for quite some time now, as we knew that some good friends of ours were putting on a unique event that was sure to be a fun filled day. KnoeDown did not disappoint. The event is held at Knoebels Amusement Park in the mountains of PA. It’s a hybrid of a meet and a show – as people from all over the region cruised in packs to the middle of nowhere, to enjoy a family friendly day riding coasters and other rides. But then the day was ended off with an awards ceremony. The awards were not to be taken super seriously, but we were more than happy to have them using our iOS app to come up with their final choices. We also got a chance to test out The Crowd’s Choice Award – which is something we may begin to offer to meets and smaller shows where the competition aspect is not the main focus.

We had our Ford Transit Connect Mobile Command Center in full effect for the event as well. Kicking off the morning at the registration area, where lines of cars rolled in – and checked in – to get their spot on the showfield. After registration closed, we were able to secure a great booth spot to post up right next to the event’s co-hosts – JunkStyles x LowLifeStyle and CounterKultur. Our Ford Transit was in good company, as the main pavilion area was where all of the elite cars were highlighted- as well as where the catered cookout lunch was served to participants. Hey, we told you this event was unique! Food, rides, family, and fitment… It was a breath of fresh air to see someone putting together a different sort of event from the indoor elitist standard that we’ve come to know lately.

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Edison, NJ – One of the most anticipated events of the summer on the East Coast, is the weekend that WekFest rolls into town. The great team behind the scenes of this event want to ensure that only the best of the best vehicles are on the showfloor, giving the spectator an experience unlike any other event. So naturally, we were honored to have been selected to bring out our Ford Transit Connect Wagon. It’s been a busy summer for the vehicle and our eJudged crew, so it was a nice change of pace to enjoy the event while having the vehicle on display. And what can we say? The Transit gained a ton of attention and compliments throughout the day – and the show did not disappoint. Another job well done for Ernesto Jr and the rest of his hard working staff. We can’t wait for WekFest East 2015 – and any possibility to work with this event again at any of their international tour stops in the future.

York, PA – Over the past eight years, The VagFair has grown into one of the largest and most influential Volkswagen Audi enthusiast events. It’s come from its humble beginnings to a two-day extravaganza that takes over the York Fairgrounds and the town throughout the weekend. We’ve been friends with Cory Sterling, the man behind the event, for well over ten years now. This year we were able to take some stress off his shoulders and ease the judging process for his crew. In addition to the judges utilizing our eJudged iOS app to score hundreds of vehicles, we also had our Ford Transit Connect Wagon on-site as the Mobile Command Center – blasting a WiFi signal across the fairgrounds and enabling the digital judging process to happen. We’re proud to say that the euro community has really embraced our Ford Transit build. We know smaller utility vans are pretty popular in Europe, so maybe that’s why our Transit seems to fit in just as much with the VAG community as it does with the tuner and truck communities. We look forward to powering next year’s VagFair – and are even more excited by the announcement that there will be multiple VagFair events next year. We can’t wait to check out what Maine has to offer!

Philadelphia, PA – The Greater Philadelphia Expo Center at Oaks was home to one of this year’s most anticipated events. The heavily hyped Tuner Evolution event rolled into town on the first weekend in August, and ever since SEMA, this team has been excited about having our Ford Transit Connect Wagon on-site as the Mobile Command Center for the judging process of this elite competition. The judging was powered by eJudged, and from what we can tell, this was one of the finest collections of high quality builds that the “tuner” scene has seen in quite some time on the east coast.

We had product specialist, Annamarie Vazquez, in our booth to interact with spectators and to let them try out the app for themselves. This was a must attend event for us, as we made sure we could pull double duty to represent at two separate events over the course of the weekend. Tuner Evolution continues to grow and, well… evolve. We look forward to seeing what they’ve got in store for the scene next summer.

Thanks to our friend Logan Warfield for taking these photos for us. Check out his site and his full coverage of the Tuner Evolution event – Photo.One.

Carlisle, PA – We’ve been lucky enough to team up with some great people this year. Our involvement with Carlisle Events has expanded rapidly this year. In years past, we managed the drive-thru judging staff for their Performance & Style event. But this year, we were asked to help out with much much more. We also helped manage the Standard of Excellence judging at their GM Nationals, and provided a booth car for Ford Motor Company at their Ford Nationals event. The first weekend in August concluded our Carlisle appearance schedule for 2014, with an eJudged x Low Jambs Drop Shop collabo at the Carlisle Truck Nationals.

Our eJudged app was powering the judges throughout the event and we set up shop inside Building R – as our show office turned into one of the most exciting booths at the event. On Saturday we had the booth filled with some incredible vehicles courtesy of Low Jambs – who also supplied some truck gurus for our judging staff. On Sunday, our Ford Transit Connect Wagon returned from another event in Philadelphia to share the booth space as well. Another exciting weekend at the Carlisle Fairgrounds for us! This year has been quite a good learning process, and we look forward to working with Carlisle again next year – and seeing some of the improvements that their competitors work on over the next few months.

Akron, OH – This past Sunday was Superfly Sunday, as groups who put on a few of Ohio’s coolest events teamed up to put on the 5th Annual Superfly Showdown. We were honored to have been asked to help them improve the event to a new level this year. Our eJudged app was put to good use, as their custom score sheets featured a critical 1000 point judging sheet, to really set the best of the best apart from the rest. The Showdown took place at  a great scenic venue on the lake. What a great way to spend a Sunday! We look forward to working with these good people again in 2015. 2014 has been a fun ride so far – seeing our software put to use all over the States as well as Internationally. Next weekend we’ll be pulling double duty with our app and our Ford Transit Connect Wagon in action at both Carlisle for their Truck Nationals Friday-Sunday and Tuner Evolution: East Coast Takeover in Philadelphia on Saturday evening. Stay tuned!

Carlisle, PA – Our summer event series continued with another stop at the Carlisle Fairgrounds. This time we were invited to manage a small staff and utilize our own iPhone app for their Standard of Excellence Judging mini-showfield. It was an intimate gathering within a large event, featuring anything and everything GM – including the Smokey & The Bandit anniversary celebration. We had our mobile command center Ford Transit all set up under a huge tent and we shared an enjoyable weekend with some very cool car enthusiasts.

This event proved to us just how versatile our software can be, as the theme of build for an event like this is much different than what we normally see. We officiated over the event and helped determine a Best of Show winner and the Top 15 awards – which included a healthy mix of restored, preserved, and custom vehicles from various eras over the past 75 years. The stand out for us was a beautifully restored Cadillac Series 62.

We are extremely thankful to the Carlisle Events family for inviting us to be a part of so many of their events this summer. In fact, we are beyond excited for the Truck Nationals next month! We think the truck crowd is going to fall in love with our Transit Connect build.

Carlisle, PA – This summer we will spend four weekends on the Carlisle Fairgrounds. This was our second stop, and we were happy to have our Ford Transit Connect Wagon on display front and center in the Ford Racing x Mustang Garage booth, which was located right on the main drag of the Manufacturer’s Midway. The event is purely peer judging, so we were just on hand this weekend to show off the Transit Build on behalf of Ford Motor Company. We couldn’t have asked for a better location, right in the mix of 50,000 spectators over the course of the three day event.

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Aberdeen, MD –  This past weekend we took a nice drive along the Susquehanna River down to Ripken Stadium. The stadium was the site for LosGoonies and Tuner Evolution‘s collaboration meet. We’ll have our mobile command station all set up for the judging staff at Tuner Evolution in Philadelphia this August, so this gave us a great chance to support the event and let people get acquainted with what we’re all about. We were set up right next to our friends at LowLifeStyle.com and there was a great turn out for the day! We always enjoy a laid back day at a meet, talking to people about the brand and about our Ford Transit Connect Wagon… and this day was no exception. We’d like to thank Jay and the guys from LosGoonies for having us out and giving us a prime location to set up shop for the day.

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