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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MEDIA CONTACT: Bernard Martin MORGANTOWN, WV. - Concours LLC is excited to announce the launch of a new ongoing series of videos entitled "Through the Gears". The video series captures the history and backstories of people and cars in the Concours, Car Show and Racing Communities.
"Wayne's spot on," says Bernard Martin, "and then the idea evolved, Given what we do, we are often privy to some wonderful stories and anecdotes that later become the stuff of legend. Ferrari's adoption of the Cavallino Rampante is a great example: Many are familiar with the story of how Ferrari was given the emblem of the fighter ace but few know the connection it has to Porsche. In this series we're not going to just talk cars, we're going to take a page out of James Burke's "Connections" series from the 1970's." On "Through the Gears" your hosts will talk about the stuff that most others forget to ask or don't think it's important to talk about. How did you family become involved in the industry? What where your influences? How did this come about? Why did you do this? The series will also take a deep dive into some iconic collector cars and the people who own them. And , yes, of course we will still talk about cars!! Look for these up coming shows:
ABOUT CONCOURS LLC Concours LLC provides a level professionalism and best practices to those people and organizations seeking to create a successful automotive event. We offer our clients a wide range of services from Strategy and Planning to complete marketing, design and management of the event for you. From creating and managing every aspect of a Concours to developing a touring series, we have a product specialist at our disposal that brings years of experience to the effort.
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 By Bernard Martin When Wayne and I started this Concours LLC endeavor, we agreed on several groundrules:
When we get emails, like this one from Ford Heacock below, and phone calls from some folks we highly respect, and see very kind things written in articles about our events, we know that that the six hours of planning was more important than the six minute solution we could have tossed in and hoped for the best.  At our events we operate on keeping everything simple. It's called K.I.S.S. by most. We don't ask a volunteer or judge to do anything more than a couple things that they can check off on the fingers of one hand. Otherwise people will forget things if its too complicated. This especially holds true for any first year event: You don't know what you don't know. At the end of the day, it really takes a team of great people to make a succesful event. It takes every person on the team jumping in to lend a hand. We certainly had an "all hands on deck" moment last May. We experienced the second highest amount of rainfall since the "1000 Year Flood" that closed the Greenbrier for a few months after the June 2016 high water mark destroyed so much of the facility. We had watched the weather closely on Saturday and decided that we should be clear of rain during the Concours on Sunday. We made the call at 2pm on Saturday afternoon. We would not need to implement our "rain plan" that would have required moving cars into the building by late Saturday afternoon. Sunday was indeed beautiful, albeit slightly overcast, with only a few raindrops at the beginning of the Concours. Perfect weather for the photographers actually. What we had failed to pay close attention to was the severe amount of overnight rain. I recall Wayne calling me as I was finishing some showfield marking about 10pm at night on Saturday. The rain was coming down in buckets. As I walked back to the golf cart for the last time, I told him we where finally ready for tomorrow and I was not going to make it to the Gala but was going to take a hot shower, have a glass of wine and get some sleep.
We could still handle that easily and but needed to take care of the other half of of the showfield classes.
We still needed a place to put five more judged classes. Fortunately, the golf pro suggested the idea of putting cars in front of the main entrance to The Greenbrier. We where very fortunate to have originally planned to use the front entrance for our show. We pulled out and dusted off the very original plans that called for putting some iconic 20-30's era cars right in the middle of the roundabout and the brass cars under the roof. We had a plan. We could park all the classes and have a show. But how do we notify everyone? It came down to the effort of the judges. What an incredible group of judges Paul Ianuario assembled. Each group called their class, told them where to go and when to unload. The Volunteer hosts who had been to other car shows really pulled out the stops and made if happen. OODA loops! 
It really does take a lot of people to make an event success. You've got to have a team and a that team you have to trust to do their jobs to the best of their own discretion.
It's the people that mean alot to us. It's the people that should mean alot to your and your efforts doing a car event.  Roy Sjoberg, Wayne Long, Bernie Martin and Paul Ianuario. During the 2017 Amelia Island Concours d' Elegance Wayne and Bernie where invited by Paul to spend some time with Roy Sjoberg. Roy H. Sjoberg was named Executive Engineer-Viper Project in February 1989. In that position, he created and managed the Project Team for the development & production of the Dodge Viper. The "Platform Team" concept envisioned by Sjoberg (to bring the Viper to production) became the corporate-wide organizational structure for Chrysler. There was some terrific stories about the inception of the Viper and Roy's recruitment to Chrysler! We not sure if everyone know's Paul Ianuario backstory. Paul is a retired engineer who spent more than 40 years in the automotive supplier industry and has degrees in engineering, mathematics, and physics.
Our discussion on the patio at The Ritz ran the gammit from mothballed factories to CNC machining and CFD testing. Paul is going to be the Chief Judge at the Inaugural Greenbrier Concours d'Elegance, so of course there was a healthy amount of discussion about all aspects of Concours judging ranging from car selection and assignment to classes to filed layout and weather contingencies. Paul is the president of SLR Support Services, Inc. His company provides consulting services and support for museums and vehicle related events. Paul was under contract for twenty years as Curator of the BMW Zentrum and recently stepped down from this position. He was an AACA Museum Director and served eleven years in that capacity. Wayne Long, Founder of the Greenbrier Concours, has selected Paul Ianuario as Chief Judge of the inaugural Concours.  The Greenbrier is proud to host the first annual Concours d'Elegance on September 21-24, 2017. The Greenbrier Concours d'Elegance is honored to welcome Paul Ianuario as Chief Judge of the inaugural Concours, to be held September 21-24, 2017 at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. Ianuario – a retired engineer, who spent more than 40 years in the automotive supplier industry and is a Master CCA judge, as well as an AACA judge – has been instrumental in setting up the Concours classes to make The Greenbrier Concours unique in comparison to any other Concours event around the world. Paul resides in Duncan, S.C., with his wife, Dinky. |
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