Q&A with Pat McCool, Chairman of the Bellefonte Cruise

BELLEFONTE — With the Historic Bellefonte Cruise set to take place Friday and Saturday in downtown Bellefonte, Pat McCool, chairman of the event since 2010, agreed to answer the most frequently asked questions about the Cruise for Centre County Gazette readers and ask a few questions of his own.

CCG: How many years has the Historic Bellefonte Cruise been held?

MCCOOL: This year we’re calling our 34th. The reason I said we’re calling it 34th is because we missed a year of COVID. Technically it’s been 35 years ago that it was started. Next year, we’re hoping to step up the entertainment a bit for the official 35th year.

CCG: How many vehicles participate in the competition?

MCCOOL: The show keeps getting bigger, with participants and entertainment sponsors. Last year it was just under 400 total vehicles.

CCG: Some people ask why you don’t have a class for their car.

MCCOOL:  The most common question I get is where people with a specific car wonder why we don’t have a class for their car. It’s a juggling act. At one time we had as many as 45 classes. With 45 classes and three awards per class, you just can’t give out those awards in an hour. And we found that an hour seems to be the magic point where you can hold the crowd about that long. Then it dwindles way down. So, we had to cut down on some of our classes.

The other thing we look at is, we have a little formula that we use where we look at three years’ history. And if you reach a certain number for three years running, it’s time to maybe split that class into two classes. And if we’ve had poor attendance for three years running, OK, maybe it’s time to merge that class into another class. It’s basically based on attendance.

With having no idea what’s going to actually come to the show, it’s hard to judge what classes to have and what classes not to have. The only way we could figure it out was to come up with a little formula, which we did. I would love to have a class for everybody and make sure everybody got an award, but it’s just not practical.

We actually get started with the classes and the awards a month ahead. If a particular group contacts me and says they’re bringing 20 Corvettes, we’ll look at that and even ask them, what breakdown of classes would you guys like?

CCG: How is the judging done?

MCCOOL: Every participant that comes, they get what we call a dash card that they put on their dash which has the judging sheet stapled to it. It goes right through the different criteria that’s looked at. This is the first year that we’re actually going to have our judges at the sock hop Friday evening, which will hopefully give our participants the opportunity to speak with some of them.

In 2006 and 2007, we did judging with volunteers. Then we brought on the professional judges. It took the heat off me. The only time I get involved personally with the judging and look at score sheets is when they have a tie for best in show or something. The judges come get me to get my input. As long as it’s not a personal friend of mine or something like that, then I will give them my opinion. Otherwise, I tell them, no, I know that guy and I can’t give you an opinion on this one.

The one thing that’s the hardest, as far as judging, is people don’t seem to understand that

at given day, the same judge could judge your car from year to year but you’re going to get different scores.

It’s really about your car being in pristine condition. Meaning when you showed up did you take the time to clean the dust off it? Under your hood compartment, is that an area that is correctly painted? Do your serial numbers all match?

I’ll never forget one year it came down to, for best in show, seams spaced between the two fenders and the fact that the other car had rust on a bolt under the carburetor that was the only thing they could find wrong with his car. It does get that technical.

The biggest thing is, a lot of people don’t realize it’s your presentation of the car the day of the show. That’s really what it’s about.

CCG: You mentioned that sometimes stock cars can get placed into a modified class. Why?

MCCOOL: Probably one of our worst dilemmas is we have a rule which we keep saying we’re going to address, and that is, two modifications or more and your car can’t be in stock class. It has to go to modified. And then you get into the debate of what is actually modified and isn’t modified.

With motorcycles, it’s much more difficult because just about everyone that gets a motorcycle adds custom grips or pedals, those kinds of things.

And we actually had one year a best in show motorcycle award where an individual brought his bike in, in a trailer, laid carpet down to roll it off his trailer and put it in the spot where it was to be judged. We had a couple people arguing that this isn’t stock. And he actually furnished us with the papers where everything he had done on the bike was actually ordered, which makes it stock because it came from the factory the way he had it. It’s stock because it’s stock from the factory. Those were options you could order. The guy ordered every imaginable thing. To me it truly looked like a custom bike. If you want to pay for those options, you can get pretty much anything you want.

It comes down to the cars, too. That’s another thing that’s always a big dilemma, is the guy that can afford to put thousands of dollars into his car versus the guy who’s working out of his garage, trying to do the best job he can. Unfortunately, due to the fact that you can only have so many classes, they’re categorized the same. And it’s something that personally I’ve never seen as fair — the guy that put his blood and sweat into the car versus the guy that can afford to have somebody do it. 

You have to really know your vehicles to know whether it’s original or stock, or if it was an option in those years when they did that. We had a Camaro guy who had a fully stock car, always entered in the stock class, except he had the underside of his hood completely painted with this beautiful scenery, spent a lot of money on it, and he did the same thing to another part of his car. So he had enough modifications that it took it out of stock. He was arguing that it was still stock. Basically, the things that he changed, the biggest primary noticeable thing, was paint.

In addition to answering questions, McCool asked some of his own. He’d like to find a way to attract more antique vehicles and get more kids participating in the free kids’ class. He’d like to do more for the people who display their cars and motorcycles.

McCool asked that people offer their suggestions before or after the show, instead of during the show when he’s busy.

“We’re always looking for more people to join the committee and volunteer,” McCool said. “In recent years we’ve gotten some 40-year-olds, 30-year-olds and 20-year-olds involved on the committee level, which is a really good thing. Our goal is to make it a community event and involve the community as much as we can. The day’s coming when I’m not going to be able to do this. And I want to be sure it lives on.”