This is often a sticking point:
"The vehicle must make its first public showing at the Detroit Autorama."
"No articles or stories with photos of the vehicle in finished form will be allowed until after the award has been presented."
Full text: http://www.mhraonline.org/ridlerguide.html
Ross does really good work, and given the right motivation and budget maybe he could make a run at something like this. Not knocking Ross - I see lots of details and touches he has done that are very cool and fit that theme. But, the cars that win that award are truly over the top, no expense spared, and built by people with more resources than just the cash. And even though these cars are supposed to be functional, they are compromised to make them look good. Ross has had to make aesthetic compromises so the car can run, drive, turn, stop and be relatively easy to work on. This is where show car and driver are at odds, you sometimes have to make choices for the sake of being practical. Practical and truly road worthy are not requirements for the Ridler award. These cars are built by teams of craftsmen. So imagine 5 guys like Ross working on a car for a year. I think it would be very cool indeed for Ross to go work at a place like that when he is done with his current gig fixing model airplanes for our rich uncle (another calling altogether). I used to work on our uncle's trucks, takes quite a commitment to stick it out for a career, definitely not the easy path.
