Photography by Chris Pate, David Cruz, Jason Owens, Klifton Keplinger, Robert McIntosh, Travis Chin
Mobile Toys Inc. has hosted the widely acclaimed event called Aggieland for five consecutive years now.
Aggieland is Christerfer Pate’s brainchild, and the concept encompasses all the major elements of sound quality car audio competition including MECA and IASCA triple point events, in addition to the key feature: the famed Money Round with a $5,000 payout, spread over the top ten places.
In total there were ten judges to evaluate the 43 competitor's vehicles that in total traveled nearly 50,000 round-trip miles from their respective hometowns; with the majority of the competitors competing in both MECA and IASCA, in addition to the Money Round.
Each year the event is kicked off with a judge’s meeting led by James Feltenberger, who is not only a well-experienced judge but an accomplished professional musician and conductor. The emphasis of his direction to the judges was to listen for system balance.
On Saturday morning the competitor’s meeting started a bit after 6:00 AM and the course of the weekend was discussed and the judging order provided to those competing in the Money Round. Shortly after that, judging started on the Money Round, with three vehicles entering the install bay at Mobile Toys, being judged simultaneously by three judges. At noon, lunch was provided to the judges and competitors, and the judging baton passed off to three other judges to finish out the day. The same procedure followed on Sunday, but with the competitors in reverse order, so that all the vehicles in the Money Round are judged by six individual judges.
All of the MECA and IASCA judging was performed on Saturday, with awards on Sunday. Judging for the Money Round was carried out by Larry Chijner, James Feltenberger, Tim Goudy, Jeff Smith, Klifton Keplinger, and Ben Vollmer. The MECA and IASCA judging was lead by Scott Welch and Travis Chin, respectively.
After a few rounds of torrential rain, the awards ceremony began on Sunday afternoon with thanks to the event’s sponsors: Focal, Mosconi, AMPP, JL Audio, Hybrid Audio Technologies, Brax, Helix, and Illusion Audio. Chad Bui earned the highest sound quality score in MECA, with an 85.33 in the Extreme class. The scoring in MECA at 3X events is performed by three separate judges, with their scores averaged. Steve Head’s Aspen earned the highest sound quality score in IASCA, with a 243, and the same vehicle was runner-up in the overall Money Round. Steve Head also accomplished the feat of winning the Money Round tournament with his Blazer; an emotional victory for both Steve Head and Mobile Toys owner, Christerfer Pate, who had earlier in the day, reminisced together over the T-Town Grand Champion award in Steve Head’s trailer from nearly a decade earlier.
Overall, the event was well received by all in attendance, and the camaraderie was palpable. There were many things learned from this event that SQOLOGY will be carrying into the SPL-SQOLOGY for Parkinson’s Research event in Cumming, GA on July 29-30, and SPL-SQOLOGY Steel Valley event in New Cumberland, WV on August 19-20. Both of which will include MECA and IASCA Sound Quality and SPL in addition to SQ Tournaments. The SQOLOGY ‘Oh My Josh!’ Points Race continues, and competitor’s MECA and IASCA scores, in addition to miles traveled to these events, will accrue with their entries in each of these events. If you would like to discover more about these events, you may visit sqology.org or email
Contributors: Klifton Keplinger, Chris Pate, David Cruz, Jason Owens, Robert McIntosh, Travis Chin
