Why I'm driving everything for the Car and Truck of the year awards

This week, I managed to get away from the office for 2 days for some fun — and important — driving.

The big picture: I'm one of approximately 50 professional automotive journalists on the jury for the North American Car and Truck of the Year awards, now in its 26th year.

• The awards honor vehicles that have raised the standards and become new benchmarks in their class.
• Vehicles are judged on criteria including: innovation, design, safety, performance, technology, driver satisfaction and value.

How it works: We evaluate the newest cars, trucks and crossovers throughout the year and then vote on the ones we think are worthy of further consideration for the year's best.

• We then gather in the fall to drive the semifinalists back-to-back on some of Michigan's best roads to refine our comparisons.
• It's not fair to compare a Corvette sports car to an entry-level Kia, so we compare vehicles against other vehicles in their class, not against other nominees (unless they're in the same class).
• We then vote a second time for our favorites.
• 3 finalists in each category will be announced in November and the winners will be awarded in early 2020.

At this week's drive event in Ann Arbor, I got seat time in most of the semifinalists, which include 12 cars, 12 utilities and 5 trucks.

Quick impressions, without giving anything away:

• The new mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette was a surprise; moving the engine completely changes the driving dynamics. I'll have more in an upcoming review.
• The Audi e-tron is impressive; it's an electric mid-sized crossover with everything you love about Audi, plus seamless acceleration — and no emissions.
• The reborn Toyota Supra — shared with BMW's Z4 and available only with an automatic transmission — is still massively fun to drive.