A Special Thanks

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HPI Racing would like to thank all the racers that showed up to race with us, especially those who drove 3 or 4 hours just to race with many of the same racers they see every week! Many local Houston racers also competed, and we're happy to see that Texas has such a lively and very active Nitro sedan racing scene! We didn't expect so many racers to come to an event like this, and the turnout and response from the racers Kent and Frank met was just great!

Thanks also go out to Kevin Mayse and Ward Merrel of RC/RC San Antonio. Kevin is the current president of the club, which puts on weekly races for 50 to 80 racers. 30 of these racers were able to make it to this HPI Challenge race! See the club website at www.groundspeedweb.com for directions to their track, the RC/RC commentary of the racing action, and even talk with club members on their message forum! Kevin also helped start many of the races, when he wasn't announcing or working on his car. Thanks to Ward and Kevin, Issac was able to leave the announcing booth and tend to other duties around the track and store.

We would also like to give a very big thanks to Issac Ben-Ezra and his entire family and store staff, without which none of the racing would have been possible! This was only the fourth race ever to be held on Issac's new track, and we think it was a great success. While every racing event has a couple of glitches, Issac and the other race announcers quickly solved everything that came up to keep the program running smoothly. Issac put plenty of thought, money, sweat and time into his track, and it really shows.

Issac and the whole Hobby Center team ran a great weekend of races. The wonderful Hobby Center track features clearly marked corner marshal positions (with chain link fencing protecting marshals where necessary), overhead lights that don't blind the drivers at night, two powerful air compressors, fencing around the back straight and chicane areas to protect racers in the pits and spectators on the side, a carpeted pit stop area with a strong barrier, runoff areas painted green to simulate grassy infields, a large spectator area, plenty of covered pit areas, shelves for cars, radios and starter boxes near the pit stop area, clearly marked starting grid on the back straight and pit lane, computer lap scoring, excellent public announcing system, and an overall awesome track surface! Issac's race track could easily hold a large event for a ROAR or NORRCA race, including regionals, nationals and even a Worlds! Racers around Texas should be very proud to have such a facility available to them, and most permanent track owners around the world could learn what features their track should have. Thanks to Issac, his staff and family, Texas HPI racers, this race weekend was a wonderful success!