Hobby Center of Houston, Texas

Thanks! 

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The assembled group of racers	"Hold up your free HPI bodies!"

We want to thank all the racers who showed up to make this race even bigger than last year's! We had almost 100 racers come out to race with fellow HPI fans from several states, including Texas (of course), Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, New Jersey and New York!

Marvin Beckett (Patterson, NJ); Todd Marshall (Washington, DC); Romulus Gibbs (Patterson, NJ); Darren Lighty, (Patterson, NJ); and Derrick Mickens (Patterson, NJ)	Curtis C. and Curtis D. Hamlin, from Bradenton, Florida, used their vacation to visit Houston! Both raced in Nitro Open and the younger Curtis finished third in Super Nitro.	Garrick Kinchen from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, raced in the  Super Nitro class.

Of course we can't forget Issac Ben-Ezra, the owner of Hobby Center and the awesome track that he made available for the weekend. Issac has put a ton of money, work and his own sweat into the track to make it the super track that it is. Everywhere we go, we get asked, "What track is that in your magazine?" and we say with pride, "That's the track that held our HPI Challenge race in Houston!" Racers in southeastern Texas should be happy and very proud to have such a wonderful track nearby!

Making the trip from Dallas, Steve and Caroline Webster were paid by Issac to not just run the races, but make sure each racer had the proper transponder in their car and the correct number of laps, with no "quick laps" giving one racer the lead over another. They did a great job and many of the racers thanked them for their hard work in the timing tower.

Congratulations must also go out to the racers who won their main events. All of the A Main winners came out of San Antonio, which tells you where the talent must lie (at least this year!). David Kouche and Frank McKinney had a great time all weekend, although the complaints about the heat and humidity had to get tiring after a little while (sorry Curtis C. and Curtis D.!). We hope everyone else got along better than we did.

Issac also paid for catering from Carraba's Italian Grill, which fed the racers a delicious lunch on Saturday and is a tremendous place to eat. The lunch was amazing for something you get at the side of a race track! Every racer thanked Issac for the wonderful food and his gracious attitude. The only thing we can think to say is "primo!" for the great free food and nice gesture of feeding all the racers present.

Once again, we wanted to extend a hearty "Thanks" to all the racers, family, spectators and race fans that raced, watched the races or just dropped by. The Hobby Center personnel also did a great job helping us out with boxes, shipping, moving things around and taking care of interested customers.

 

Pictures of the trophy and body giveaway	We brought about 200 bodies to give away	Everyone stuck around to get their bodies!

Thank you again, and good luck racing!