World Final

Thank You!

Main HPI Challenge USA Page
Main HPI Challenge World Finals Page | Qualifying | Concours | Main Events | Limo Tour!

This is the spot where we take the time to thank everyone who was involved with putting on the event. There are always more people than you think that put in the time and effort to make a race (or any similar event) happen, and the 2000 HPI Challenge World Finals was no different. Here, in no particular order, are the groups, companies and individuals that brought everything together:

All the HPI owners that came out for fun and racing! About 170 racers signed up for a total of about 215 separate race entries. We hope every racer had enough fun for the whole weekend, and enjoyed the free stuff from HPI, Yokohama, Honda, Gameworks and other companies that helped us out. We'd also like to thank everyone for putting up with the problems that we endured, specifically the generator malfunctions and lighting problems, which all did get sorted out as quickly as possible.

Yokohama Tire - Mark Richter provided us with tons of banners and pennant strings to mark the pit area, as well as hats, decals, shirts and other "swag" to give out to the racers. The winners of each class won cool Yokohama jackets, and we even gave away a set of Yokohama tires to a lucky raffle winner! Mark also brought the Yokohama Tire customized Honda Odyssey van to show off, straight from the SEMA aftermarket car customization show in Las Vegas.

American Honda - Although this year's event wasn't held at the American Honda headquarters, Geoffrey Lockwood kindly offered a Honda Prelude show car for the event, and coordinated efforts with Honda Optional Equipment to provide us with extra prizes!

Honda Optional Equipment - John Yoshinaga made sure we had enough lanyards, pamphlets, decals and other materials to hand out to lucky racers, and also gave us enough gift certificates and Honda catalogs to give to the best-finishing racer that used a Honda or Acura body throughout the weekend. The winners of the classes that have no available Honda or Acura body, such as Rally and Super Nitro, also won gift certificates. Honda Optional Equipment also provided a special custom watch with a leather band and tachometer face to the winner of the Best Honda/Acura Body Concours, Ian Aquino.

Gameworks - West Coast Marketing Manager Michael Lyons gave us 250 free go-kart rides and 250 "10 for 10" coupons for Gameworks in the Irvine Spectrum Center, giving many of the racers a great place to go after the racing was over. Gameworks also provided a couple of banners for use at the race.

NASCAR Silicon Motor Speedway - Managers at the very cool NASCAR Silicon Motor Speedway race simulation arcade gave us several gift certificates to raffle away, and racers came back to us with glowing reports of the realism and overall coolness of the experience! Be sure to try this out if you're ever in the area.

Irvine Spectrum Center - Ericka Schultz and Stacie Hibbard both worked with Frank McKinney to provide HPI with a spot to race, as well as communicate with the retailers in the Irvine Spectrum Center. This is one of the largest open-air malls in Orange County, California, with the only IMAX screen in the country! If you haven't experienced the Irvine Spectrum Center you should know you're missing out.

B.C. Sport Collectibles - Herb allowed us to post fliers for our event on his counter, which was very kind of him. B.C. Sport Collectibles sells not just signed and unsigned sports clothing and memorabilia, but diecast model cars and other autosport items!

Myron's Extreme Hobbies - Manager Cookie gave us several fliers and catalogs for racers to check out - this is the place to go if you want to get miniature motorcycles, off-road skateboards, Go-Peds and other crazy sport items!

Avalon Tent & Party - David worked with Frank to get the lighting and generator situation solved, and gave us a rebate which we have used to help out all the racers who had chargers and other items damaged by the overactive generator.

Master Protection Services - Not many of the racers know this, but the security guard we hired for three night's enforcement actually chased off some would-be thieves the first night he was there, and caught some more people red-handed on the second night trying to take more items! Both incidents were reported to the police, and we have to thank Shuron Keys for his diligent work in making sure everything we left at the end of each night was still there in the morning.

Doubletree Hotel - We were able to secure several rooms for racers and their guests with large discounts, thanks to help from Kendra Fluhr and the rest of the reservation and sales departments. Most of the racers who traveled stayed at the Doubletree!

Team Orion - The armature resistance machine we used to tech the motors of anyone who was accused of cheating was borrowed from Team Orion. Without their help we would have had some dissatisfied racers, but with the machine we were able to prove the motors were within legal limits!

R/C Magazine - Atsushi Hasegawa was here to take pictures and provide a report for R/C Magazine (RCM) as well. 

R/C World - Members of the Japanese press made the trip to check out the event. Yutaka Kobayashi was the representative from R/C World, one of the largest R/C magazines, and always very fast with race reports! 

Radio Control Car Action - Derek Buono flew out from Connecticut to cover the race for his magazine. He wasn't able to race but he was able to take part in the limousine tour we had on the Monday after the racing!

R/C Car - Lito Reyes, Frank Masi and John Howell all contributed to help us have great magazine coverage. Lito actually raced and helped out several racers when he wasn't busy working on his car!

Xtreme R/C - Mike Velez and Eliott Crabtree were both helpful, with Eliott racing himself, between taking pictures for the magazine. Thanks a lot guys!

Pegasus Hobbies - Dan Discenza of Pegasus was talked into providing a traveling hobby shop for the racers to visit when they needed parts, and Mark Thiel was with him all weekend to help out as well. Lots of racers were thankful the shop was available! Pegasus is based in Montclair, California and also operates a comic book store.

Gyro Hobbies - Although they weren't able to provide us with a table of parts to sell at the race track (because of manpower limitations), we directed many racers to Gyro Hobbies in Lake Forest so they can find parts. It's a good store with knowledgeable staff!

Hobby People - Mike Greenshields coordinated with Frank McKinney for the driver stand and computer equipment for the weekend, and manager Eric Larsen was made available to call the races for us and do most of the race announcing. Hobby People is a large regional chain with about 20 stores, and more on the way! Most of the out-of-country racers that went with us on the limousine tour bought up bags of supplies and parts to take back home when we stopped by Hobby People in Mission Viejo.

Cameron Wagner - While not officially part of any company that helped us with the race, Cameron came to the race from San Jose and indirectly from Castle Hobbies. Cameron helped us immensely with getting the computer system running on Saturday morning (the first glitch it had had for the entire year) and sat in for Eric when he wasn't racing himself. Maybe it helped, because Cameron won the Nitro Stock World Title!

HPI Europe - Greg Hill, Jamie Booth and Jason Dearden were all very helpful and courteous in providing insight into their race series, which has been running for over two years. Jamie came over for the race and helped out the English and Scottish racers when they needed it. They will also be responsible for next year's HPI Challenge World Finals, so anyone who has an interest in traveling to Europe should start getting ready now!

HPI Japan - Help for the Japanese racers came from Shoichi Imaizumi and Tomoko Matsumata, who helped Frank with rules clarifications and coordinated the travel of the Japanese racers and press agents.

HPI USA - Shawn Ireland, Kent Clausen, David Potter, Steve Baker, Kaz, Ito, Yoichi, Shihomi Tezuka, Scott Roberts, Thad Garner, Wes Mott, Troy Lyman and anyone else who may have been forgotten were all extremely helpful in helping organize the "behind the scenes" affairs such as the body and shirt giveaways, limousine tour planning, and tons of other things.

Check out the limousine tour we had for all of the visiting finalists!