USA Race Number One: San Antonio, Texas!

Concours Challenge

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Once the driver's meeting was completed, all racers were encouraged to bring out their cars for the HPI Concours Challenge. Mainly, it's an excuse to get all the cars and the feet of all the racers on the track for convenient pictures!

Almost immediately, however, it became apparent that some racers had worked long hours getting their cars tuned not just for the track, but for the Concours Challenge!

Here are some notable standouts from the first round of judging:

As usual, the Concours Challenge judges (Kevin Mayse, Thad Garner and Frank McKinney) picked several of the best-looking cars for a semifinal judging showdown. Of course, paint jobs were the first things we noted, but attention to detail, interior body sets, clean wheels, disc rotors and anything else helped too.

After considerable eyebrow-furrowing, the judges were able to narrow down the field to just the top three cars. These were the most unique, most highly-detailed cars from the first cut.

It took several minutes more for the judges to decide the winner, which at first seemed very difficult, but when the cars were inspected one by one it became clear who should get the top prize.

When dealing with Concours Challenge entrants, a judge has to look at the overal unique appeal of each car. Obviously each car in the top three was a one of a kind car in its own way. The Castrol NSX was meticulously detailed to look like the real JGTC race car, down to brand new wheels and disc brakes. The yellow Corvette had hand-painted dragons breathing flames down its doors and hood! The black Castrol-colored Eclipse was also very well done, with LED lights, an opening moonroof and turning driver's head. Both the Eclipse and NSX had very nicely detailed inner bodies with roll bars and painted dashboards.

In the end, however, the outstanding paint job, new wheels, disc brakes, full interior with padded roll bars, and breathtaking decal and airbrush work on the NSX won the overall competition.

Then came the hard part of choosing second place! Both cars were great, and while the Corvette's unique handpainted dragons looked great, the owner of the Eclipse obviously spent just as much time wiring servos for the moonroof and driver, LED lights for the front and rear and airbrushing. It was decided to call both cars a tie for second!

When the owner of the NSX was called forward, it was race organizer Ronnie Meloni who stepped forward! We asked him how he found the time to work on the car and organize the race, and he answered that he really didn't know - he'd spent hours on the internet finding the exact paint scheme and decals of the Castrol NSX car, but it was all worth it for the grand prize of the large HPI Concours Challenge Cup and a brand new Nitro RS4 2 kit!

Second place finishers in the HPI Concours Challenge Kaven Mitchell and Richard Nichols. Great effort, guys!

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