HPI Racing - 2001 HPI Challenge USA - Tacoma, Washington

USA Race Number Three: Tacoma, Washington!

Concours Challenge

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After everything was explained and racers brought their radios to the tech tables, all the racers received their free HPI hats and gathered around to watch the judging for the Concours Challenge. The judges were Steve the announcer, Steve Baker of HPI Customer Service and Frank McKinney of HPI. Plenty of great-looking cars were found in the group, and 11 cars eventually made the first cut to the "semi-finals". This is where the tough part of Concours judging comes; with several cars so close together in overall quality it comes down to the smallest detail that gives one car more judging points than another car.

To decide the top 3 cars it was easy to pick two of the cars - former Concours Challenge winners (from the 2000 season) Steve Phemister and Scott Kovalik had entries that were easily in the top three, but the third entry had to be deliberated amongst the judges.

Eventually a very nicely detailed Super Nitro BMW V12 LMR body was picked that featured an interesting "drip" paint job over a detailed "bare metal" background. The other two cars that made it into the top three were a meticulously detailed Ford Focus WRC car and a Dodge Ram street truck pulling a Dodge Viper on a handbuilt rolling trailer. Both of these cars featured working lights, terrific paint jobs, rotating disc brakes with stationary calipers, with the Dodge Ram showing a blown v-8 engine that had "running" sound effects. The third car in the top 3 belonged to Martin Woody from Honolulu, Hawaii. Martin painted the car, while his brother Ralph drives this particular car. Martin flies the 3200 miles from Hawaii to visit his brother about once a year, and this year it just happened to be this weekend, so both brothers were racing.

First place in the Concours Challenge went to Steve Phemister of Beaverton, Oregon! The Ford Focus WRC rally car was basically perfect in every detail. We'll let you decide from the close-up pictures:


	Steve Phemister, Concours Challenge winner!

	Flawless paint job	Scale roll bars

RAM headlights and custom-made front headlight enclosures		Steering wheel, shifter, turn signal

You can't see the fire extinguisher from here	Airbrushed front grille with handmade front radiator	Close up of the front dash detail

Handmade roll cage bars	The front disc brakes and calipers...	...and the rear disc brakes and calipers

Note the air pressure valve!	Handmade seats - the new standard for inner bodies!