USA Race Number Three: Tacoma, Washington!

Pacific Northwest HPI Challenge

Hosted by
Fantasy World Toy and Hobby!

Concours Challenge pictures also available! | Racing Action! | The "THANKS" page!

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The weekend of August 11 and 12, 2001 was the time for the third HPI Challenge USA race, taking place in front of the host shop Fantasay World Toy and Hobby. It was an unusually warm weekend for the Pacific Northwest, with temperatures in the high 90's on Friday afternoon, and low to mid-90's all weekend long. Although racing at Fantasy World had been rained out twice in the past month or so, the racers seemed to take everything in stride and soldiered on, using wide-brimmed hats and canopies to fend off the relentless sun.

Friday, August 10

HPI representatives Steve Baker and Frank McKinney flew into Seattle/Tacoma airport (known locally as SeaTac), driving through traffic to arrive at Fantasy World in time to see a few dozen racers already practicing and tuning their cars. The "tent city" of R/C racers was already in full force! Several familiar faces from past HPI Challenge events greeted Steve and Frank, and everyone involved with running the event settled down to discuss the details of the weekend's activities.

The track and driver stand was set up Friday afternoon so racers could get started practicing, as well as set up canopies and pit tables. Fantasy World rented tall scaffolding for a driver stand, portable restrooms, brought out the Stonguard Audi TT show car, hired a trophy girl, arranged for a pizza party at Round Table Pizza and several other promotions with adjacent businesses, including coupons from Jack in the Box, coupons for cell phone service, deals on purified water, and coffee (of course!). The amount of planning put into the event by Fantasy World owner Dave Kleinman and racer Rob McElfresh was just amazing!

The clear skies and lots of sun for the weekend threw many racers into a setup-finding frenzy - they're used to cooler weather and had to get warm-weather tires and setups! Making it more complicated was the early-morning light fog that blanketed the area until 10 AM every day, which changed the Nitro engine tuning requirements as the day went on.

Stongard Audi TT	Busy timing tent!	Redmond Hobbies brought many Super Nitro racers	Honey Bucket...?

After most of the details for Saturday were settled, it was decided that Applebee's would be the place to hit for the long-awaited dinner. Smothered chicken, tall (root) beers and plenty of appetizers hit the spot, then it was time to clean up and rest for the night.

Saturday, August 11

Although the morning dawned overcast and slightly foggy, racers weren't fazed - the pit areas were full and the race crew was already busy adding new racers to the program, printing out heat listings and taking care of frequency problems. By 11 AM it was clear that there were over 120 racers, a great turnout for an HPI Challenge race! Frank was simply happy that most of the racers had signed up in advance and that there would be enough free items to hand out.

When 12 noon rolled around there were 132 entriestotal , because several racers were running two classes. Some even ran three classes, with one dedicated racer running four!

Radio impound had started at 11:30 when racers as finishing up their practice. Using a radio impound system insures that racers won't have any frequency problems during their racing, and if they do it would be the fault of their radio system and electronics, not someone else turning on their radio during a race. The proven method of using a racer's ID number (from the scoring system) was used, placing each radio in its own spot on spare merchandise shelves from the Fantasy World storage room. Racers Mike Crosier and Doug Smith volunteered to help with the radio impound all week, while Steve Baker from HPI handled the technical inspections and Frank McKinney took care of rules questions and took pictures of the people and cars while greeting all the racers.

A table next to the radio impound area was set up with display kits (prizes for Sunday's ceremony) and sample plaques and trophies. The prizes were meant to entice the racers present to do a really good job, and we think they worked! Catalogs were placed on the table as well, so spectators could see what other products HPI offers.

As the day went on, word trickled in of how far some racers had come to check out the racing. Racers from Southern California, Arizona, Oregon and Canada had shown up, as well as many area racers from Redmond, Seattle, Olympia and other surrounding cities. Taking the "long distance" honors by far, however, was Martin Woody, who was visiting from Honolulu, Hawaii! Martin used to be a local racer at Fantasy World, then moved to Hawaii several years ago and visits his brother in the Seattle/Tacoma airport about once a year. This time, he brought his car and several other "Woody Team" members!

The track was closed to practice a little after noon, and the racers were told to bring their cars and radios to the track surface for the driver meeting and radio impound. When racers turned in their radio they received their free HPI hat, then put their car on the track in front of the driver stand to prepare for the group picture and the Concours Challenge judging.

Before the Concours Challenge could take place, however, the driver meeting had to take place. This is where Frank asked if anyone had any questions about the rules for the different classes and encouraged everyone to have some fun. The drivers were then told how the race format would be run. Using staggered (IFMAR) starts has become the normal way to run the qualifiers for the HPI Challenge USA races, so each racer"runs on their own clock" and has a better chance to do well for their qualifying efforts.

Next...on to the Concours Challenge! | Racing Action! | The "THANKS" page!

Check out the Fantasy World Toy and Hobby web site for more photos!