HPI Racing - 2001 HPI Challenge USA

2001 HPI Challenge

World Finals

Visit the HPI Europe website for the same race report from the World Final coordinator's perspective

Intro

Jet lag, very old buildings, narrow streets, funky cars and lots of foreign languages - this is what comes to many people's minds when they think of Europe.

However, four lucky Americans got to experience the camaraderie of several nation's R/C racers during the weekend of November second to the fourth, and it also meant great R/C racing action with some of the best HPI racers in the world!

During 2001, HPI USA organized four HPI Challenge races in different areas of the US: Texas, Washington State, New Jersey and Ohio. The winners of each different class at each of these races were entered into a drawing to win a free plane ticket to France and entry into the HPI Challenge World Finals in Orange, France! The lucky winners were Rusty Wigley of Von Ormy, Texas; Rodney Clemente of Seattle, Washington; Derek Manchester of Brooklyn, Michigan and Jon Sterling of Seattle. These racers were entered into the class they won at their respective events, and were also invited to enter additional classes on a space-available basis.

Other HPI headquarters in Europe and Asia had also organized their own HPI Challenge races, with distributors for several countries in each region handling the organization of the series and holding nationwide race meetings to decide a national champion. In the case of Europe, an HPI Challenge European Finals was held to decide an overall European champion for each class. This year the European Finals were held in Germany. Greg Hill of HPI Europe organized not only the UK series, but the European Finals and this year the World Finals as well!

After lengthy correspondence by email, phone and fax, HPI USA organized all the racers together and gotten them all flights to France. In order to counter the effects of the jet lag (up to 10 hour's difference between the Pacific time zone and France), the racers were asked to arrive by October 31st and rest up for practice on the 2nd of November.

Rodney arrived the earliest, spending a night and a day in Marseille, while the rest of the racers arrived late on the 31st, the same time as Frank McKinney, HPI USA webmaster and HPI Challenge USA coordinator. A long day of plane trips and bus rides for Frank was punctuated by missing the last train from Marseille to Orange and having to hire a taxi for 1000 FF (about $130 US). Actually, the plane trips were nice (Lufthansa - great service), but the stress of trying to find a way to Orange about 80 miles away was almost too much after being awake for 24 hrs!

Read On!

Thursday was track setup, Friday was practice, Saturday was qualifying, Saturday Evening was the "Soiree of Gala", the Concours Challenge was held just before the finals, Sunday was the main events and The VIP Tour was Monday