HPI Racing - 2003 HPI Challenge World Finals

Concours Challenge

Saturday, October 11th

We kicked off the first day of qualifying early, with a short driver meeting, group pictures and the Concours Challenge.

The group pictures are always nice, allowing friends and family members to get as many pictures as they want to remember the weekend while everyone is still fresh and the cars are still clean!

The Concours Challenge started right after the group pictures wrapped up, and we could tell the judging was going to be tough!

Basing the judging of the cars primarily on the paint jobs lets us concentrate on rewarding the racers who spent the most time and effort to really detail the actual body shell of their car. It also removes much of the influence of racers who detail the interior of the car or add fancy gadgets, but don't have a striking paint job. Although we definitely appreciate the skill and effort of the scale modelers in the R/C scene, we reserve the judging of the interiors to breaking ties between equally spectacular paintjobs. This rule for car interiors goes equally for faux brake disks and calipers, handmade light buckets, etc. This balance of judging has served the HPI Challenge USA series very well in years past as we've seen various Concours Challenge winners come and go.

The first step in the judging process is to select the top 10-12 cars from all the cars that are present. Even this first stage of judging can be tough! While we don't want to disappoint racers who've spent a lot of time on their paint schemes, we have to make sure to choose only the best cars from the selection that's available.

After these cars are chosen, it gets tougher - the coveted Top Three must be selected from the first pick. There's a bit of racer pride here as the car owners and their pit buddies wait around to see who will get chosen to reach the final selection of cars. The judges try not to take too long to pick the Top Three but sometimes it isn't as easy as choosing just the coolest-looking body! This is where the judges really get on their hands and knees to look over the bodies. Overspray or paint bleeding is definitely a detractor to the overall paint job at this level!

From the Top Three, here's where it gets really hard! Only one car can be picked to be the winner. Although the owners of all three cars are going to receive a prize (in this case, an HPI Challenge T-Shirt), only one racer can go home with the Concours Challenge trophy cup and free HPI kit! With three judges, each judge chooses one car they like best. If two judges agree on one car right from the start, that car is announced as the winner. There is no official "second" or "third" place - just two runner-up spots for the other cars in the Top Three.

Finally, we've chosen a winner! Tim Pennington from Michigan and his Saleen S7 are announced to the applause of the racers gathered around. His immaculately prepared S7 features a printed engine detail similar to the classic Mercedes "ripped" body scheme (used on the privateer CLK GTR Le Mans cars and some of the Mercedes-Benz touring cars). This detail is continued to the rear side panels of the car and combined with the painting detail, lights and other extras, the body really came out looking awesome!