HPI Racing - 2003 HPI Challenge World Finals

Qualifying
Saturday and Sunday

Saturday, October 11th, all day
Sunday, October 12th, morning

Right after the Concours Challenge wrapped up, Scotty Ernst rolled everyone right into the three qualifying rounds that were to take place.

With three minutes in between each electric race and four minutes in between each Nitro race, the racers who signed up for multiple classes would be kept busy getting their cars prepared and ready to go! Scotty runs a tight ship when it comes to calling the racers to the line, and with the 1 minute grace period in effect the racers all had to be on their toes.

Electric Sport

The first class up was the Electric Sport class. We never knew the Saturn 20T motors could run so fast! Three racers made it to the 17-lap mark: Austrians Werner Puchas, Werner Spannbruckner and Japanese invitational racer Toshiaki Kouketsu. There were several racers that were right on the edge of getting that 17th lap, including two of the Japanese racers less than a second and a half away, but it was not to be. Both Austrians took up the front row of the starting grid, with Werner Puchas in the top spot. Three Japanese racers filled up the top five spots, with US invitational racer Roland Shao in 6th, UK racer Joe Cook in 7th and Southern California racers Ian Aquino, Pat Manalo and Robert Szeto filling out the rest of the A Main

Electric Pro

Next up was Electric Pro. With any 10-turn or higher wind motor allowed, this class was sure to provide lots of speed and tons of action! Running a Pro 2 car and a borrowed Reedy motor, Werner Spannbruckner dominated the top spot with a 6-second lead over the second qualifier, Takayoshi Kawano. German invitational racer Christian Geis was qualified third, Japanese invitational racer Yuji Hayashi was next with German Sebastian Franzschk in fifth and American Wayne Beebe in sixth. Hungarian racer Balint Rajke was next, followed by Americans Mark Dawson, invitational racer Mike Collins and Cody Brown.

Micro

The man to beat all weekend in the Micro class was Southern Californian Wijaya Lim. Unless someone really stepped it up it looked like it would be an easy trophy grab for Wijaya, who was a full lap ahead of everyone, including second place qualifier Atsushi Hasegawa from Japan. The rest of the A Main was full of American HPI Challenge regulars: Mike Collins and Randy Kastl from Ohio, Daniel Kuo, Melissa Collins (Mike's wife), Timm Wooley from Florida/Ohio, Rodney Davis from Maryland, Lee Devine from Vegas, and Timm's 6-year old son Ivan.

Nitro Stock

The battling in Nitro Stock was pretty close between two racers: Hungarian Balint Rajki and Austrian Werner Puchas. Both ran 16-lap qualifiers, a lap ahead of everyone else and both were running Nitro RS4 3 shaft drive cars. The seriousness of each of these drivers was apparent each time they came to the tech area: Balint and his father both wore "HPI Challenge Hungary" custom polo shirts and were up to tech very early each time, while Werner came alone but with a perfectly clean car every time he went through tech! No kidding - there was not a spot of grease or dirt to be found on his car before any of his runs.

In the end, however, it was Balint who would take TQ honors. Werner was qualified second, with three invitational drivers lined up behind them: Japanese Toshiaki Kouketsu, German Karsten Bruche, and American Tim Pennington. Todd Marshall from New Jersey qualified seventh with Al Melville from Illinois in eighth, Loic Zimmerman from Switzerland and Vegas local Tyler Bennet wrapping up the A Main qualifiers.

Nitro Modifed

Nitro Modified was dominated by past HPI Challenge Super Nitro Champion Setsuya Kobayashi from Japan, who drove his perfectly handling R40 like a machine all weekend. A combination of very few mistakes throughout the weekend, aggressive throttle management and awesome handling from his R40 combined for a qualifying time a full lap ahead of fellow Japanese invitational racer Tsutomu Arakawa and US invitational racer Roland Shao. Qualified in third was German Patrick Garbi, then US invitational racers Walt Gorczowski and Mike Collins. Wayne Beebe from Southern California qualified seventh, then Swiss racer Pascal Christin, New Jersey native Eric Schneider and Texan Juan Blaylock rounded out the top 10 in Nitro Modified. With less than half a second separating 2nd and 3rd qualifiers, and two seconds separating the 4th through 7th qualifiers, we were sure to see a tight battle during the 30-minute A Main!

Super Nitro Modified

The racing in Super Nitro was much closer. Although past champion in this class Kobayashi was top qualifier, US invitational racer Mike Collins was qualified in second place just a few seconds behind. Mike's pit buddies Roland Shao and Randy Kastl occupied third and fourth qualifying positions and were also invitational racers in their own right. Todd Marshall, last year's US invitational racer for the World Finals in Japan, and his friends Eric Schneider and "Fast" Harry Ananian were in the next three spots. Swiss racers Loic Zimmerman, Pascal Christin and Dan Trnka wrapped up the top 10 qualifiers for the Super Nitro Modified class.