Celebrities and HPI Racing

Dale Earnhardt Jr!
In mid-2001, NASCAR Winston Cup Series race car driver Dale Earnhardt Jr took time from his busy schedule to stop by the HPI USA headquarters for a tour of our facility. 

Click here to check out his visit, and see where HPI personnel got to demonstrate our stock cars!

For a follow-up, we visited Dale Jr. in 2002 at California Speedway to present him with new cars painted in his colors! Read about that visit here!

NHRA Winston Drag Racer Dean Skuza!

Dean Skuza talking with ESPN reporters

NHRA drag racing star and television host Dean Skuza paid HPI a visit to see the facilities and meet the folks that make HPI work. Click here to read all about it!

Juan Pablo Montoya takes a spin with his Nitro Racer 2!

We're proud to count CART Champion and current Compaq BMW/Williams Formula One race car driver Juam Pablo Montoya as a customer! A-Main Raceway in Oregon was the site of his first drive of an HPI car. See all the pictures and read the details here! (Courtesy of NitroRC.com)

Major League Baseball Catcher Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez!

This report comes to us from Nelson Declet, manager of Monster Hobby Shop in Puerto Rico: "Here's one for the Celebrities Page - American Baseball League's Most Valuable Player (MVP), 4-time Golden Glove Award Winner, Texas Rangers catcher Ivan "Pudge" Rodriquez is shown here with his Nitro RS4 RTR sport trucks. One is a Chevrolet Silverado and the other is a Dodge Ram, and both were fully tricked out at Monster Hobby Shop in Puerto Rico." 

Thanks for the information, Nelson! Ivan has moved on to another team but we're sure he still enjoys his HPI cars and trucks! Check out the Official Site of Major League Baseball for more information on one of America's most popular sports!

NFL team Jacksonville Jaguars

Halfway through 1999, HPI received emails from both Bryan Barker and Mike Hollis, members of the Jacksonville Jaguars, one of the professional teams that participates in the sport of American Football. The National Football League (NFL) has 31 professional teams throughout the United States, and for most of the football season, the Jaguars were the top-rated team for the whole league! 

We were lucky enough to have had a chance to exchange emails with both Bryan Barker (the punter of the Jaguars) and Mike Hollis (the kicker, and at the time of this writing the most accurate kicker in NFL history), as well as receive lots of pictures! According to Bryan, Mike is the one who got many members of the team and staff interested in R/C cars. He's called "Hollis Motorsports" by the other guys, because he's the resident R/C expert on the team! In return, Bryan introduced Mike to the beauty of Porsche sports cars! In the off-season, Bryan spends much of his time racing for the full-size Brumos Porsche racing team, which has been around for decades and enjoys a distinguished racing history, always running Porsche cars. 

At the Jacksonville Jaguar stadium, Alltel Stadium, the players have set up a temporary course that they run the cars on after training sessions. Most of the players run HPI cars, mixing it up with Winston Cup spec-type cars, and Mike and Bryan explain that there's often chaos on the track they've set up! But the point of it all is to have fun, and the racers all get to have a few laughs watching the cars crash and bang each other.

Right now, four former Pro Bowlers run various electric HPI sedan kits: Bryan Barker runs a wide RS4 Sport with a silver Porsche 911 GT1 body (his personal favorite), Mike Hollis runs a wide RS4 Sport with a yellow Porsche 911 GT1 body, Tony Boselli (offensive tackle) runs an RS4 Pro 2 with a Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR body, and Keenan McCardell (wide receiver) runs an RS4 Pro 2 with a Ford F-150 body. What is a "Pro Bowler"? Professional football players can be voted to be Pro Bowl players by the fans of the game, and at the end of every season compete in a fun, relaxed game a week before the Super Bowl. 

Other players running HPI cars include Leon Searcy (offensive tackle, 2000 Pro Bowler, read an interview with him here) and his RS4 Pro 2 with a Dodge Viper body, John Wade (offensive center) with an RS4 Pro 2 with Lexus GS 400 body, Zach Wiegert (offensive guard) with his RS4 Pro 2 with Chevrolet Corvette body, Joel Smeenge (defensive end) and his RS4 Pro 2 with Dodge Stratus body, and Renaldo Wynn (defensive end) with an RS4 Sport with a Porsche 911 GT1 body. The team's Equipment Manager, Drew Hampton, also runs an RS4 Pro 2, topped with the Porsche 911 GT3 body.

During spring training in 1999, Mike and Bryan organized a nightly fun racing series, which the rest of the team loved to watch. As Bryan describes it, "Nine football players with RS4's sometimes results in spectacular wrecks...the rest of the team goes nuts when one of us loses control"! We're happy that the team is having fun running R/C cars, and our cars in particular. They understand that having fun is what it's all about! HPI Racing is proud to have played a small part in helping out the team! Go, Jaguars!

The official NFL site

The official Jacksonville Jaguars site

The official NFL.com Jacksonville Jaguars site

The Florida Times-Union Jaguars site

Smashmouth! 

The hit band Smash Mouth seems to like HPI cars when they're on the road for bashing around! They've got a few of our Nitro kits, and take them on tour for relaxation and playing around. Check out their website and look in the Spotlight section for their Official Endorsements page! HPI Racing is in good company in sponsoring this great band! Check out the band member bios and vote for their latest song on MTV's Total Request Live show. 

We're proud to have such a major music act on board with HPI! 

Also, be sure to check out "Astrolounge", their new album, or "Fush Mu Yang", their hot debut! Both are platinum sellers and have great songs!

Smash Mouth frontman Steve Harwell with his RTR Nitro RS4 on the hood of his Toyota Landcruiser!

Steve running with his cars with a friend

Steve Harwell with his two Thunder-painted RTR Nitro RS4 cars!

Cleveland Indians!

From the American League Central Division Champion Cleveland Indians, Omar Vizquel (shortstop), Sandy Alomar (catcher) and Julio Franco (2nd base) with their Nitro RS4 kits! (this picture came to us in 1998, some of the players have moved to other teams)

Do you know of any celebrities or famous people that have HPI cars? Are you one of them? Send us an email!