August 1-5th, 2007
Text/photos: Rodney Wills
XGAMES has been a centerpiece for the extreme sports market for some thirteen years and yet there was another “extreme” that debuted last year [2006] at the Home Depot Center XGAMES XIII held in Carson, California.
With the inclusion of Rally to the mix in 2006, this marked the XGames first exception and inclusion of a sport that is considered outside of the “extreme sport” disciplines such as skate, BMX and FMX. This exception was granted as rally gaining a new enthusiast with Travis Pastrana. The XGames “golden child” persuaded the ESPN/XGAMES executives that rally is going to be the “next cool.” Besides, extreme really is rally’s middle name!
With automotive based motorsports making way into XGames, HPI Racing in conjunction with Global Inheritance and Pacific Coast Hobbies provided four days of “try me” Drift sessions. Only fitting as you can try skateboarding and younger kids where also able to try BMX bikes on a makeshift dirt track. Obviously for obvious reasons you are not going to be able to try riding a dirt bike [motorcycle] or a rally car, but you can try the latest craze in automotive subcultures “drifting” as drifting itself is derived from rally, but could also be easily said that drifting is how an F1 car was driven pre-1983 before the down-force era.
Be it a scale version of drifting, HPI Racing provided 1/10th scale radio controlled cars prepared in drift fashion. 1/10th scale takes a tenth of the physical land space and space is a premium at the XGames! 1/10th scale cars also are 1/100th or even 1/1,000th of the personal risk factor, but while there is the negative-gain in personal risk, the actual radio controlled cars triple fold in the positive-gain in abuse they received!
A total of six HPI RACING Sprint 2 Drift cars fitted with the new T-Drift Tires received positive gain in abuse over the course of four solid days. 800+ people of the widest varied skill levels where able to try their skills of drifting on a pre-designed course. Many where first time drivers, many very familiar with the radio controlled hobby and while majority had heard of drifting or even seen drifting, many wondered… many wished… HPI provided first opportunities. A great number of first time drivers concluded that while drifting was very fun, as evident with the many smiles, they also stated the skill level needed to artfully drift a radio controlled car around the course was rather high, thus the sport of drifting gained respect, even if it was at 1/10th scale. |
