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January 19, 2008.
The first event of the 2008 HPI/HB Challenge, Drift@hpi, featured some of the most intense tandem battles ever as the competitors battled it out for top honors. In attendance were also a group of special HPI/HB Asian distributors and Asian RC Press that were checking out the event as part of they're tour of HPI USA.
The first order of the day was the Concours event, with Jay Williams and his awesome AE86 creation taking the prize. This was followed by qualifying rounds to seed the competitors in they're respective brackets.
The first tandem battle event of the day featured the HPI/HB staff battling it out on Type-T Drift shod machines.
The field included past championship winning drivers as well as HPI/HB R&D drivers. In the end it came down to a battle between HPI USA's Thad Garner and Touge Knights' Randy Villanueva (subbing for HPI USA's Andrew Hilman  ), with Thad coming out ahead and taking home the first prize.
A new event for this year is the individual Time Attack, which gave everyone a chance to show off they're need for speed. Early leader James Revilla set the mark with a 10 second lap, he stayed on top until HPI R&D's Thad Garner posted a 9.6 second lap with the TG Escudo Time Attack Special. Just as it looked like 9.6 seconds was going to win it, HPI Japan's Daisuke Yoshioka's AE86 Trueno laid down a 9.2 second lap to win the day. The highest non HPI/HB time was James Revilla of RCDriftclub with a 10 second lap.
Next was the E10 Spec Class. By far the easiest and friendliest class to enter with each competitor driving spec E10 Chassis. After some intense battles, Jon Lawrence took the win and went home with an HPI Sprint 2 Sport Drift Kit.
The Sport T-Drift Class was next and after some fast and furious battles, Groovy Drift's Benjamin Angeles took home a brand new HPI Soarer Nitro 3 RTR Drift kit!
The largest class of the day was the Expert T-Drift Class, with all the teams represented, this class saw plenty of "one more time" battles... After the dust had settled it was Touge Knights/hpi's Marc Marquez taking home the win with James Revilla of RCDriftclub taking second place (Marc graciously forfeited the first place prize, and James Revilla took home the Cyclone WCE Edition).
The fastest Drift class of the day was the Expert Type-R class where competitors turned in they're Type-T Drift tires for HPI Type-A Drift Radials! Each battle was a display in high speed Drift precision (..and the occasional high speed spill!). Jhon del Mundo took top honors after a textbook display of high speed drifting.
All in all it was a fantastic day of drifting fun for everyone. We would like to thank all the participants and congratulations to all the winners! See ya'll at the next event.
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