Click here for page two: pictures of the HPI crew!
HPI has sent most of the wrecking crew to Chicago, Illinois, to participate in the RCHTA National Model and Hobby Show! RCHTA stands for the Radio Control Hobby Trade Association, a group of industry professionals that organizes shows like this, and much more. To read more about RCHTA (pronounced RICK-tah), see their website at http://www.rchta.org.
The National Model and Hobby Show is the largest show in the United States and North America for the hobby association. We can't tell you the square footage right now of the Rosemont Convention Center (where the show has been held for several years), but it's BIG, and it's FULL! Radio control companies are not the only ones that make it to this once a year event, although that will be the focus of our coverage here. Also in attendance are companies that specialize in radio control airplanes and boats, and scale models of all sorts (car, boat, plane, military figures, etc.). Railroad replica companies actually make up at least half of the overall show's population, and more companies specialize in other varied segments of the hobby, such as collectible trading card games.
Anyway, enough of the talk, let's get to our first area of coverage: The HPI Racing Booth!
The 1999
HPI Racing Booth
This year's booth is at least twice the size of last year's (and that
was twice the size of the booth the year before), and we still don't have
room to show all of our kits, accessories and bodies! A few new features
of this year's booth include a small carpet track that we are running
demonstrations on. The RS4 Mini cars and the RS4 Rally have proven to
be the best here. Another great new feature is the Straightaway, a long
display area where we can have many cars laid out. The HPI Tower is getting
people's attention from far away, and of course the lure of new kits,
parts and bodies is enough to keep people coming back for more!
The Straightaway
Apart
from the large tower dominating the booth area this year (see the pictures
above), the long "back straight" section of the booth is the
most noticeable feature of the HPI booth. It features about 20 HPI cars
and bodies on display, in a double line, as if they are drafting each
other down the long straight of some large race track! At the front of
the pack are four of our Ford Taurus stock cars: the #75 Remington "camo"
car, painted by our own Troy Lyman, the #10 Tide car, naturally that was
Kent's work, the #94 McDonald's car, an impeccable job by Ken Cook, a
freelance body painter from San Diego, and the Cheerios/Betty Crocker
car of Steve Baker. Behind the stock cars are the Super and 1/10 scale
Lamborghini Diablo bodies. The Super Nitro Diablo was also painted by
Ken Cook. In the next row is our new Nissan Skyline R34 GTR body in 200mm.
Yes, it does come with the huge GTR decals! Near the Skyline is the new
Toyota Supra wide body for Nitro cars. We know that our body set comes
with the red and white Denso decals, but we'll have details on the web
site soon about how to get the cool Castrol decals you see on the body
here! The Castrol Supra was detailed by Frank - it just came out too good
to run!
Around the HPI Tower
Visible
for many aisles, the HPI Tower draws fans and customers to the booth,
so they can check out our latest releases and scoop the upcoming kits!
The HPI Tower is backlit on all four sides, with pictures of the newest
bodies in the HPI stable at the top! In the front of the Tower, facing
our race track and the "main street" walkway, are two of our
latest creations: the Nitro RS4 MT 4WD truck, and a brand new vehicle
you can read about below!
Next
to the Nitro MT is the 1/8 scale Proceed racing car (one built, and one
with radio gear and engine/pipe) and the new Saleen Mustang body. Saleen
(based in Irvine, CA) was gracious enough to provide us with videos of
their car in action at LeMans and other races, and our TV monitor plays
the tapes during the day so customers can see how their scale car can
look on the track!
Around
to the right we have a layout of all the Nitro Star and Nitro Star Pro
engines, next to a cool new display of all of HPI's tires, inserts and
inner foams. The Nitro RS4 2 chassis is also at this table, as well as
a painted example of the new BMW 328Ci Coupe body, which looks really
good!
Continuing
around, we have two Super Nitro RS4 kits facing the Straightaway. One
kit, topped with the new Chevrolet Corvette C5-R body, is a box stock
example of the kit, except for the chrome mesh wheels. The other kit is
a full-option Super Nitro with our newest Super-size body, the Toyota
GT-One! This is definitely the best-handling Super-size body we've ever
driven! The body will come with a new front shock mount and rear body
mounts because the body is so low to the ground. We'll have it available
in kit form as well, stay tuned to the site for details!
Wrapping
up the tour of the HPI Tower is a computer monitor, keyboard and mouse,
behind which you will most likely find Frank. He's adding hobby shop listings
to the Dealers page and talking with many of the people that have sent
him email in the past. "Semi-live" updates are also being done
from the show's floor, with uploads to the web site happening in the evening.
Tonight's upload is an exception! :)
Something you already know about,
and something you didn't...
You
may have seen a mention of it in the FAQ. You may have even discussed
it on the R/C Forum. You probably have the movies of it on your hard drive!
Yes, folks, the Nitro MT is real, and it's here! We actually have two
examples of it - one that is a "show truck" for people to look
at (and magazines to photograph), and another that is a running example,
the same truck you've seen in the movies from the R/C Forum! We've already
run the truck a couple of times on a specially made dirt lot in the convention
center, and both times it's started on the first or second pull and run
all the way through one tank as distributors have checked out the truck
for themselves. New details: The Nitro RS4 MT will
have a tentative delivery date of February 2000, and will arrive in kit
form. It will be available in RTR form later int the year. Pricing is
unavailable at this time.
Now
for the "something you didn't know about". HPI will be releasing
a 2WD Nitro-powered truck as a Ready To Run (RTR) kit in the first half
of 2000! That's right, we'll have a racing-inspired 2WD gas truck ready
to go out of the box and in a nearby vacant lot or racing track! So far
the kit is SO new that we don't even have a name for it, much less part
number and pricing information. As always, stay tuned!
Click here for pictures of the HPI Racing crew!