Supported by HPI, Team Orion, LRP, Avio and Tiger
[ Day: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Finals: Electric | Nitro | That's all folks ]
Introduction
The HPI Challenge has become firmly established as one of the Worlds major Manufactures Race Series in little over 3 years. It’s amazing what can be achieved in such a short space of time, but with the right team and support from HPI World-wide, we’ve managed it, and we’re loving every minute of it... If you’ve raced in the HPI Challenge I’m sure you’d agree that we’ve hit upon a great formula not often successfully achieved in model car race series. We want to race, and want to race in a highly competitive series but we want to have FUN, FUN, FUN while doing it. We’re all racers here at HPI so we know a thing or two about race meeting, so in the early days before the ‘Challenge’ was invented we sat around a table and thrashed out ideas based on creating a new series for HPI cars that was slightly different to other series while retaining the competitive side to the races, after all, we all like racing but at races like the (HPI Challenge) World Finals you want to be racing the best of the best - but we want to enjoy ourselves as well.
Do you think that’s too much to ask…… I didn’t think so either!!
So here we go, the HPI Challenge World Finals 2001 from Orange Town, South of France…
Day 1 - Wednesday 31st October (Travel Day)
Our event started with Jamie Booth and myself having to collect Tatsuro Watanabe from HPI Europe, Tatsuro as everyone knows is the President and owner of HPI which makes him my ‘big boss’. You may wonder why I’m mentioning this, but if anyone has seen my cars it’s not exactly a Ferrari and to bundle myself, Jamie and Tatsuro and of course all our luggage into my little Vauxhall Nova was quite a sight… Off we head for Stanstead airport near London for our short flight to France.
This was part 1 of our adventures, but the first day was well under way for Ricky Copsey one of our British hopefuls who was travelling on a limited budget to the race!! Ricky had contacted me to ask if there was room in our hire car when we arrived at Nimes Airport in France, ‘No problem’ I told him. Ricky actually got an earlier flight than us and was waiting at the airport for us to arrive. First up our flight was delayed by 3 hours so Ricky also had to wait the other side an extra 3 hours, but when we finally arrived at Nimes (which is a tiny airport) there was no sign of Ricky. Time to use the old mobile phones "Ricky, were are you mate, we’re here"…. Ricky it turns out flew to Marseille airport and was no were near Nimes!! A cool £120 taxi later and Ricky meets us at the hotel where we take the piss for about an hour, never mind.. A quick steak later in a local restaurant and we call it a day ready for meeting the organiser at the track Thursday…..
 The Americans didn't let recent events stop them from travelling |
Day 2 – Thursday 1st November (Set Up Day)
Well the idea was that Jamie and myself arrive at the track a day earlier than the rest of the HPI Staff is so we can help with everything being set up the track. When we arrived everything was pretty much finished, banners were up, the track looked awesome and we even had a small carpet track set-up in front of the rostrum for a HPI Micro race, organised for that afternoon – excellent.
The track itself was huge, especially for an indoor track, the surface was unusual being concrete but as everyone found out it was pretty good to race on, had plenty of grip and barely wore the tyres which I was a little concerned about to begin with. By the end of Round 1 of practise Friday everyone was happy.
So back to the Micro race and we’d prepared 10 micro cars for this race as we knew there was a ’bank holiday’ on the Thursday afternoon and that they’re be plenty of people visiting. So after putting the Trophies and a few prizes out on display we got the Micro’s ready and charged them up. Tatsuro, Jamie and myself were only a few of about 30 racers who turned up for this demonstration race. Before we started we were invited to meet the Major of Orange Town and the rest of the crew helping this weekend, this was done with the help of several waiters bringing round some local wine and drinks not to mention some fine nibbles – this is great, fantastic!!
Since everything was set up around the track we took the rest of the afternoon off to race the Micro’s and waited until the rest of the HPI boys turned up. Later we enjoyed an evening meal on HPI. Another early night as Friday was the start of official practise so we had to be down the track at the crack of dawn…
 John Sotriopoulos Greek 1/18th Champion with his better half |
Day 3 — Friday 2nd November (Practise Day)
At 8am the doors were open for the racers and mechanics to start getting ready for the 4 rounds of controlled practise. Like at the HPI Challenge European Finals earlier in September we’d arranged that all competitors in the Electric Classes used ‘Handout Equipment’ which our sponsors HPI (tyres), Team Orion (Motors and Batteries) and LRP (Electronic Speed Controls) supply. The racers have to give us a deposit to use this equipment which of course gets returned when the equipment is returned or kept in exchange for buying the equipment. Basically this works out at a VERY good price to buy a new motor or pack of cells after the event. The LRP Speed Controls are offered to buy for little over £30 after the race because it’s being used and cannot be sold in the shops — it’s no surprise that only a handful of LRP speed controls came back at the end of the event?
Anyway, the usual crystal problems and a little sorting of heats and the practise sessions were underway. Every driver had 4 rounds today although when we started round 4 at 6.30 we did ask if anyone wanted to call it a day or carry on. Asking a silly question really, virtually everyone wanted to carry on and i think it was only the organisers who were tired that wanted to go home!! A quick trip to McDonalds (where we found they served Beer), and all our staff were happy again…
[ Day: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Finals: Electric | Nitro | That's all folks ]