jurgen lautenbach | THEQuagraine

Jurgen is into wine. Not quite in the alcoholic way, but the wine connoisseur kind of way. He introduced me to the art of fine wines last year, and he is still pushing the issue.

I first started racing RC Cars in 1999, and I bought a car with an LRP speed controller. Ever since then I have been running LRP! At some point I somehow got sponsored by LRP, and have been ever since. I have never actually visited LRP, so on the way back from Spain, Max and I decided to drive via Stuttgart, as LRP is located close by.

We had a short meeting after our tour, and a few good laughs. Jurgen on the left was trying to convince me to go to the 1:8th Euros. Andy on the right was just laughing because he is Andy, and that’s what he does.

We were greeted by Andy Kramer, LRP’s own team manager/customer service/R&D/nice guy – guy. I hope they pay him a lot, he is worth it for the brand on the racing side at least! That would be my critique of LRP. For a while there during the last few years it looked like they were drifting away from the racing side. When I stared racing, LRP was this cool world championship winning, innovating brand. Then the last few years I got the feeling it had become this RTR quad copter monster truck backyard bashing lame toy brand. Then not so long ago LRP re-vamped their race image, signed some drivers, got a bit more of a presence going, and I’m back thinking it’s a cool racing brand. Andy is the Nitro guy, and Ales Dobnikar who I met for the first time last year is the Electric guy, and they travel to the big races for support. I hope Jurgen Lautenbach, the founder and GESCHÄFTSFUHRER (CEO) of LRP keeps racing close at heart and maybe even pushes the racing side a bit more as the market improves!

Waiting for the GESCHÄFTSFUHRER

Anyway, Jurgen has come a long way, really impressive if you ask me. From soldering his own shit together in his parents basement to running a multi million euro company both producing and selling their very own products, and distributing others. It takes a lot to pull that off. And not only that, he is also a European Champion in 1:10th offroad. We got to see the multistory office building, all decked out with blue carpets and no photo signs. German, organised, and more than likely efficiently running, and of course non-airconditioned. That’s a thing in Germany. Maybe it was optional, some people had it in their offices.

All the LRP World Championships were listed impressively with plaques in the stairway of the office building.

Just down the road was an even bigger warehouse, far larger than you probably imagine, with rows and rows of pallets and boxes full of RC stuff. We picked up an order I had made for the 1:10th scale offroad euros, and I got a head ache imagining taking care of the stock control, product lists and webshop details for all this stuff!

So there you go, great example of going for it, pulling your sleeves up and getting to work on your passion. It’s possible people, it’s possible!