Winning Time

by Sean McDevitt

In June 2023, Horizon Hobby acquired Trinity Racing. While the radio control community was surprised by this turn of events, one person knew exactly what she was doing and knew it was exactly what her father wanted.

Angelina Provetti, daughter of Trinity Racing co-founder Ernie Provetti, had taken over running the company after her father passed away. Since her father’s passing, she was preparing the company for her father’s final wishes—to be sold to Horizon Hobby and keep the Trinity Racing name alive.

Founded in 1980 by Provetti and Anthony (“Tony P.”) Przybylowicz in Brooklyn, NY, Trinity specializes in creating world-class brushless motors, battery technology, and accessories for RC racers who demand the absolute best in performance.

Provetti said, “My Dad started in slot cars, and there was a track near his house in Brooklyn, and he got really into that and was so obsessed with it. His goal was to win the nationals of slot cars. He ended up doing that, and the day he did that, he quit because he said, ‘You can’t get any better than that.’”

His Trinity co-founder, Tony P., was a slot car legend himself. Tony had a race team in slot cars and built chassis for people. It was Tony P. who got Ernie Provetti into racing, and they became fast friends.

After dominating slot car racing, the duo decided to make a mark in radio control, and Trinity Racing was born.

“My Dad was very much into sports and obviously racing,” said Provetti. “He was mostly into F1. Once he saw those machines firsthand, he wanted Trinity to be run like a high-performance race team. He wanted to have this good reputation and be a well-oiled machine. He just took that concept and ran with it, making him and Trinity look different.”

The connection between Angelina and Trinity began at an early age.

“I’ve pretty much always been around it. Since I turned 10 or 11, my Dad had me in the building, packaging products and other odds and ends. When I got into high school, it was time to go to work every day after school and head to Trinity.”

As Angelina got older, she became her Dad’s assistant helping him with whatever he needed. In 2020, with the COVID lockdowns, she was able to spend a great deal of time with her Dad, which meant more freedom to understand the inner workings of Trinity. She learned about foreign vendors, electronics, and various ins and outs of the business. Post Covid it progressed into an ability to run Trinity Racing after her father passed away.

Spending all that quality time with her father allowed her to see him in a different light, especially as she accompanied him to various racing events.

“He would always take my brother, my sister, and myself to the races early on,” said Provetti. “And just seeing the reaction on other people’s faces when they met my Dad and just watching him be as charismatic and full of life in the industry as he was. People just respected him and thought the world of him, and every kid thinks, my Dad is my hero. Still, when you see the masses paint your Dad to be this amazing person, which he was, I think that was the best part because knowing something he made from nothing became what it is today.”

Her father never met a stranger, even when they might have been one. Provetti recalled several times when people approached him at an event or in the pits and acted like they knew him for twenty years. Angelina once asked him who a particular person was after a friendly exchange, and he would smile and say, ‘I don’t know.’

“He just had this way about him that everybody wanted to talk to him,” said Provetti. “Everybody wanted to meet him. They wanted to be around him because he just wasn’t afraid to take a risk, and he’d just be having fun because that’s who he was at the end of the day. He just wanted to win.”

One of the things Provetti was most proud of was how Trinity was always on time with the next big thing. She said Trinity, for example, would release a motor; it would be the number one motor in the market, and then understand the lifespan of that motor before moving on to the next bigger and better motor.

“My Dad’s main focus was winning and creating the fastest motor and setup. Whenever he would launch a new motor or product, when it got down to the racing, and his drivers won, he’d always be the first person to tell you or make a post on Facebook saying Trinity is number one. That was him to his core.”

For Angelina, the sale of Trinity to Horizon was a natural progression of the company’s destiny. A destiny her father had been thinking about for a long time.

“Before my Dad passed away, we had a conversation about what Trinity would become, and he was talking about Horizon long before he wanted to sell,” said Provetti. “I feel like he knew that’s what he wanted to do. So when push came to shove, it was a no-brainer. My Dad wanted Trinity to be sold to Horizon. So that’s exactly what happened.”

Provetti believes her Dad had felt this way because of the history and longevity of Horizon Hobby. She said, “You don’t want your company to be acquired by somebody, and then they go under, and that’s the end of that. I think he really saw the longevity and wanted that for the company. My Dad was always about growing Trinity. Now, it’s going to continue to be here without him. He wanted somebody who would be able to carry it on forever.”

Provetti is proud of Trinity and her father’s dream.

“I feel like when I look back on it, I think about my Dad coming from nothing and taking a $1,000 loan from his grandfather, starting the business, and to see it become this worldwide phenomenon is cool. You can do anything you want. You can achieve your dreams, and he’s a perfect example of that. My Dad’s story is really inspiring, and Trinity is just a reflection of my Dad.”

Horizon Hobby is proud to carry on the winning traditions of the Trinity brand and continue to offer industry-leading motors and batteries for the RC race community.