The 2019 Dirt Nitro Challenge was the most difficult race I have attended so far in my life, and also the most fun. I want to start by thanking raceAKA and Team Trinity for making the finest products and providing outstanding service on and off the track. I would also like to thank Buddy Blacksmith and Benjamin Hanson for all the help pitting, you guys are great! Thanks to the TLR and AKA crew with all the help on setup! Thanks to Jeff and Shara Hurley for help keeping me fed in the pits, those sandwiches were so good. I want to thank God for blessing me with the ability to spend 5 days of my life playing with my toys in the dirt.
Here is a shot of the track on the first morning. The calm before the Storm.
Here is a shot of my buggies in the beginning of practice on Wednesday. Everyone was clean and I was bright eyed and bushy tailed. The something happened...
The storm came and flooded the track. The temperature of the track and air kept changing so much is was very hard to keep up with the shock oils.
This is what happens when there is too much water...
The track was fairly easy to drive on during practice, but as the race progressed, things got harder and harder. This the Single double right before heading onto the Straight away. There were so many ruts here by the end that is was tough to thread the needle.
Getting onto the front straight felt really good. There were pebbles in the surface and traction was very high here.
After the front straight you were greeted with a large double that tended to get destroyed. The Lip of the jump would throw you all over the place and you ended up with two choices... Take the inside line against the pipe or the outside line against the pipe. Both lines ended in catastrophic failure is jumped improperly.
The previous double led into a massive triple that tested the skills of even the most talented drivers and it tested the durability of every manufacturer. I saw buggies hit the fence, lawn dart, hit the hay bail, bounce off the pipe, and so much more carnage. When you go the jump right though, it made you feel like a rockstar.
After the triple you had a long straight with two singles, then a hair pin turn into a large double. The track surface got so messed up that a lot of people singled this entire section. It was really easy to get this part of the track very wrong.
Then you enter the middle section of the track. This section in particular turned into a minefield of ruts, holes, broken parts and dreams. The fast line through this part changed every 10 races and it was tough to figure out which one was working. I stayed inside as much as possible here and slowed down a bunch. I felt is was better to be slow and on my wheels.
After the minefield, you came up to the front triple. This jump was huge and there were ruts everywhere. The fast line through here had a margin of error of 1-2 inches. if you were slightly off, you usually had some really bad things happen.
Landing the triple led you into this disaster. It may not look bad.. but lets start zooming in.
Tab Wilder Standing next to the rut in our morning track walk.
Enhance.
Enhance. You can see Tabs gian coffee mug is in the huge whole. You could fit an entire 1/8 scale buggy in the hole which made it very hard to get through this section. So many people flipped here it was crazy.
After avoiding all those holes. you turned the corner and hit a large double. The ruts here also would send you flying in some weird ways. I tried to take the outside line here to avoid the bumps.
Survive the double and enter a loomy corner with bumps and holes everywhere.
Survive the last corner and them make the double double rhythm section. This was my favorite part of the track. I love Rhythm style jumps.
Here is a night shot of the track. Those light would blind you a bit when you needed to wear goggle to block the wind/rain.
I was really impressed by the competitions this year, but one person in particular stood out.
Phi Long Nguyen Absolutely crushed the sportsman class this year.
With focus like his, it was very hard to keep up.
The best part about RC racing is that all walks of life can come and race and win. Man, Woman, or child, you must bring you A game or else the child will show up and crush your dreams.
Great Job Phi, I cannot wait to see what big things you do in the future!
I ended up live streaming a lot this year, bot qualifiers and mains. I will post the mains here but feel free to check out my qualifiers as well!
Overall I had a great time at The 2019 Dirt Nitro Challenge. My TLR buggies performed great the entire week and I had such a great time. Until next year.
-Matthew Garcia
