The 2020 Dirt Nitro Challenge was a great start to the racing season for me. I faced tons of challenges, had good times with great friends, made some new friends, and had a great time. This year I decided to bump up to the intermediate class and race along side some of the best up and coming racers from around the planet. In addition to switching classes, I also changed from the TLR 8X platform to the HB Racing D8 platform. I was extremely impressed with how easy to drive the new buggies were and how they easily soaked up the very rough racing surface. I seemed to be plagued with gremlins this year, but thats how racing goes sometimes.
I want to thank Oscar Lopez, Buddy Blacksmith, Lance Hubbard, Jeremy Hase, Gil Losi Jr, and Kevin Tomsovic for all the help in the pits.
So I started off DNC with painting up some fresh bodies for my HB D819rs and E819 buggies.
I ended up painting some bodies last minute for Buddy Blacksmith. He wanted a day time and night time body, so I did my best free hand paint job to date.
A photo of my HB Racing E819 E-Buggy before a qualifier.
A shot of my Hot Bodies D819rs Nitro Buggy before the storm.
Here is a shot of the beginning of the track. This was a MASSIVE rhythm section that cause people lots of carnage.
A shot of the center of the long rhythm section.
The end of the rhythm section led into a vary sharp turn that kind of skewed your judgement on how close you were to the pipe.
A better shot of the sharp turn after the rhythm section. There were large craters through this section, which really unsettled many vehicles.
This is the triple immediately after the sharp turn. You can see the holes in the track leading up to this section of the track. I was very easy to get this part wrong and end up in a hay bail...
After making it over the triple, you had to 180 turn into a large double. Its easy to see all the holes that threw people all over the place.
Once you made the double, you hit a small berm and into this center triple. Most people double singled out here, but the brave racers would rail the berm and hit the triple
After the triple, you entered the center section of the track. This part of the track was bumpy, but you could really get some speed through this section.
After getting through the center section of the track you entered the massive step up. It was easy to get this part wrong and end up in no mans land... This was probably my favorite part of the track since you could pick up easy passes against poorly set up buggies.
After the Step up you faced a bumpy roller into a double. The downside of the double was rough... A lot of people struggled through this section.
After the double, there was a berm into a huge triple. This was a full speed triple that required a ton of speed. It was really satisfying to make the triple, but it was easy to get it wrong. The landing of the triple led into a uphill turn that had tons of large holes. this was a slow is fast type of turn. The turn led into the final jump of the track. It was a large double the led into a slightly off camber landing. Coming off the landing with too much speed led to some bad things... you had to get the speed just right otherwise you hit the beginning of the rhythm section really wrong or you simply flipped over in the middle of the lane.
I had the honor of pitting with the AKA crew down next to HB Racing. All the major manufacturers were out in full force making for some really great competition.
Another shot of some of the other race teams at the event.
A shot of the HB, Mugen, and JQ Pits.
I had a really rough go in qualifying... My E-Buggy fell apart on me due to some king pin issues. I ended up performing a mod which I will cover in a later post. Long story short, I couldn't catch a break. I had poor shock oil choices for the first qualifier, the second qualifier I broke, despite it being my fastest pace of the race, which only left me with my final qualifier.
For Nitro Buggy, after finishing my first qualifier, my brand new Picco Blast engine had a bearing failure, which caused dirt to be sucked into the engine... completely destroying it. I was really bummed since this engine had so much power and performed really well otherwise.Gil Losi Jr helped me get my spare engine running before my second qualifier, but the engine had not been run in over a year and I barely made it through the qualifier.
After Failing to get the spare engine to run properly, and with 30 min left before my final qualifier, I went over to the Mugen pits to see if Adam Drake had any spare engines for sale. I was able to purchase a fully broken in engine, install it in 23 min, and have Adam help me put a tune on the engine all before my qualifier. I was able to make it with 4 min to spare and finally got a decent run on the track with my nitro buggy. If you have not used the OS Speed AD2 engine broken in by Adam Drake himself, you are missing out on some serious performance and convenience. The engine ran perfectly out of the box, and with a slight tune I was on the track racing without issue. I was blown away to say the least. Shout out to Adam Drake for creating such a great engine and providing such a awesome break in service.
One interesting thing was that the race got rained out at one point and all the pros started competing by trying to throw various footballs and Frisbees into two trash cans. Its really funny to see the pros get so competitive of even the most basic of challenges.
The shot of the opposing "team"
The DNC 2020 was a great experience and I am really blessed to have been able to race it again this year.
Here are videos of my Main events! I was able to make One bump in Ebuggy!
Intermediate E-Buggy D main
Intermediate E-Buggy C Main
Intermediate Nitro Buggy G main
Overall I had a great time at The 20202 Dirt Nitro Challenge. My HB Racing buggies performed great in the rough conditions. Thank you to my Sponsors Team Trinity and AKA for all the support. Thank you God for all the blessings!
-Matthew Garcia
