Japanese Title: Choo-Choo! The Great Trailmon Race
As the kids hitch a ride on a Trailmon, they start to attempt to have conversations with the Spirits in their Digivices. The Trailmon drops the kids off at a station, refusing to go all the way to the Rose Morning Star because he’s distracted by a “yearly festival”, and when the kids explore the town, they find that there’s a great Trailmon race going on. Since the Trailmon need drivers, as soon as a starving Izumi hears that the prize for the Trailmon race has something to do with hamburgers, she signs up to be a driver. A BlackWereGarurumonnote and his friend Dogmonnote take the last remaining train before Izumi can, but the presence of BlackWereGarurumon causes all of the other drivers to bail out on their Trailmon, allowing all of the kids and Neemon to take one Trailmon each.
The Trailmon race starts, although Neemon’s Trailmon, Kettle, ends up retiring when Neemon falls asleep. Junpei’s Trailmon, Racoon Dog, is in the lead, with ShadowWereGarurumon’s Buffalo and Izumi’s Mole following, but when ShadowWereGarurumon gets in the lead, Junpei responds by spirit evolving to Blitzmon and getting back ahead (with spirit evolving having done absolutely nothing), but a Raremon blocks the way and causes Blitzmon to revert to Junpei with his stench. The Raremon stops Racoon Dog from moving, and the rest go ahead to try and take the lead from Buffalo.
Takuya’s Worm manages to start getting in the lead, and ShadowWereGarurumon slams on Buffalo trying to get him to go faster. Izumi’s Mole starts to catch up but feels very tired, and Tomoki’s Angler and Kouji’s Franken end up passing them; Worm and Buffalo get to a bridge, where after it lies only two tracks, and Dogmon blows up the bridge. Kouji and Angler manage to get over the broken bridge with some power, but Tomoki and Izumi are forced to spirit evolve; Chakmon manages to remake a bridge with his ice powers, but Mole falls off the tracks and into the canyon, and is only barely saved by Fairymon, who reverts to Izumi and decides to call it quits.
Takuya and Worm press on and find that ShadowWereGarurumon’s Buffalo had entered the same track in an attempt to push them off. Takuya is sent flying into the canyon below, but Chakmon saves him. Takuya spirit evolves to Agnimon and leaps back onto Worm, starting a Traintop Battle with ShadowWereGarurumon and Dogmon. Kouji, in turn, leaps down from his Franken onto Worm and spirit evolves to Wolfmon, assisting in fighting off the two of them, but Agnimon tells him not to interfere; Dogmon begins to destroy the breaks on Kouji’s Franken, and despite Wolfmon’s attempts to save him, the two are sent flying down a canyon and have to be saved by Chakmon. Unfortunately, Chakmon is only able to do so much, and Wolfmon slide evolves to Garmmon in order to save Chakmon, Angler, and Franken, with all four of them now out of the race.
The race, now a one-on-one between Takuya’s Worm and ShadowWereGarurumon’s Buffalo, brings them to a cave that Worm explains used to be a mine. Dogmon uses a bomb and derails Agnimon and Worm, and as the oil flows out of Worm’s engine, some nearby PetiMeramon note begin to set fire to it...
Buffalo takes the lead, but Agnimon responds by slide evolving to Vritramon, using his own power to propel Buffalo on the tracks and barely escaping the gasoline explosion. Vritramon uses his power of flame and breathes it into Worm, allowing him to breathe fire at Buffalo, and Buffalo, unable to take it any further, stops, allowing Worm to take the lead and first place. The kids are awarded their prize, which turns out to be...not a hamburger, but an invitation to the Hamburger Digimon village, to the disappointment of Izumi and the amusement of the others.
Tropes
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Averted. BlackWereGarurumon isn't called out on his antics by anyone except the heroes and his cheating doesn't slow him down at all.
- Explosion Propulsion: How Takuya and Worm get out of the abandoned mine.
- Expy: The dub uses BlackWereGarurumon and Dogmon to reference Dick Dastardly and Muttley.
- Eye Catch: Takuya and Kouji’s variants are shown for this episode.
- Filler: There is really nothing that happens in this episode that can be said to affect the rest of the main plot in any way. The Hamburger Village invitation at the end certainly does connect it to the next episode...which is also filler.
- Palette Swap: Piddomon is an Angemon with pink leather instead of blue and a single pair of wings instead of three.
- Wacky Racing: The whole point of this episode.
