H2OI 2020

For those who are not familiar with H2Oi. It was an official event in Maryland, where most Volkswagen and Audis would be parked in a field and their owners would get out and just chill. However, there is an unofficial car show/event where people would come from different parts of the states (mostly Eastern States), and drive around Ocean City’s long strip, park wherever parking spots are available, and cause a ruckus throughout the day (more chaotic at night). This post will talk about the unofficial event. Starting from 2011, at the end of September, Ocean city expects to find a large number of people who want to experience the fun and chaotic experience that H2Oi offers. Though there are some who arrive in Ocean City as early as the beginning of the week, its more common to arrive on Thursday or Friday. Each night gets more crazier and crazier. That is where Saturday comes in. Saturday is when you will see the most people and cars on the strip. Now, comes Saturday night. This is only time H2Oi is worth coming to. In the beginning of H2Oi, police officers were still unfamiliar with this event and did not have the proper forces or advanced knowledge of the event to handle the chaos. My first year of attendance was 2014. You would expect that by now maybe the officers have gotten what they needed to enforce safety. However, it was quite the show, and is still my favorite to this day. Each night was filled with burnouts, loud cars, stanced cars, and much more. I could write a whole blog about it, but my focus is on H2Oi 2020. Since 2014, I have been attending H2Oi except for 2015 (due to Hurricane Sandy).

Each year has gotten stricter and more police offers were able to enforce stricter rules. However, 2020 was a year most would probably not have enjoyed compared to the other years. In the beginning of the week of H2Oi posts from different social media outlets showed attendants cars getting towed simply for being too low. Cars were also getting towed for being too load, illegal tint, or even the slightest bit of camber. Worst of all, some people reported that their fines were reaching close to $1000. This was simply way too much, and it was obvious OCPD were doing this to deter as much people as possible. Problem was, it actually worked. That and of course the current COVID-19 pandemic. I arrived on Friday and noticed that there were less cars on the road then ever before. I knew that it was because of the 2 factors mentioned 2 sentences ago. Regardless of this, people still attended, and there was still ‘a lot’ of people. Throughout Friday and Saturday, police officers were literally stationed on almost every single block on the strip. Especially on 30th-75th, which is where most of the action occurs. At night, there were a lot of flashing lights of police cruisers that no corner was dark. The police’s presence was truly more than expected. This of course prevented a lot of people flooding the streets and causing less traffic (even though there was still traffic).

This year, however, saw a bit of a rowdier crowd, and I’m not talking about burnouts and people flooding the streets and sidewalks with banana suits (H2Oi 2019). I’m talking about throwing bottles at police officers and attacking an officer kind of rowdy. People were also getting into fights with one another. This year’s event simply had a lot of idiotic people who didn’t care about at least having some restraint. This kind of behavior showed up on the news in different states. Even though every year H2Oi gets some news time, this year was all about the behavior that occurred. I plan on giving H2Oi another chance. If it is a repeat of this year, then I’m most likely ending my yearly attendance. In the end however, I did see some nice cars.