Desert Dingo Racing

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  • Biggest Bike Relay in the World

    There are plenty of people working hard to promote diabetes awareness and raise money for research.

    This morning, AC Cyclebetes started their relay across the Canada from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, covering over 10,000 kilometers. Their goal: to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundaion and to raise awareness about diabetes.

    This quest started when Vancouver businessman Kyle Balagno promised his daughter Taylor he would do everything in his power to help find a cure for her juvenile (type one) diabetes before her 18th birthday. He had 6 years.

    That commitment spawned Team H2V, a 5 man team who cycled across Canada at break neck speed in September 2007. They made the epic ride in just 8 days, set a Guinness World Record and raised $800,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in Canada (JDRF).

    Accu-Chek Cyclebetes is the legacy of Team H2V – built on themes of community, responsibility, leadership and promise.

    You can follow the teams progress on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or track their ride on the satellite map. To learn more about about other ways you can help them Deliver on a Promise, visit the Cyclebetes website.

    Go Team!

    Update: Concurrently, Cyclebetes Australia, a team of 15 people on road bikes, is riding non-stop from Cairns – Melbourne, raising money for Juvenile Diabetes research in Australia (JDRF). Their goals is to complete the route in seven days, raise $1 million, and set a Guinness Book Record. Along with the core ride there are Community Rides in each major city (Bris, Syd & Melb), wherein the community is invited to participate as individuals or groups. Follow @cyclebetesaus on Twitter, check them out on Facebook, and visit their website to learn more.

    Here’s their promotional video on behalf of the JDRF.

  • Stripping for Montreal

    Last photo of the old decals before being stripped off for painting.

    We’ve got a really tight schedule between the SNORE 250 Oct. 2-4 and shipping the car to Montreal for the World Diabetes Congress Oct. 18-22 and then heading south for the Baja 1000 the second week in November. As a result, we’re giving the car its annual paint job now, touching it up and adding decals before shipping to Montreal.

    I got the decals stripped today and sanded down most of the body. Shawn’s coming by tomorrow to do more bondo and paint prep and at some point before the 250 we’ll do final painting.

    Got a cool announcement planned for Monday.

    Stripped for body work. 1117 is in back.

  • Word in Your Hand

    Last fall, prior to the Baja 1000, we took the car to Holly Oak Elementary School in San Jose where Ms. Battistella’s students painted their palms in red, blue or gold paint and pressed them on the fenders, decorating the car with their handprints. It was absolutely beautiful.

    Those of you touched by diabetes know the significance of the hand.

    This video, produced by TuDiabetes in 2007, puts the focus on hands and hearts. Members of TuDiabetes were invited to “Write a word in your hand describing how you feel about diabetes, take a photo showing the hand with the word, and share it with others.”

    Manny Hernandez says, “We wanted to empower people touched by diabetes to express themselves and let the world know what it is like to have diabetes. The result of the project was this video including some of the 120+ photos submitted with music by one of the members too.”

    Please, don’t wait until World Diabetes Day to learn more and help teach others about diabetes.

    Update: TuDiabetes members share how they feel about life with diabetes in the new “Word In Your Hand” video:

  • Bilstein and the Ensenada package

    We love our Bilstein shocks.

    We’ve been with Bilstein since we started building the car and Joel and his team with the Off Road Motorsports group have been tremendously supportive of our efforts. They just upgraded us to their “Ensenada Package” for the KC Hilites race and the results were great.

    So when Joel asked us if he could use an image for a flyer for the shocks, we naturally said yes. You can check out the results here.

  • Resurrecting 1117

    Don’t call it a comeback…

    There is a growing chance that we’ll race a revitalized 1117 at SNORE’s KARTEK Western Desert Challenge on November 14. The situation is that we’ll use 1107 for the South Point SNORE 250 on October 3-4, then haul it back, spruce it up and put it on a truck trailer for the trip to Montreal for the World Diabetes Congress October 18-22.

    It will return sometime the first week of November, but by then we’ll be focused on prepping it for the Baja 1000, for which we leave on November 16 or 17 (the actual race starts on Saturday, November 21). Naturally we don’t want to risk trashing 1107 a few days before the 1000, so we are looking at trailering 1117 out to Las Vegas, crossing the start/finish line at the Kartek race and going as far as we can to collect season points.

    Then we trailer 1117 back, load up 1107 and head for points south.

    Today I enlisted the help of our next door neighbors, Jim and Sylvia, and Jo, who had to evacuate from the Lockheed Fire, to help me move 1117 and 1107 around so I can do a little work on them before turning them over to the team.