Desert Dingo Racing

Author: Jim

  • Fly the USA 500 in Google Earth

    Fly the USA 500 in Google Earth

    It’s just like being in the race car.

    VORRA has released the GPS file of the 2012 USA 500 course. I’ve reformated it to Google KML and am “flying” the course in Google Earth. If you’re interested, here’s how you can, too.

    1. Download the USA 500 KML file.
    2. Load it in Google Earth.
    3. Click on the triangle to the left of Temporary Places.
    4. Click on the triangle to the left of GPS device.
    5. Click on the triangle to the left of Tracks.
    6. Click on the triangle to the left of Usa500.
    7. Click on Path.
    8. Look down toward the bottom of the left column for a little icon of three diamonds connected by a line. Click the triangle to the right of that icon.

    It’s just that simple. One note – the flyover starts a few miles into the course. If you’re a total nerd, you can bump up the flight speed by selecting Google Earth Preferences, click on the Touring tab, and plug 269 into the Speed box.

    Roxanne and I are putting the finishing touches on the logistics book for the race.

  • Close Encounters at the USA 500

    Close Encounters at the USA 500

    The fat guy says we’ll have tunes for pre-running courtesy of Rugged Radios.

    Two weeks to the USA 500 and we’re getting close. 1107 is race ready now, giving us the luxury of taking time to improve a few things.

    Crusty welded in some new brackets that will keep our tool and parts bags from flying around in the car and improve ergonomics and calf definition for driver and co-driver.

    I chased a couple of electrical bugs and painted some rims.

    Before.

    10 minutes later.

    I actually did seven.

    Also we bolted on enough lights, courtesy of TrailGlow, that we look like something out of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

    We will be buttoning up 1107 next weekend and Crusty and Dave head out for Reno Thursday morning July 12.

  • A Dingo Chrestomathy 2

    A Dingo Chrestomathy 2



    We have a similar color scheme at least.

    A few weeks ago I went on a rant about some white truck driving around Scotts Valley with “1107 Chase” on a side window and I had no idea who it was. (For the uninitiated, 1107 is our car and any support vehicle must have “1107 Chase” on it to designate it as an official support vehicle).

    My associate Dick Paquette pointed out that we don’t have a lock on the 1107 designation, as shown in the following images that I’m sure he googled.

    I am thankful Carrol Shelby never heard of Class 11. 75 hp?! Srsly?

    Emerson Fittipaldi with a two-engined VW? Who can compete with that? Kenyon Whetsel is freaking me out.

    If you didn’t watch the 24 Hours of LeMans, this video captures the drive that every racer in every motorsport brings to what they do. In LeMans, if you walk away from the car a certain distance, you are out of the race. Satoshi Motoyama spent two hours trying to get the Nissan DeltaWing sufficiently roadworthy to get it back to the pits. He couldn’t do it. At the 2008 Baja 1000, I had to radio Weatherman and say we were out of the race. When the team, who’d worked for two hours to get 1107 running again, heard that, we all hung our heads.

    Holy crap. The Tijuana Bugfest.

    Lastly, congratulations to Julie Pierce, who has served as a nurse at SCORE races, in her first race with her truck ever on Tuesday.

  • Prepping for the USA 500

    Prepping for the USA 500



    This is how we roll.

    One month out and we’re fully focused on prep for our second longest race of the year, VORRA’s USA 500. We expect the course to be about a 100 mile loop, which means we’ll need two pits for driver swapouts and fueling, depending on what we figure our fuel use is during pre-running. Roxanne and I will be managing Pit One. Ryan and Alyshia of Team Drake Racing will be handling Pit Two.

    There is no way in the world we could collect the telemetry they get off cars running the 24 Hours of LeMans, but thanks to Jen, Romy and Khaled, we’ll be collecting everything we can at this race to figure out what we can do with it.

    There are some interesting things in the works for the 500. But they are still in the works. For now, here are some spy photo shots courtesy of DDR stalker (self-proclaimed) Joe Workman. Thank you Joe.

  • Ok, still second in season points

    Ok, still second in season points

    Who writes about the beauty of the desert?

    We just got word we actually finished third, not second at the Yerington 300 due to a glitch in VORRA’s transponder system. I don’t like this news, but we won’t take second place in a race due to a technical error, so congrats to Scott Weir and team for their second place finish at the Yerington 300.

    After nine hours of racing, the top the cars were separated by 90 seconds. Amazing. Thankfully, we’re still second in season points. But first place is farther away now.

    Next up, at the Baja 1000 back in 2007, I shot some photos of a little kid whose t-shirt was signed by just about every race team. I remember him because he was shy and I remember autographing his shirt and taking his picture in front of the car.

    Somehow his dad, Carlos Bravo, found that image, emailed me and asked for a hi-res version. I had 10 images and sent them. His son is older now, they have a race car. I’m looking forward to meeting them in Ensenada in November at the Baja 1000.

    Tom Horgan’s photos from the Yerington 300    .