Desert Dingo Racing

Author: Jim

  • That was a helluva thing

    That was a helluva thing

    And people wonder why I  don’t want to be in the car.

    We’ve had better race weekends, but at least we didn’t catch on fire like Petfinder did. Nor did we blow an oil cooler like CBCFS Racing did and spend all night and most of a morning fixing it. Nor did we lose a tire in the middle of a race like Meeker Motorsports did. Come to think of it, we did lose a tire in the middle of a race.

    But Meeker won. And so did Petfinder. And so did CBCFS.  Green Booger didn’t break at all and they beat us, too. We somehow eked out a third place finish in the morning races. We have work to do before the  Yerington 300 Memorial Day weekend. But we’ll get it done.

    Ok, so here’s the recap.

    We show up at Prairie City SVRA before pretty much anyone else Friday morning. Then it started raining. By Friday afternoon the thunder and lightning set in. Saturday morning was perfect for mud bogging. They brought in the Cat.

    VORRA opted to cancel racing for Saturday to get the track groomed for Sunday. Good Day Sacramento came by to interview off road racing legend Rod Hall, who took the reporter for a ride in his race Hummer to demonstrate the dangers of applying lipstick while driving.

    Then Melissa Cabral, who is great, conducted an orchestra of off road race vehicles via horns and engine revving, (including 1107) and it actually worked. A big group of folks who saw the live broadcast came out for Sunday’s racing.


    With Saturday to kill, a lot of teams focused on race prep. Not us, for the most part. Lynda made hula hoops.

    Tebowing before a hula hoop challenge.

    Garland gave hit his best, but lost 50 cents to the kid in the red hoodie.

    Class 11 needed to represent so Saturday night was a five course meal that included a French wine and cheese tasting, stew and dessert courtesy of CBCFS and Desert Dingo. We kicked off Sunday morning breakfast courtesy of Desert Dingo’s Normal and R-Pod‘s breakfast burritos. That was followed by Lynda singing the National Anthem (video to come) and the racing start.

    In the course of six 12-lap races we got black flagged for engine noise (a mis-adjusted valve nut), multiple valve gasket burn throughs, a shattered spindle that sent a right rear tire flying and a host of electrical gremlins. We didn’t finish a single moto and we often joined them in mid race.

    I have no idea what I’m doing here.

    I’m sure someone got actual shots of us on the race course when we weren’t broken down. I’ll post them if someone sends them. In fact Dennis Hollenbeck has a great photo set from the weekend here.  Here’s a collection of shots from folks on the team.

  • Came for the racing. Stayed for the canapes.

    Came for the racing. Stayed for the canapes.


    Seriously, the Class 11 pits are going to look just like this.

    Update: CBCFS Racing will be hosting a wine and cheese tasting Saturday night and Romy and Jen will be rolling in with hummus, goat cheese, figs and fresh fruit

    When I’m doing the menu, its usually Pop Tarts and coffee for breakfast lunch and dinner, but, fortunately for the team, we’ve got Roxanne, who’s taken the lead on coordinating food for this weekend’s VORRA season opener at Prairie City.

    Here’s the menu for this weekend:

    Friday dinner:
    Roxanne: Marinara sauce with whole wheat pasta
    Dennis & Deb: Camp style potatoes & onions
    Lynda: Big green salad w/ carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, cauliflower, cukes

    Saturday breakfast:
    Roxanne: “Italian” omelot topped with leftover marinara sauce
    Dennis & Deb: Dutch Oven Egg Casserole (Eggs, Potatoes, Onions, Cheese, Bacon, Chorizo)
    Normal & R-Pod: Potatoes, bacon
    Lynda: fresh fruit

    Saturday dinner:
    Roxanne: Black bean chili and tortillas.
    Dennis & Deb: Blasting Baja Spanish Rice
    Jean-Luc: Beef Stew
    Normal & R-Pod: Sauteed vegetables of some sort (seasonal)
    Lynda: Vegetable Soup

    Sunday breakfast:
    Roxanne: Breakfast burritos.
    Dennis & Deb: eggs, chorizo, potatoes
    Normal & R-Pod: Cheddar and bacon omelets (on order), guacamole for the burritos.
    Lynda: Mangoes

    BTW, I snagged the image from one of my favorite TV commercials of all time…

  • Packing for Prairie City

    Packing for Prairie City


    This is what our new tent might look like in a high wind inside a Costco.

    Tonight is packing night as we prepare for this weekend’s racing at Prairie City. Here’s shots of our tubs for electronics, radios, food, racing suits and helmets. Also our Energizer All-In-One Battery, so I don’t drain everyone’s car batteries with the pit radio. Also the pile of stuff for cooking, shelter and a pile of miscellaneous stuff I know I’ll regret if we don’t take it.

    Dixon & Son Tires gave 1107 a full alignment this morning, is on the truck and ready to go. Crusty’s coming by tomorrow to move race fuel from the drum to the 5 gallon jugs. I’ll be dropping off tubs with Dave and Jonah to haul to PC.

     

  • We hit 40,000 mobile app downloads!

    We hit 40,000 mobile app downloads!

    Just in time for our first race of the season at Prairie City this weekend, we cracked the 40,000 download mark for the Desert Dingo Racing iPhone, iPad and Android mobile apps. It’s about 2 to 1 Android vs. iPhone, but that’s down from about 4 to 1 a few months back. Granted, it’s just an aggregation of our blog, Twitter, Youtube and Flickr accounts but you all seem to like it, so thank you.

    Had a great dinner with Paul, Ryan and Jean Luc of CBCFS Racing, which will debut their new Class 11 at Prairie City this coming weekend.

    Looks like we might be on Good Day Sacramento Saturday morning around 8-ish. We’ll also be live streaming whatever we can from the pits via Justin.tv. More updates to come.

    And we’re still huge in Saudi Arabia.

  • Thanks to Dixon & Son Tires

    Thanks to Dixon & Son Tires

    Dusty Dixon and his team are exceptionally patient with me when I offload a pickup’s worth of tires and rims and say “I need these yesterday.”

    I did drop off a truckload of race tires and VW rims on Friday and Dusty and his guys made sense of the notes Bob wrote on each rim with a Sharpie. Crusty picked them up Saturday morning and we’ve got a full set of race-ready tires and rims.

    Dusty and Dave Dixon have been helping us out for years. We’ll be using tires this coming weekend that Dave personally grooved for us. I’ve said it before, but we wouldn’t be racing if it weren’t for the support of our sponsors. We’re taking 1107 back down to Dixon & Son on Wednesday for a pre-race alignment. Then it’s off to Prairie City.

    I was gone this weekend, but Bob and Crusty got 1107 road mobile. This week we go through packing crates. I’m putting the finishing touches on our movement plan (courtesy of Paul Hartl, who’s much more organized than we are). Roxanne and I arrive midday Friday to rope off space for all four Class 11s racing next weekend. We all camp together.

    This week is mostly packing. 1107 is ready.