Bob dropped off the rebuilt engine and our new race transmission. Crusty brought the new boxed trailing arms and we got those installed. Couldn’t find a plate needed for installing a transmission, so that’ll wait til this storm passes.
Some photos from today’s work.
We got hit with a bit of a windstorm on Tuesday. First thing it did lift up the shade structure and push it against the acacias. Then it lifted the shade structure up and smacked it straight down. Then it picked it up again and moved it about seven feet to the right.
While all that was going on, a 70-foot tall acacia went down, missing the new deck (paid for by insurance, along with a new master bedroom when a fir tree hit the house Thanksgiving Day 2010) by about 15 feet.
Roxanne showed me Peter Behrens’ Autoliterate blog, which covers old school pickup trucks. I maintain there’s little more old school than Crusty’s rat rod hauler, so I sent Peter a few shots.
I had no idea there was such a thing as an Advanced Design Chevy truck but that’s what we’re using. Using it to sleep on, cook on, protect us from scorpions and our overall base of operations at most of the desert races.
Crusty’s having some parts fabbed today to finish mounting the power steering pump. He put the kibosh on my request for cup holders.
Peter is on tour doing readings from his new book “The O’Briens.”
Major news coming up next week.
First it was CBCFS Racing up in San Francisco. Now there’s another 11 in the works down in SoCal gunning for its first run at the 1000 this year.
Geoff Curtis is building an 11 for this year’s 1000. He works for Five Axis and has appeared on 30 episodes of Overhaulin’.
A Lexus by Five Axis. Do want.
Geoff is a phenomenal fabber. We talked Class 11. We talked sponsor pitching. We talked the 1000. We made a deal. We’re helping him put together a sponsorship proposal and he’s using his mad skillz to create a new trophy for the Bug Invasion, made of of VW parts instead of an old bowling trophy.
Geoff and crew have a start on their car and a lot of work to do to be ready for the 1000. But if there’s anyone who can put a car together in time, it’s these guys.
Seriously, They didn’t come off the factory floor in Wolfsburg looking this good.
Bob, Crusty and Romy did a marathon session with Scott Sebastian at MetalCraft and got home at 11 p.m. (after leaving at 6 a.m.) with a new, second race transmission.
It is very pretty.
Denise came by today to do some video shooting for our double secret project. Eric Solorzano, who’s won the Baja 1000 nine times in Class 11 called asking how we were doing and gave me an update. He’s moved his race shop back to TJ, he’s running the San Felipe 250 and he’s got a new color scheme to support returning sponsor Tecate.
This is going to be a fantastic year.
On top of everything else, I connected with Jeff Diehl, who did the 2011 Mongol Rally. More on that to come. An ace videographer, he compressed their entire drive across Mongolia into four minutes. It’s fantastic.
Drive Across Mongolia in 4 Minutes from Spots Unknown on Vimeo.
This meme has been beat to death, but I love this. It’s about autocross, which I’ve done, but applies equally well to desert racing. (Click for full size.)
Same for this…
Also click to see full size.
Wait…one more…since I co-drove for most of 2010…
Click for full size. This time with feeling.
But wait! There’s more. Here it is in Spanish, courtesy of fellow co-driver Armando Castro:
