Desert Dingo Racing

Author: Jim

Baja begins

I’m just going to say right off the bat the trip to Mexico is not the most exciting. I departed Felton at 4 a.m. and met Cyrus and adam at 6 a.m. at the Pea Soup Anderson parking lot in Santa Nella (or Gustine if you’re Google Maps).

We took a break at the rest area on Tejon Pass for Cyrus to decal up Chase 2.

From there it was pretty much a straight shot to San Diego where Cyrus picked up Carl at the airport and then scouted junkyards for spare pats for the newly christened Chase 2, a Jeep Cherokee. I, on the other hand, chillaxed with fellow birthday boy Josh Martelli, who, in addition to being a good friend, also supports Desert Dingo Racing.

Monday morning Cyrus and crew bought more stuff and I met the owner of Apollo Satellite Communications to pick up four Iridium Go! satellite uplinks that we use to coordinate chase vehicles during the race and to order race fuel like I seem to forget to do every year. Christy with Amber Race Services has the patience of a saint.

I was hauling so much crap in the Westie the Mexican border guards ran the car through the x-ray machine and then it was a rocket run in the rain to Ensenada, where we set up shop at Dennis and Deb Hollenbeck’s Las Tres Palmas just south of town. Dennis’ H12:One Class 11 has 5 to 1 odds for winning and we’re next at 8 to 1. We’re still waiting for nine time winner Eric Solorzano to pay his entry fee (which he’ll likely do race morning) to see what odds he gets. Still trying to figure out where we can bet on ourselves.

Cyrus’s Jeep Cherokee is powered by that green stuff from “Repo Man.”

I spent the evening vegging and tossing a plastic Coke bottle to our new mascot, Leica, the yard dog.. Cyrus, Adam and Carl added a light bar from our sponsor Lifetime LED and a GPS unit and drilled all manner of hols in the Cherokee.

Dennis and Deb surprised me with a birthday cake last night. It was great cake. I did, however, graciously decline Dennis’ offer of “Mordida”, which is, technically, the offer of the first bite, but usually ends up with someone face down in the cake.

Thank you everyone.

November 10, 2015
Fibercraft sponsors Desert Dingo Racing for 2015 Baja 1000

November 5, 2015, Felton, Calif. — Desert Dingo Racing announced today that Fibercraft has signed on to sponsor the team’s sixth run at the Baja 1000, which takes place November 19-21 in Baja California, Mexico.

Fibercraft is providing Desert Dingo Racing with VW parts and race equipment.

“Fibercraft has been supporting the air-cooled community since it was founded in 1967,” said Desert Dingo Racing co-founder Jim Graham. “They’re tremendously supportive of our race effort and we’ve learned a lot from their experience off roading.”

The Baja 1000 draws more than 100,000 spectators to Ensenada on the Baja Peninsula for Race Week, which culminates with the estimated 300+ teams pushing their race rigs through downtown streets for a daylong tech and contingency parade. This year’s course is an 840-mile loop starting and finishing in Ensenada.

“We’ve been around since the early days of off roading, building some of the first dune buggies for Reno-area enthusiasts,” said Fibercraft co-owner Collin Wiley. “The Dingos have done great work bringing attention back to old school air-cooled racing and we love supporting their race effort.”

Desert Dingo Racing campaigns a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle in off road races in the U.S. and Mexico. The team is the official World Diabetes Day off road race team and works with the International Diabetes Federation to raise money for diabetes education and awareness programs. The team makes the car available for public events and distributes thousands of hero cards with the warning signs of diabetes printed on the back in English and Spanish.

About Desert Dingo Racing
Desert Dingo Racing is based in Northern California and campaigns a 1969 VW Beetle in off road races in the U.S. and Mexico. They are the official World Diabetes Day off road race car and the team raises money for diabetes education and awareness programs sponsored by the International Diabetes Federation. To learn more visit www.desertdingo.com .

About Fibercraft
Fibercraft was founded in 1967 by Jake LaFluer to provide affordable fiberglas dune buggies. Bill and Julee Lott took over in 1981 and expanded the business to include parts for light trucks and to support local racers. Julee Lott and Collin Wiley are now co-owners of Fibercraft. Now on Sunshine Lane in Reno, we’re catering to the VW, truck and off road communities.n. To learn more visit: http://www.fibercraftreno.com .

November 5, 2015
Fly the Baja 1000
SCORE has released the preliminary GPS file of the Baja 1000, which means I’ve been flying the course in Google Earth.

If you want to see what the course looks like by “flying” it, here’s what you do:
1. Download the baja10002015KML file.
2. Launch Google Earth.
3. Open the KLM file in Google Earth.
4. On the Google Earth sidebar on the left, look for the “Places” section and under it look for “GPS Device”. Make sure the box mark next to it is checked.
5. Click the small triangle to the left of “GPS Device” so that a menu appears underneath it. It looks like this:
7. Click the triangle to the left of “Tracks”
8. Click the triangle to the left of “B1K sec 1”
9. Click on “Path”
10. Click this button down below the “Temporary Places” listing.
11. You’ll have to repeat the process for each section of the course – “B1K sec 2”, “B1k sec 3”, etc.
That should get you flying.
October 31, 2015
Robb Pritchard joins Desert Dingo Racing

Robb is a widely published 4×4 ‘journalist’ who lives and breaths everything to do with off-roading, from a background leading expeditions to the driving seat at international events, and holds the enviable record of being the only European to ever stand on the King of the Hammers podium.

He writes for Motorsport.com and Volksworld, among other publications.

He joins Desert Dingos to get the inside story of what it takes to race a 45 year old car on 800 miles of insanely tough terrain and at the same time will also be contributing 100kg of prime Welsh ballast in the co-driver’s seat!

October 27, 2015
Valley of Fire

I’m smyzing.

A whole bunch of us spent three days in Beatty and Valley of Fire, Nevada, shooting video for a thing we can’t talk about yet, but which will be pretty cool. And I think we get to announce it when we’re down in Mexico, winning the Baja 1000.

We finally got to meet 1107B, which made the trip out from GFP Motorsports in Virginia. Thank you Cyrus Roohi.

Crusty in repose.

Between flash floods and a fire at a nuclear waste storage facility aptly named U.S. Ecology, we weren’t able to film at our first location and used a fallback over by the start of the Vegas to Reno race.

Romy did a lot of powersliding.

From there it was an eight hour death march (rerouted because of radiation fire and flashfloods) south to Valley of Fire State Park for another day of driving through a wash that looks like it came straight out of Mars.

We raked away all our ruts when we were done.

I headed out after day three, but the rest of the film crew was at it through the rest of the week. Can’t wait to see the final piece.

So many uses for drones.

You can see all the photos from the shoot here. Onward to packing for the 1000.

October 24, 2015