Desert Dingo Racing

Category: 2008 Baja 1000

  • Ok, we’ve had better weekends

    The engine is mocking Bob

    Bob vs. the engine

    This weekend belonged to Bob, Creech, and Shawn. The whole weekend.

    They installed the rebuilt transmission from Bradford Racing in Prunedale. On Saturday they drove nearly two hours to Hollister Hills SVRA for a shakedown test. The video says it all. Drive a couple hundred yards, stop. Check the transmission. Drive another couple hundred yards. Stop. Repeat. It kept popping out of second gear.

    They packed it up after just one run and headed back to Bradford’s place. He drove it. It still popped out. The team trailered the car back to Creech’s and Bob dropped the engine and tranny in a record 75 minutes. They drove it back to Bradford’s and he committed to rebuilding it overnight.

    Creech picked it up this morning and Bob worked his magic to get it re-installed. The engine, coaxed into place by Bob, Creech and me (while Shawn made a rocket run for transmission fluid), went in like buttah. (Bob had his own description for how smoothly it went).

    Creech and Bob took it for a test drive just as it started to sprinkle. No joy. Still popping out of second gear. It really started to rain as we loaded 1102 onto the trailer. An hour drive to Prunedale. Steve says he’ll deliver us a working transmission, whatever it takes.

    The team starts heading out for Vegas and the Battle at Primm on Thursday. A handful of photos here…

  • Flying Bug

    It's big flying bug!

    Who doesn’t get tired of looking at pictures of a flying Bug? This one from the driver’s side.

    There is consensus building that the team will forego the San Felipe 250 and instead race the Battle at Primm in February.

    Thanks to Zach Zander for shooting the photo and Bryan Grant for forwarding it to us.

  • Amazing video that doesn’t include us in it

    Ok, so we didn’t make the NBC broadcast of the Baja 1000. To the best of my recollection, there was a brief glimpse of just one Class 11.

    For those of you who want to relive the glory, Race-Dezert is replaying the entire recording of the Weatherman channel starting late Friday night, coinciding with exactly what was broadcast a few weeks ago. Weathernan is the air traffic controller of everything going on during the race. We usually switch between him and the Baja Pits frequencies. But if you want the big picture of what’s going on, who’s broken down and who’s out of the race, you listen to Weatherman.

    I’ll probably set the alarm to get up at 2:10 a.m. to hear myself radio Weatherman and let him know we are out of the race.

    Here’s how Race-Dezert describes it:

    This Saturday (12-20-08) we will re-broadcast the last Baja 1000 weatherman audio stream. Lots of you guys were at the race and could not experience it the way those in front of a computer did that day. This is your chance.

    We will start replaying it here at the same time of day. For example what happened 10am race day of the Baja 1000 live will be re-played here on RDC on Saturday at 10am. Technically the audio stream will start late Friday night because that’s when we started to record the Weatherman radio channel. However the more relevant content will be Saturday during the day when the SCORE Baja 1000 race unfolds.

    The re-broadcast will be in a better experience then what you may have heard on race day. It’s a recording of what Weatherman hears and responds to while during the race. Often you can just hear one part of the conversation due to physical limits of radio waves.

    For those that don’t know, Weatherman is Bob Steinberger’s nickname (Owner and founder of PCI). He is the volunteer that handles SCORE’s official 2-way radio communication during the Baja 1000. Radio conversation contains race car status, emergencies, vehicle break downs, Chase and support teams efforts and anything in between.

    Since there’s no video of us from the Baja 1000, here’s a couple of great clips. Up top is rally car racer Ken Block doing some practice driving. I think after we win the Baja 1000, we switch to rally driving and Skid can drive the Segway (in the video). And below is, without question, the most awesome road test of any car ever invented, courtesy of Top Gear UK.

    Totally gratuitous chase scene inside a shopping mall.

  • Baja 1000 on NBC this Sunday (aka tomorrow)

    Scott & Seth's Excellent Adventure

    The Baja 1000 is on NBC this Sunday at 10 a.m. Pacfic Time. Aura 360 included a clip of Scott “Never Lift” Anderson going sub-orbital off the Red Bull jump in the Ensenada wash. There should be a segment on Eric Solorzano in this year’s show.

    Some clips from the show (and the soon to be released documentary) are here
    .

  • And the repairs begin…

    A chorizo pizza, the size of the hood of a Baja 1000 pre-runner, delivered by motorcycle in Tijuana

    Sometime Sunday Creech is coming by with a Checker cab outfitted with a tow hitch to trailer 1102 to his place in Ben Lomond. Bob “Bus Boy” Russell, our team sommelier, will drop the engine and transmission. We’re pricing spare race transmissions as I write this, and looking to folks to rebuild our primary tranny.

    Photos tomorrow. It’s a new race day for the team.

    And, at Eric’s Tijuana workshop, that was the best chorizo and jalapeno pizza – the size of a car hood – I’d ever had.