Desert Dingo Racing

Category: 2008 Baja 1000

  • Work day: front end, shocks, new tires, Parker Pumper

    These are not bullet holes.

    We all got together on Saturday to work on the car, soon to be rebadged 1102. Crusty and Richard repositioned the GPS display so that it’s to the right of the rear view mirror. This should make it easier to track and reduce glare. Cary and Scott worked on the front end, fixing damaged sheet metal from the 250 and reinforcing the front bumper. Mike Taylor picked up a new(er) front bumper, so now we have a spare.

    Pretty much everyone worked on installing the shocks that Bilstein shipped back to us. Skid, Shawn and I made a run to a hardware store for a ton of nylock bolts. Richard also needed an eye bolt and a couple of rubber bungie cords that he’s using to secure the hood and trunk, on top of the other clamps we’re using. I busted out the credit card and ordered a Parker Pumper breather from Dezert Nation. I completely botched the mailing address but Nick who was working there got me straightened out.

    We’re going with a new front tire this time around. A Traxxion vintage WWII military tire that was probably used on Jeeps. I ordered them via one of our equipment sponsors, Skips Tires, then took them to Dave Dixon with Dixon Tires in Watsonville, who used a grooving iron to, not surprisingly, add some grooves to the tread. The tires are optimized for driving in ruts. Dave’s grooving will give us more traction when we need to get out of those ruts. We’ll be running BFG 215-75-15s on the back.

    Thanks Dave, and thanks to everyone at Dixon Tires for your support.

    Dave Dixon of Dixon Tires.

    Photo gallery of today’s work is here.

  • Ramping up for the 1000

    Spanish language version of our hero card

    The 1000 is staring at us and we’re ramping up. We’ll be working Saturday and Sunday on the car, taking care of details here so we can focus on pre-running and final tweaking in Mexico.

    I’ll have more info on this in a future post, but we’re working with the Federacion Mexicana de Diabetes to have a booth on Contingency Row on Thursday and Friday of Race Week distributing information on diabetes. One of the things we’re working on now, thanks to support from the International Diabetes Federation, is distributing hero cards in Spanish, that have the warning signs of diabetes printed on the back.

    Alex Nicholson, PR professional extraordinaire, has been working behind the scenes to help us. So has her mother, Carmen, who was kind enough to translate our hero cars into Spanish. We’ll be distributing Spanish and English versions of the cards down in Ensenada. Thank you, Carmen.

    Here’s the Spanish version of the text on the back of our hero cards, courtesy of Carmen:

    Desert Dingo Racing :: Día Mundial de la Diabetes
    www.desertdingo.com – www.worlddiabetesday.org

    El equipo: Desert Dingo Racing es un equipo conformado por profesionales del ámbito de la alta tecnología, radicados en Silicon Valley, California, que respaldan la participación de un VW Escarabajo Clase 11 en carreras por el desierto en México y en EE UU y que anualmente culminan con la carrera Baja 1000.

    El automóvil:     La clase 11 está limitada a automóviles VW Escarabajo fabricados antes de 1983. Esta clase permite ciertas modificaciones menores del motor así como de la transmisión y de la suspensión. La velocidad promedio típica de la carrera es de aproximadamente 25 mph.

    La carrera    : Baja 1000 es la carrera todo terreno, sin paradas, más larga en el mundo, que incluye a cuadrillas de más de doce países y en exceso de 300.000 espectadores. Coincide con el Día Mundial de la Diabetes, el 14 de noviembre de 2008.

    La meta: Nuestro compromiso con el servicio comunitario va de la mano con nuestro deseo de ganar la carrera Baja 1000. Nos asociamos con la Federación Internacional de la Diabetes (FID) para recaudar fondos y crear conciencia sobre la epidemia creciente de diabetes, que afecta particularmente a la población infantil. El lema de la campaña del Día Mundial de la Diabetes 2008 es “Ningún niño debería morir de diabetes”. Si desea hacer una donación para nuestra carrera de recaudación de fondos, sírvase visitar el sitio web de Desert Dingo. El 100% del dinero recaudado irá directamente a la FID y será utilizado en sus programas de educación y de concientización.

    Las Señales de Alarma de la Diabetes son: Micción frecuente. Sed excesiva. Aumento del apetito. Pérdida de peso. Cansancio. Pérdida del interés o de la concentración. Visión borrosa. Vómitos y dolores estomacales (confundidos frecuentemente con los síntomas gripales). Si usted o algún conocido padece de estos síntomas, sírvase consultar un doctor. Para mayor información sobre la diabetes, visite: www.worlddiabetesday.org.

    You can download a PDF version of our Spanish hero card here.

  • We’re officially 1102 for the 1000

    SCORE International lists Desert Dingo Racing as 1102 for the 2008 Baja 1000

    Flew to LA and then drove 90 miles down to the Off Road Warehouse in Temecula on Saturday for the SCORE live drawing party for positions for the 2008 Baja 1000. Great BBQ courtesy of Baja Pits. Lots of booths. A couple hundred people. Hooters girls with a very affable chihuahua.

    Tire changing one of the Class 1s

    I twittered the juicy bits (check out the Twitter stream in the column on the right), but in a nutshell Sal Fish said security is much enhanced in Baja. Still not smart to drive at night and best to pre-run in groups. Tourism is way down.

    Placement picking started at 2 p.m. and they got to Class 11 by 3. Only two have registered so far. We both went for front starts and Eric got the first, so he’ll be 1101 and we’ll most likely be 1102.

    Update: it looks like Brown snuck in under the wire as 1103. I figure there will be 8-10 Class 11s this year.

    After the event, Dave Hendrickson, known on the Class 11 Coalition board as DaveCo11, invited me over to his place to check out some of his projects. I had no idea he’d been involved in building as many of the prominent Class 11s throughout the years. Here’s a shot of him with his project car for the Primm 300.

    Dave Hendrickson of Class 11 Coalition fame.

    He had the Autism car in his yard. It looks like they put puzzle piece decals on the car with the names of people who donated. I think that’s a great idea and will brainstorm something similar for us. The hero cards and boxes of World Diabetes Day crayons were a hit with the kids at the event.

  • Preliminary Baja 1000 map online

    Preliminary map of Baja 1000 2008

    SCORE has released the preliminary race map for the 2008 Baja 1000. Course is about 634 miles and apparently reuses some of the course from the San Felipe 250. It’s shorter and it’s recycling a previous course, I call that “green.”

    Check out the map here.

  • All hands on deck

    All hands on deck

    First the bad news. We have to ship a piece of the transmission to SoCal to be fixed. The good news is it’s a small piece – a bushing and the “hockey stick” part of the shifter. That goes out to Transworks by Fedex on Monday. Hopefully we’ll have it back by Friday.

    Cary and Scott focused on the front bumper. Richard finished up some welding on the rear end and briefed us on a spares list we’ll start working to collect. Bob and Skid looked after the transmission. Crusty worked on everything. Shawn and I discussed a new paint job. We’re joined by Mike Taylor (of DPW fame), who knows his way around a VW and will be working with Seth on Chase Truck duty.

    Gallery of photos from today’s gathering is here.