Didn’t they used to see how many people they could cram into a VW back in the ’60s?

Crusty’s been working on 1107 pretty much non-stop since it returned to DDRHQ. He was joined this weekend by Nick, Toby and Rosh. We have 34 days til the race.

The hood acts like a parabolic mirror, heating Nick, who was welding on it, to about 200 degrees.

Nick, the newest member of the team, focused on welding, mostly to repair tears in the body and fenders, strengthening support for the new fuel cell location and patching the hole in the hood where the fuel cell filler used to be.

White is the new black.

The interior of the car gets pretty trashed during races. Rosh took the lead on adding another coat of Rustoleum Gloss White. You can always tell a new Class 11 team because their paint job is perfect. That lasts about one minute into a race.

Toby updates our wiring harness, which uses conduit from Home Depot.

With the fuel cell in place, we’ll start adding the fuel pump, oil accumulator and assorted other stuff that requires electricity. It will go a lot faster with an actual diagram of the wiring.

Another big work day on Saturday and a lot more to report. Waiting to get confirmation from SCORE that we will be 1107 for the Baja 1000.

On the stands at Desert Dingo Racing HQ

1107 is back from summer vacation in the Sierra Nevadas and we’ve got one month to prep it for departure for Ensenada for the Baja 1000.

New team member Nick Davis provided transport for 1107 – a full day job on Saturday. Romy grabbed the two engines

Crusty showed up early Sunday and we set to work. He continue fabrication of the new location for the fuel cell. I power washed a dozen fenders, four transmissions and I lost count of the number of rims. And we got caught up on the Belgian Formula 1 race and made it through qualifying for Monza.

The yard’s going to look like this for about a month.

Thank you Heston and Mariah for stripping the decals and for the body work.

And here’s a walking tour of the front yard…

You want to start with fresh, wet erase Sharpies. Not the dry ones. Trust me on this.

60 days to the Baja 1000 and we’re in full prep mode. We’ve made some substantial modifications to 1107 and those will be completed in the next couple of weeks. A week from now the transmissions head south to Scott Sebastian with MetalCraft for tune ups.

Those papers you’re sleeping on? I’m going to need those.

I’ve also re-started listening to my Spanish language MP3s. My Spanish is passable for one month a year. Positive visualization is a big part of planning, too. I’ve got Dust to Glory, Two Roads to Baja and Born in Baja on the iPhone, which I play while driving to work in the morning.

Listening to “Dust to Glory” on the iPhone is a lot like the Dude listening to the Venice Beach League Playoffs from 1987. Visualization is key to winning.

Next up is providing an update to sponsors and working with them on what we can do to promote them at the race. Race week in Ensenada is already largely mapped out and now I’m working on all the preparation needed in the weeks leading up to departure.

We should get one of these.

There’s a good chance I’ll be LA-bound to check out the LA Burning Man Decompression and the Off Road Expo. If time permits, I might make a run to Mexicali to spend some time with Carlos Bravo, who’s interested in working with the team (and he has an awesome chase truck).

Lastly, here’s a shot from a video from the Yerington 300. We make a cameo appearance a few minutes into it.

Dust to Glory was the inspiration for us to form Desert Dingo Racing – like it was for pretty much every Class 11 Stock Bug race team competing today. Between December 2006 when I watched it and convinced (begged) Mike “Skid” Aquino to do it, we put together a team, built a car and rolled into Ensenada for our very first race, having no idea what we were getting into. Seriously, it was like this…

Anyway, we made 144 miles before shearing off the rear skid plate, followed shortly by the engine oil refiller plate.

We were back in 2008 with a little more experience, a little more clearance and some better skid plates.

We hit a tree in the middle of the night and the blew a transmission. Our spare stock transmission didn’t fit. We probably should have checked that before we left.

In 2009 we had two race transmissions and cracked the first one open like an egg 10 miles into the race when we landed square on a boulder. This is Bob and me stopping and using our in car satellite uplink to call for help.

We got it replaced, but the second transmission gave out after enduring miles of silt and sand somewhere out near San Felipe.

After that, we decided the smart thing to do was take a break from the 1000, get a lot of seat time racing stateside series, and then go back. We raced SCORE in 2009 and got third in class. We raced VORRA in 2010 and got second in class, then won the overall in 2011 and took second again in 2012.

So we’ve won races, we’ve won a season championship and now there’s one last thing we need to do. Win the 1000.

While we’re sitting in third place in VORRA season points for 2013, we’ve made the decision to suspend racing VORRA to focus on prepping for the 1000 in November.

This involves three things – prepping the car, procuring more spare parts and giving drivers and co-drivers a lot of seat time in the car while not in a race situation – a la practicing.

For the first, 1107 has already been stripped and the body hammered out and ready for a little bondo and paint. We’ll hold off on paint until right before the 1000. For the second, we’ve begun cataloging all our spare parts and are planning a trip to our sponsor Scott Sebastian of MetalCraft to prep three full race transmissions. Tires are on order. As for the third, we’ll be doing three practice weekends at a test track outside Sparks, Nevada, running the car non-stop until we run through a 55 gallon drum fuel.

From there it’s on to Ensenada.

So we won’t have race updates between now and November, but I will be updating constantly with progress on everything else. Updates as they occur. Wish us luck.

And I’m hoping to meet guy again. His dad contacted me and said he really loved this photo.