Desert Dingo Racing

Category: Baja 1000

  • Airborne at the Baja 1000 redux

    Scott qualifying for his pilot's license at the Baja 1000 2008

    Scott qualifying for his pilot’s license at the 2008 Baja 1000.

    Just ordered a couple of print copies of these photos from Trackside Photo. Jim Ober and his team are some of the best shooters who cover all the major races.

    I’ll be out of town, but the team meets on Sunday to continue prep work on the car for the Mint 400 coming up March 26-29 in Vegas.

    Here’s what’s on the to do list, courtesy of Busboy Bob:

    Spare for trailer -Skid
    Shock sent back to Bilstien – Richard
    Tie Rod repair and improvement – Scott
    2x new rear tires – Richard
    Move transponder bracket – Scott/Richard
    Repair front fender mount – Bob & Scott
    Oil Change – Bob
    Valve Check – Bob
    Air Filter Check/clean – Creech
    Make all hardware metric – Creech/Scott
    Skid plate made into 1 piece/fix – Scott
    Move air pump switch – Shawn
    Inspect/replace/ grease wheel bearings –
    New Zerts – Bob
    Lower front seat – Creech/Richard
    Cheap shock spares – Bob
    Blue/Amber lights – sCary
    Spark plug check – Bob
    Power wash car –
    Paint fenders – Shawn
    Clean seats –
    Ball joint replacement –
    Tool Bag – Bob

    With Scott’s additions:

    Portable power washer for track
    Portable air compressor for track
    Fix the brushes on that damnable angle grinder
    Gaffer tape for in-car toolbag
    Rear-facing camera mount
    Appoint camera czar
    Source half-axles and bus CV spares.
    Wire brush for toolkit
    Source spare studded drum
    Fab & weld footbrace for navigator

    Our own version of Dust to Glory at the 2008 Baja 1000

  • Transmission in hand

    Bob and Richard do the heavy lifing

    Bob and Richard doing the heavy lifting…

    We picked up our rebuilt transmission from Steve Bradford with Bradford Racing Products in Prunedale. He used the Super Beetle case and most if its innards, and modified the gearing per SCORE spec. Steve (who’s won the Baja 1000 in the past) and his son Travis also donated a couple of fenders, a rim and a new reverse lock out shifter. We’ll be dropping off our other spare Super Beetle case to have him build a another for us.

    Transmission and engine installation will likely be this Sunday. Shawn will be painting the replacement fenders. After that, Creech hauls the whole kit and kaboodle to the CHP to get it inspected in advance of getting it green stickered, which will allow us to run it on BLM land.

    Countdown to Battle at Primm has begun.

  • 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
    .