Desert Dingo Racing

Category: Baja 1000

  • Baja 1000 logistics meeting today

    Blair's Desert Dingo book

    We all meet at noon today to work through logistics for the Baja 1000. We were told early on that logistics is 75% of winning the race and I’m coming to believe it. I’ll live Twitter the meeting, so watch http://twitter.com/desertdingo for live updates.

    But first, check out the unbelievably cool book that Blair created for the team. She’ll be putting more of her creations online, but until then you can check out what she has for sale here.

    One of the greatest miscalculations I made last year was expecting that everyone in Mexico spoke English. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but my mistake became quite apparent pretty quickly after we got south of Ensenada. It’s a mistake I won’t repeat and I’m now relearning Spanish by listening to a great Spanish language learning series by Michael Thomas.

    Julia has also been tremendously helpful, coaching me on some desert-race-specific phrases, including:

    “Help me flip the car back over” translates as “Por favor aduyame endedicar el coche.”

    And then there’s “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” You say: “Parecia una buena idea en el momento.”

    and, most importantly:

    “Es sólo una herida superficial. No le diga a mi esposa.”

  • From Race Cars and Google Doodles to Day Spas and Night Lights: Groups Across the U.S. Prepare to Join World Diabetes Day Celebrations Worldwide on November 14

    BRUSSELS, Belgium, October 31, 2008/ — Whether your tastes tend toward bright lights and big cities, quiet contemplation or off-road racing, groups around the U.S. are gearing up to celebrate World Diabetes Day and raise awareness of the growing threat of diabetes.

    The International Diabetes Federation (IDF), which led the effort to get the United Nations to recognize the existing World Diabetes Day (November 14) as an official UN world day, announced that this year’s campaign theme is “Diabetes in Children and Adolescents.”

    Over 200 children a day are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and over 500,000 children under the age of 15 live with diabetes worldwide. In the U.S. 40 children a day develop type 1 diabetes, roughly 15,000 children each year.

    “People around the globe have embraced the effort to raise awareness of the growing threat of diabetes,” said World Diabetes Day Campaign Director Phil Riley. “All diabetes is increasing and children are not spared. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that 75,000 children with type 1 diabetes worldwide cannot access the medication, monitoring and education they need to survive. This story goes largely ignored and these children remain in the shadows to face an uncertain future. We aim to bring diabetes to light.”

    Read the entire press release here…

  • Desert Dingo Racing teams with GoPro to capture, upload video during Baja 1000

    GoPro Motorsports digital video camera

    October 30, 2008, San Jose, Calif, — Desert Dingo Racing and GoPro have teamed to capture and broadcast high quality digital in-car video during the 41st Annual Baja 1000 offroad race in Mexico this November.

    Desert Dingo Racing competes in Class 11, which is limited to pre-1983 Volkswagen Beetles and allows for only minor modifications to the engine and suspension. The Desert Dingo VW (No. 1102) is the official World Diabetes Day car in the race and the team is hosting a drive-a-thon fundraiser to raise money for diabetes awareness and education programs conducted by the International Diabetes Federation.

    “We’ve tested a couple of different camera setups in the car and were never satisfied with the results,” said Desert Dingo team member Jim Graham. “GoPro’s Motorsports HERO unit is extremely durable – which is crucial for desert racing – and the 170-degree field of view will let us capture all the action.”

    Read the entire press release here.

  • First GPS track released

    GPS waypoints for 2008 Baja 1000 course

    SCORE released the initial GPS track for the race. We purchase a more detailed version that loads into the Lowrance GPS unit mounted in front of the co-driver. It’s a bit more detailed and has cool little skull and crossbones icons that warn of things like sheer cliffs, deep water and boulder protruding into the course.

    If you want to check it in Google Earth, you can download the KML file here.

    Less than three weeks til we depart. We’ll drive to San Diego on Nov. 12, spend the night, then drive to Rosarita Beach the next morning and spend the next week with Eric Solorzano (who starts in front of us) tweaking the car and pre-running sections of the course.

    Car still needs to be painted. That will happen next Sunday most likely. And we’re waiting on two digital video cameras that we’ll mount to capture in-car footage, that, if everything goes as planned, we’ll upload to the Internets during the race.

    Still only three teams in Class 11 – Eric, us and Alaskan Michael Brown, who I’ve heard is making his first run at the race. I expect a few more will register in the next week or so.

    If you’re checking in from seeing the KPIX, howdy. If you can spare a few dollars, we’d love it if you pledged to our drive-a-thon fundraiser. Even a penny or five cents a miles would be fantastic. And 100% of the money goes toward diabetes awareness and education programs managed by the International Diabetes Federation. You can donate by clicking on the “Donate” button on the upper right side of this web page.

    You might want to bookmark this page. On the day of the race you’ll be able to track us in real time on Google maps. One of the GPS transponders on the car relays our car number (1102), position and speed and updates every two minutes. We’ll be using this to keep our chase trucks updated on the race car’s location, because it’s almost impossible to communicate via radio unless you’re pretty close to each other.

    Any questions or comments? Shoot me a note at jim@desertdingo.com .

  • KPIX interviews the team

    The team with Kim and Greg.

    KPIX sports reporter Kim Coyle and cameraman Greg (who swims from Alcatraz for fun) came by last night to do an advance piece on our planning for this year’s Baja 1000.

    KPIX followed our exploits last year and you can check out the pieces here, here, and here.

    I’m going to be uploading in-car video to them during the race. Looks like I’m going to have to rent that satellite uplink after all.

    The first piece should air after this Sunday’s 49er’s game. Photos from the video shoot are here.