For anyone who thinks racing is cool, you should come hang out with us when we’re pulling an engine in the rain.
Bob, Crusty, Scott and I pulled 1107’s engine this past weekend. In the rain. Shocks, too. Bob will sort out the engine seal leak. Shocks go off to Bilstein for a rebuild. Radio pulled to figure out why the face fell off.
The next couple of weeks will be spent gutting 1107 to begin a rebuild that will let us incorporate lessons learned from three years of racing. More to come.
Sure this looks like three numbers superimposed on Google Earth, but from the cockpits, these three 11s are racing flat out side by side across the open desert.
The Best in the Desert series ran the Henderson 250 today. Three 11s started. Once they got through the canyon, they hit a wide open playa and raced head to head. It’s hard to describe what that’s like unless you’ve done it.
Team meeting Thursday night. Engine and shocks come out tomorrow. Electrical system will be pulled and bagged. Next the body comes off. Winter will be busy.
We have a cameo in the Bower Motorsports Media coverage of the next to last VORRA short course race of the season.
Parked at the finish line in La Paz.
Cullen pulled across the finish line with two hours to spare. Amazing race and I’m sure there are going to be some great stories coming out of it. Only one of five Class 11s entered made it to the finish line.
Looking forward to racing it next year.
Only other thing is we had a 10-fold increase in traffic to the Desert Dingo website during the race, probably because I’d put together a pretty comprehensive list of resources for following the race online. We also broke through 16,000 downloads of our Desert Dingo Racing iPhone, iPad and Android mobile apps during the race.
Nine time Baja 1000 winner Eric Solorzano saving our bacon, yet again.
Roger Norman – TT No. 8
Very good guy. Community oriented. Does the occasional VORRA race. Has never nerfed us. Also runs TrailGlow (our sponsor) illuminated number panels. First off the line and iron-manning the whole race. Pre-ran something like 5,000 miles.
Robby Gordon – TT No. 1
I’m pretty sure it’s in the U.S. Constitution that you have to follow Robby Gordon.
Josh Hall – TT No. 61
A new TT by Baja Legend Rod Hall. Should be interesting to see how it does.
Torchmate Racing – No. 601
Torchmate created the super heavy trophy we got for winning the inaugural Xtreme Outlaws 250 Reno race that’s sitting on my desk. They race VORRA.
Emily Sturgess Miller – Stock Full H1 Alpha No. 861
Racing an H1 Alpha Hummer. Does Gazelles.
Rod Hall
He’s doing seat time in the new trophy truck (#61) and and the H1 Alpha (#861). He’s in Wikipedia under “badass.”
Dennis Webb & Yolo Racing – 5/1600 Baja Bug No. 554
We’ve hung out at a previous 1000. They’re Canadian. Cool guys.
Sarabia Aja – Class 5/1600 Baja Bug No. 1645
Sarabia races with Felipe (see below). He and I yammer like little old ladies via Instant Messenger. He’s co-dogging the first 385 miles or thereabouts. Drivers are Hector Sarabia, Eliseo Garcia and Federico Montes.
Felipe Neri Sanchez & Turtle Speed Racing – No. 1214
We’ve raced against Felipe in SNORE. He and his team are great people. They beat us.
All the Class 11s, natch
Eric Solorzano, mentor and arch rival – No. 1100
Scott Wisdom – No. 1103
Matt Cullen – No. 1102
Alfonso Lacerra – No. 1101
A lot of people have been asking me “Jim, how was last weekend’s racing?” and I told both of them “Stop IMing me long enough and I’ll get a video edited.” And here it is.
This week we start tear down of 1107. Engine out. Shocks out. We start making dashed lines where we’re going to cut the body away.
A lot in store.