Desert Dingo Racing

Category: Eric Solorzano

  • 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 .

  • Front start, bay-bee

    Desert Dingo registration for 2008 Baja 1000

    I just faxed off our down payment for the registration fees for this year’s Baja 1000: $200 to SCORE and mailed a check for $500 for pit support to Baja Pits. (I can’t say enough great things about how well Carlos and his folks took care of us last year).

    We get asked a lot how much it costs to do this race. Here’s a breakdown of the major expenses:

    SCORE International registration fee: $2,075.00

    Baja Pits registration: $500.00

    110 Octane race fuel – 150 gallons @ $8.95 a gallon): $1,342.50

    Then you have individual expenses –

    SCORE membership: $75

    Mexico Tourist visa: $40 (If you want to pay a guy to go to the bank and handle the paperwork for you – which you do.)

    International Driving Permit: $15 (You can get this at AAA).

    Then add to that fuel for the RVs, chase and passenger vehicles that go down. That’s several thousand simoleans.

    But other than that, that’s pretty much it. Granted, that’s not counting construction of the car, spare parts and tires. Our sponsors, like Bilstein and Skips Tire’s, have been great and their support has been invaluable.

    We’re getting together next weekend to start final prep on the car. We’ll be looking at the shift linkage bushings, it needs to be painted, we need to get going on skid plates and Richard will be putting together a checklist that we’ll use to prep the car once we’re down in Mexico.

    Last year we went for a “rear start” – meaning you start at the back of the pack of the cars in your class. Since there were only eight of us in 2007, that mean we got an extra 3 minutes of prep time from when the first Class 11 went off the starting line. This year I’ve decided we’re going out first. We’ll just have to be ready to go three minutes earlier.

  • Fenderless

    The shocks aren’t on. Nor are the fenders. But check out the clearance we have now, courtesy of Eric, Sam and Crusty.

  • “Because engines want to have fun, too.”

    One of the last things Eric and Sam did before buttoning up the car was to tune the engine. Adjust the valves. Check. Adjust the timing. Check. Pour a bottle of beer in the carburetor. Check.

    (Note that this Corona has a slice of lemon in it).

    For the record, the engine ran remarkably better after the beer.

  • A weekend of work on 1101


    Crusty and Sam work on hammering out the front end of 1101.

    Eric Solorzano and his longtime friend and co-driver “Yosemite” Sam drove up to San Jose this past week to work their magic on 1101. By the time they buttoned it up on Saturday afternoon, we had a good 3-4 additional inches of clearance on the front, 4-5 inches in the rear and the Solorzano-built engine sounds like a beast.

    Crusty and Sam also hammered out the front end that got smushed at the San Felipe 250 and they extended the roll cage to give more structural support at the front of the car.

    Check out a handful of photos from Friday here.

    We still have some more work to do. Eric has taken our shocks back down to Bilstein for re-valving and repair. We also need to pull the transmission and send it down to Transworks for some tweaking.

    Here’s 1101 parked next to Eric’s car at the 250. Definitely shows the need for some expertise to get us a bit more ground clearance.