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.
1107 lit up with TrailGlow illuminated number panels at the Baja 1000.
November 29, 2010, Felton, Calif. – Desert Dingo Racing announced today that TrailGlow Lighting, a leader in electroluminescent lighting systems for the racing community, is renewing its support for the team in 2011. TrailGlow’s INERGY lighting systems greatly increase visibility during night races. In addition to number panels, the company produces custom illuminated decals, pit signs and illuminated pit crew, media and staff vests.
A much younger Dingo and Scott Anderson.
Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 2010.
Thanks to everyone involved in VORRA, for tolerating us Class 11s, stinking up the joint.
To everyone involved in VORRA Class 11, for the food, snagging the good camping sites, and for Sharpies.
To Eric Solorzano, for taking my very first phone call.
To the International Diabetes Federation, for mistakenly thinking we were some big shot racing team.
Thanks to Joel Ward, for giving me advice in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Ensenada, which I took to heart.
To Paul Lukey at TrailGlow, for more than can be written in a single sentence.
To all of our sponsors, for having faith in us.
To Jason Mace for his electric kool aid acid test VW.
To Rob Messer, for being the most courteous driver in Class 11 history.
Thanks to Fidel, for giving us a forum to BS and exaggerate.
Thanks to every Class 11 driver, co-driver and team member I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with over the years.
Thanks to the team – Desert Dingo happens because of you all.
And, lastly, thanks to Roxanne. Words cannot express…
One of these cars is really not like the others.
Here’s my race recap for our final race of the season, the VORRA Prairie City IV that we did over Halloween weekend.
It was a dark and stormy night when we pulled into Prairie City.
Ok, technically, it was neither dark nor stormy, but I’ve always wanted to write that.
So we pull in Saturday morning and all the great spots are taken and I mumble something under my breath about how racers are worse than Mac fanboys when it comes to being first in line for something.
We have a (relatively) new motor, boosted to 13-to-1 compression. We have something resembling rally car tires, complete with hot knife custom grooving, and between the 1107, 1112 and 1177 entourages, we have enough food to feed an army.
The team dinks around with the car all day Saturday and does a first run with the new engine Sunday morning during practice. We give it two thumbs up.
Moto One (Richard driving, Bob co-driving): Richard launches off the line like a man possessed and immediately rockets from first place to third in the span of about five seconds. Halfway through the first lap Rob “The Politest Man You’ll Ever Meet” Messer gets it a little sideways and rolls. With the Green Booger blocked, Richard signals for a right side pass and leads the rest of the moto, beating 1112 by about a second at the finish line. At some point during the moto the announcer tells the crowd that we’ve rolled so many times that I’ve installed our race camera upside down. Always with the jokes, that guy.
Moto Two (Bob driving, Crusty co-driving): This time its Messer off the line like a man possessed with Bob in hot pursuit. At some point, a 50-cent part in Messer’s distributor breaks and he’s out of the race. Bob has at least a 10-car-length lead over 1112 when I turn to Wes:
Me: “Ok, we’ve got a huge lead in this second moto. If we won the first moto and win this one, do we even need to do the third race?”
Wes: “Your car just rolled.”
Me: “(Expletive).”
Wes: “That will teach you to count your points before the checkered flag waves.”
Green Booger takes the win with ease.
Moto Three (Crusty driving, Shawn co-driving): This time Messer’s driving like he stole it, leading the entire moto and taking the win. The real battle was for second, which we thought was ours until the last few hundred feet when we ran into one of those big tractor tires.
Bottom line: I’m pretty sure we got second for the day and second in season points. Now begins a body-off rebuild. Watch for 1107 2.0 in March 2011.
Thanks again to all the VORRA folks (particularly Heather Jacobini who made it not rain most of the time). Also, thanks go to Bradford Racing for again loaning us a trailer because we’re too broke to get one of our own.
Kabul’s anti-corruption campaigner Ramazan Bashardost meets Herb-i-Islami, outside the politician’s tent, opposite parliament, in Kabul.
Jerome Starkey is the Times of London correspondent in Kabul. He’s working with a local mechanic to get his ’69 VW Beetle (same as us) on the road. I read everything he writes. You can follow him on the Twitters here.
I’m tempted to put together a CARE package of points, plugs, fuel filters, throttle cables, starter motors, distributors, windshield wipers, assorted lengths of wire, alligator clips, chicken wire and tongue depressors and showing up on his door step to get Herb-i-Islami dialed into tip top shape.
Word has it he has a sofa Roxanne and I can crash on.
Until then, this is the video that, as a co-driver, I aspire to.