To Be Called “Racer”: It’s the highest honor, and the Baja 1000 finds them.
ESPN Magazine online, November 25, 2008
In motorsports, there is one word above all others that exemplifies what our twisted metal, burning rubber, death-defying pursuit is all about. The term is never used lightly and bestowed upon only those have earned the right to wear it.
Racer.
And we’re back! About 12 hours from Ensenada to Felton. 1102 is safely ensconced on the trailer in the front yard. We’ll be needing a couple of new fenders, a rebuilt transmission, a short throw reverse lock out shifter and some other bits and bobs, but we should be back in business in short order.
Here’s a gallery of photos from Contingency Row on Thursday and the race on Friday. More to come.
First video is shot from the hood-mounted GoPro Motorsports DV camera. Each car rolls up on a mound of dirt, rolls down to the start line, Sal Fish reaches in and shakes hands with driver and co-driver and then get the 10 second count down. Cars start at 30 second intervals. This shot includes the start, first turn and run along Ensenada’s streets down into the wash and over the Red Bull jump.
I had the cameras set for “high sound level” because it’s freakin’ loud in side the car. I’m guessing they mean “shuttle launch loud” not “race-fueld VW Beetle loud” so you really can’t hear anything.
This second video is of Scott (driving) and Seth (co-driving) rolling up to the start line and into the wash. The wide-angle GoPro camera sees 170 degrees. YouTube doesn’t do them justice. The video is TV-quality.
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We did our team briefing this morning with Seth, our logistics guy taking the lead. He mapped out fuel stops, who’s riding with whom, and a bajillion other details that only a guy like he could conceive, remember and then articulate to the rest of us sitting in plastic chairs in the barnyard.
Genas fabbed a new light bar for us and welded the mounts in place last night. Mike Taylor painted it this morning and a whole bunch of folks pitched in to install and rewire the lights after we got to our base of operations in Ensenada this afternoon.
We breezed through team registration this evening but encountered a hiccup with fuel distribution afterward. Terri with Sunoco has been great, and we’re meeting with Carlos of Baja Pits to iron out the rest of the details tomorrow morning. Richard and Cary get in line for roll cage inspection at oh dark early tomorrow, even though it only opens at 10 a.m.
Tomorrow we have our booth on Contingency Row with Norma Angelica Ramirez of the Asociacion Mexicana de Diabetes en Baja California, AC. We’ll be handing out the crayons and hero cards with the warning signs of diabetes printed on the back and literature provided by Norma.
Here’s a gallery of photos from last night’s work and this morning’s preparations. And, lastly, here’s a quick video of everyone hangout out at / working at Eric’s Tijuana workshop.
PS: Note to families and friends: Feel free to contact me, Roxanne Graham, at info@desertdingo.com, with your messages for the team or for anything when the race starts. I’ll post updates to the blog as I receive them once the Desert Dingos are on the road.
We crossed the border and made our way down the Highway 1 toll road to Rosarito, about half an hour south of Tijuana. Rosarito Beach is seeing its share of growth – with a new Home Depot and big box store complex on the north side of town – but for all intents and purposes, it’s still a small beach town.
We parked the RVs and trailered car in front of a Smart & Final and waited for Eric Solorzano, the nine-time Baja 1000 winner, who would take us to where we’d spend the night. We handed out a good number of hero cards and boxes of crayons to kids coming with their folks to the store.
Eric showed up after sunset and guided us to a yard big enough for all of our vehicles, including everyone coming in over the weekend and on Monday and Tuesday. It wasn’t til the next morning that I realized we were sharing it with two horses, three chickens, four dogs and were a block from the beach.
Midday Saturday we towed the car up to Eric’s shop in Tijuana and got to work. One of Eric’s suppliers is fabbing a set of brass braided brake shoes, so the car will stop as quickly as it accelerates. We’re moving the front shock reservoirs into the wheel wells so that they get more air (for cooling). Richard and Crusty tweaked the steering to maximize our left and right turning ability.
On Sunday they’ll add a short throw Empi shift with reverse lockout, complete welding on the left turn stop, install the shock reservoirs, and install a chain on the back of the motor fan shroud. I’ll probably play with the car cameras and load the detailed course data into the GPS unit. Seth, our head logistics and lead chase truck person, arrives today.
Here’s a gallery of photos from Saturday.
