Desert Dingo Racing

Category: The Car

  • Field trip to Rugged Radios (USA 500, also)

    Thanks to Chris (pictured here), Greg, and the entire Rugged Radios team for taking us into the 22nd Century.

    I departed Felton at 4 a.m. this morning, which sounds hardcore until I tell you that Crusty departed Soquel in his rat rod 1951 car carrier with 1107 on top around 8 p.m. Monday night. Both of us bound for San Luis Obispo. I have no idea where Crusty ended up, but I parked in a bar parking lot and started making phone calls around 7 a.m.

    By 9 a.m. Amanda had retrieved Crusty, we’d offloaded 1107 and Team Rugged Radios set to work. Greg, who designs and manufactures his own equipment, has taken us under his wing. Thanks to his team, we have a comm system that’s the envy of Trophy Truck teams, integrates smart phone and digital music players, and, for the first time, allows us to hear who’s talking to us when we’re outside the car trying the figure out how to get it unstuck.

    Here’s a shot of Jason and Kevin testing our new helmets.

    And here’s some photos from the trip. We depart for the USA 500 in a few hours. You can follow us on the Twitter at @desertdingo, the USA 500 festivities using the Twitter hashtag #USA500 and Rugged Radios on the Twitter at @ruggedradios.

  • Countdown to the USA 500

    You need fenders? We got fenders.

    Busy day today. Started loading electronics and our giveaways on the front porch. Shawn and Bob showed up and we loaded up the Satellite Telework Centers truck with painted wheels and body parts. The off to the car where Bob and Crusty finessed the front skid plate, Shawn worked on sponsor logos and Emme Hall of Hall Ass Racing installed the GPS, Camelbaks and breather hoses.

    Emme and I decamped to DDR HQ and spent the afternoon painting spare wheels, bumpers, light bar and spare fenders.

    Tomorrow we finish car prep, load it on Crusty’s 1951 car hauler and head south to San Luis Obispo to Rugged Radios. On Wednesday 1107 departs for Reno for VORRA’s USA 500.

    We’ll be live updating the race events on the Twitter using the #USA500 hashttag.

    Photos from today’s work here.

  • Two weeks to VORRA’s USA 500 and 1107 is coming together

    I love that new car smell

    It’s that smell. That new car smell. Some day this race is gonna end.

    I sprayed the race seat rails this morning and drove them over to the car. Crusty worked on all the stuff he works on. With his help I got the seats installed and we mapped out the next week getting the car ready for the USA 500. He’s off to get his 1951 16-foot car hauler. I’ll be installing the GPS, dialing in the five point harnesses and repainting everything I scratched while shouting the seats into place. I came home and spray painted our new rims, courtesy of Bob Russell. They will sport the World Diabetes Day blue circle.

    I’m dropping off some new tires with the rims at Dixon & Son Tires tomorrow. They’ve supported us since Day One. An interesting meeting will happen in the next week.

    Here are our new rims.

    OSHA approved

  • Motul Providing Technical Support for Desert Dingo Racing for 2011 Season

    Motul providing technical support for Desert Dingo Racing

    Desert Dingo Racing announced today that Motul, a global company specializing in high-tech synthetic lubricants formulated for powersports and automotive applications, is offering technical support for the team’s 2011 race season.

    “We’re taking an air-cooled engine never designed to do what we put it through – high revs, high compression, high temperatures – and run it for hours on end at extreme altitudes in the high deserts of Nevada and Mexico,” said Desert Dingo Racing co-founder Jim Graham. “We’ve worked with Motul to identify a synthetic lubricant solution that allows us to operate at maximum efficiency, and they’ve done it.”

    Read the press release here…

  • 1107 outside painting is done

    People tarp Costco shelters in their front yard all the time
    There’s nothing suspicious going on here. Seriously. Just keep driving.

    Shawn and I decamped to a different part of the Santa Cruz mountains this past weekend to shoot the outside of 1107. Because we didn’t want to also spray every other car within a 300 foot radius, we grabbed every tarp we could find and zip-tied them to the shade structure that serves as our workshop.

    That was Sunday. I checked out the car Monday night. The paint looked great and two days of 100 degree heat hardened it nicely. Over the next few days I’ll be using my extensive yoga training to sand and paint the interior. Then we put everything back in and truck 1107 to Rugged Radios in San Luis Obispo for a comm install. Then a photo shoot and then VORRA’s USA 500.

    A couple of great announcements coming up. Photos from this past weekend’s work are here.