Here’s a quickie video of us prepping all the vehicles on Race Day morning. We all headed across town in a caravan around 10:15 to line up for an 11:30 a.m.-ish start.
The neighborhood kids would hang out with us. I took some photos. You can check out the gallery here.
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.
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.
Desert Dingos provide hands-on diabetes lesson to school children
Desert Dingo Racing, the team who have entered the official World Diabetes Day race car in the Baja 1000 off-road race later this month, recently took the car to Holly Oak Elementary School in San Jose, California to give the children a hands-on lesson in desert racing. Students in Ms. Battistella’s fourth grade class got the opportunity to add a little colour to the car, dipping their hands in red, blue or gold paint and pressing them to the car’s fenders.