Desert Dingo Racing

Category: The Team

  • Final night of prep before departing for the Baja 1000

    I accidently left the digital still camera at home, so decided to capture the final night of prep on the car with video. Richard, Dennis and I made a run up to Auburn to retrieve the trailer. Shawn completed the last of the painting and graphics. Bob, Scott and Cary did final buttoning up and then began pulling together all the spare parts and tools we’d be taking down with us. Elektra is headed to Sonoma today to pick up fuel cans we’re borrowing again from World Motorsports. Charlie even dropped by.

    The car moves from San Jose to Felton this afternoon and we head out for Mexico at the crack of dawn Thursay.

  • Starting to button it up before heading south

    Junior Spacemen Scott 'n Cary

    With three days to go, the car is coming together. Yesterday Shawn focused on painting. Cary and Scott tested the pumper unit and comm links. Scott installed the greasy greasy axles. Cary fabbed a box to hold six quarts of oil. Dennis tied up loose ends. I futzed with the cameras. Wrapped everything up by 10 p.m.

    ETA for departure is Wednesday morning, arriving in San Diego in the evening and then on to Rosarita on Thursday.

    Here’s a gallery of photos from yesterday’s work.

  • Desert Dingo Racing in Discovery Channel Magazine

    Discovery Channel Asia Magazine story on Baja Racers

    Ok, it’s only one quote in a tremendously cool article written by Judy Smith, a veteran Baja racer and longtime writer for Hot VWs. A good number of the photos were shot by Trackside Photo, which got the great shot of us catching air at last year’s Baja 1000. They even mentioned our fundraising for World Diabetes Day. Click here or on the image to download a PDF of the article.

  • It rains, we do Baja 1000 logistics and start painting

    We're going with white wheels with World Diabetes Day blue circles

    We did our logistics meeting today, mapping out everything that has to happen before we leave, what we need to do between the time we leave and the time the race starts, and what happens during the race.

    Seth is a logistical genius. I Twittered the meeting here, which is the best way to get the recap.

    While all that was going on, Shaw was prepping the car for paint. We made a rocket run to OSH for Rustoleum gloss and matte white paint for the rattle can work and to some hot dog stand that looked like a giant orange and which has been in business since 1936.

    We are so much smarter than we were a year ago and still, with a week to go, there is so much to do. Check out shots from today’s effort here.

  • Baja 1000 logistics meeting today

    Blair's Desert Dingo book

    We all meet at noon today to work through logistics for the Baja 1000. We were told early on that logistics is 75% of winning the race and I’m coming to believe it. I’ll live Twitter the meeting, so watch http://twitter.com/desertdingo for live updates.

    But first, check out the unbelievably cool book that Blair created for the team. She’ll be putting more of her creations online, but until then you can check out what she has for sale here.

    One of the greatest miscalculations I made last year was expecting that everyone in Mexico spoke English. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but my mistake became quite apparent pretty quickly after we got south of Ensenada. It’s a mistake I won’t repeat and I’m now relearning Spanish by listening to a great Spanish language learning series by Michael Thomas.

    Julia has also been tremendously helpful, coaching me on some desert-race-specific phrases, including:

    “Help me flip the car back over” translates as “Por favor aduyame endedicar el coche.”

    And then there’s “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” You say: “Parecia una buena idea en el momento.”

    and, most importantly:

    “Es sólo una herida superficial. No le diga a mi esposa.”