Desert Dingo Racing

Category: Video

  • I’m going to walk this part

    Found this video on Baja Racing News. I’ll be walking this part of the course. Or someone else can drive this section.

  • “Because engines want to have fun, too.”

    One of the last things Eric and Sam did before buttoning up the car was to tune the engine. Adjust the valves. Check. Adjust the timing. Check. Pour a bottle of beer in the carburetor. Check.

    (Note that this Corona has a slice of lemon in it).

    For the record, the engine ran remarkably better after the beer.

  • History of VWs in Baja Racing – video

    The Road to Baja - video

    Baja Racing News has posted a video from VW Motorsports on the history of VW racing down in Baja. You can check it out here. Eric Solorzano’s red Beetle makes an appearance.

  • Quickie video of the Trabing fire from Watsonville plaza

    I shot this from where we were set up in Watsonville Plaza as part of the diabetes health fair.

  • Racing the Baja 500 on a motorcycle – what it’s like

    We loaned Stephan one of our race radios for his assault on the Baja 500…on a motorcycle. Here’s his report.

    Here is a YouTube video that gives a pretty good taste of the race (at least at the starting line). Note in the opening seconds of the video, you can see yours truly desperately trying to start my bike at the starting line.

    Hello again,
    Well, we made it back…alive.

    To those of you who attempted to track my progress, you may have noticed that my tracker stopped somewhere around mile 13. This is, as far as I can figure, about the time I did a 37 mph face plant on a blind corner courtesy of a class 25 ATV. The crash seemed to have knocked out my tracker, as well as much of my naïve optimism. It just got better from there…

    It was the hottest day of the year up on the high desert, and according to several veterans, one of the hardest courses they had seen. I was equipped with a 2 liter camelback, which according to a friendly Mexican guy who gave me water, was about half as big as necessary. Dehydration was the word of the day (repeating in my head). Anyway, things were going pretty well, until the trophy trucks caught up to me. For those of you who don’t know, a trophy truck is an 800+ horsepower million dollar race truck (one was clocked at 110 mph on a river bed this year). They don’t really have a lot of patience for motorcyclists. Luckily, I was warned off the track by a panicked pit crew, and a film helicopter, and avoided being squished by one of the most impressive feats of engineering and horsepower I have ever seen.

    After the trophy trucks went by, I continued on my merry way, climbing over an exhausting boulder strewn rock summit, and dropped into a dried lakebed for several hours of wonderful deep silt riding (which I really can’t recommend highly enough). I still had reasonably high (if somewhat delusional) expectations, until I hit the cactus.

    Everything in the desert seems to have thorns, and if you run into some of them at 40 mph, it does have adverse affects. My right hand swelled into something resembling a guava with finger tips. I made it another 10 miles, when I decided that laying down under a tree in the 105 degree heat was a fine idea. It was the most peaceful place I had ever been. Everything seemed fine, until a desert lady/vision appeared with several bottles of water and said “you don’t look too good son”. I assured her that I was fit as a fiddle, and everything was going according to plan, and if she had an extra gallon of water, I would be back in the race. She didn’t.

    Well, to make a long story short, I made it to mile 232 before nightfall and my better judgment took over. I ceded the race to the desert and vowed to return next year with more water and a little more updated motorcycle.

    Thank you to those of you who were concerned about my well being.

    The hardest thing I have ever done, and truly a great adventure.

    Stephan