Desert Dingo Racing

Category: VORRA

  • “Because I was Inverted”

    California Sports Spotlight Photo Design captured 1107 rolling during qualification in advance of the VORRA season opener on March 20, 2010. Shawn had his bell rung but is all right. We used pry tools and Seth’s truck’s winch to pull out the dents and had the car ready to race the next morning. We lost the first moto, won the second and blew our transmission during the third. Where else can you say you blew a transmission, lost two races, essentially totaled a race car and can still call it a great weekend?

    We even came home with a donated spare roof, passenger door and pan, courtesy of Jeff “Weasel” Lee and the 1106 Petfinder.com Class 11. And congrats to Gary, Cody, and The Green Booger for taking the win.

    And now, on with the show.

    Wait til you see the in-car video. Also, larger photos here.

  • T-minus 8 hours and ticking til we depart for Prairie City

    Without clear directions, what do you expect to happen?

    Emily Miller and Wendy Fisher (109) are representing the U.S. at the Rally Eaicha des Gazelles (“Gazelles” for short) in Morocco, which you can track in real time here. All-female teams (except for those two guys who crashed it), and they navigate with compasses and 50 year old maps. As if that isn’t hard enough, here were the instructions the teams got this morning:

    “We wanted to test something: we are going to give you your roadbooks, but they are… blank! But your route is already marked on your map for the day; the checkpoints are already plotted. The relief is shown as usual; the scale is the same as usual (1:100 000). The difference is that today’s map has no grid lines. We have erased all geographic coordinates and the latitude and longitude scales! You will have only heading and distance to work with. To do that, you only need to know your North, which is given by the line on the left of the map, framing the map legend (which is not in its usual place).”

    HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!11!! No. Seriously.

    For crying out loud, we race a 41-year-old VW Beetle off road in Mexico and the  car carries three GPS units, a satellite phone, an SMS-type satellite communications uplink and my iPhone. I’d wire it for cable if the rules let me.

    Emily, Wendy and all the racers have my greatest respect. Here’s their blog and Twitter feed.

    T-minus 8 hours and counting til we leave for Prairie City. I expect word any minute that the engine is in and tested. Annnnnnny minute.

  • 1107 coming together for this weekend’s Prairie City season opener

    Ok, now it’s a good engine.

    Crusty reports that he, Skid and Bob are making excellent progress on buttoning up 1107 for this weekend’s season opener at Prairie City, just outside Sacramento. Crusty is welding stuff and Bob is putting in the axles. After that, the re-re-built engine goes in, they test it and do final prep. We head out tomorrow after work. I’ll be blogging and live-tweeting the whole weekend.

    Here’s the schedule, courtesy of VORRA:

    Short Course Event Schedule
    March 20 & 21

    SATURDAY
    8 a.m.-noon
    Tech Inspection & Registration

    2:30 p.m.
    Car & Truck Practice (We’ll be on the track)

    5 p.m.
    Car & Truck Qualifying (We’ll be on the track)

    SUNDAY
    8:15 a.m.
    Mandatory Drivers Meeting

    9-9:30 a.m.
    Practice (We’ll be on the track)

    9:45 a.m.
    First Moto (We’ll be on the track)

    11:30 a.m.
    Second Moto (We’ll be on the track)

    1:15 p.m.
    Lunch (!)

    1:45 p.m.
    Third Moto (We’ll be on the track)

    4:30 p.m.
    Awards Presentation

  • We apparently raced the San Felipe 250 after all

    Apparently a shot of us tearing it up at last weekend’s San Felipe 250.

    Bob worked overnight and through this morning, reporting at 1 p.m. today that he had disassembled, replaced a seized main engine bearing, reassembled and tested the engine. We will be ready to race come Saturday and Sunday.

    El Jeffo, who handle chase duties for us in his tres cool International Harvester whenever we pass through San Felipe (and who is kind enough to let us crash at his place whenever we’re in the area) shot these photos of 1102 during the San Felipe 250 this past weekend.

    This is us apparently leaping a spectator’s truck. Note the vandalism to the passenger side door. What is it with today’s youth?

    And this is us apparently going up a pretty steep hill.

  • Some days are better than others

    Scott, momentarily not under the car fixing something, fixes something inside the car.

    One week til the the first short course race of the VORRA season and we were all set to button up 1107. Realized that the pulley is tight. Engine was back on the truck. Bob and Mike will be going through it tomorrow. As a backup, we’ll pull 1117’s engine, but we will be racing.

    Some photos from today’s work day.

    It’ll be good as new in a week.