Hear Weatherman get really cranky with people, live on the radio.
We’re saving up our pennies for the Baja 1000, but this is the weekend for the Baja 500. Nearly as fun as being in the car sucking in lungfuls of silt is listening to Weatherman get increasingly cranky with people who walk over his broadcasts, who are universally referred to as “Richard Craniums.” He’s also threatened to lock some kid in a closet full of spiders for playing with a radio and broadcasting over him. Then there was this:
“Weatherman, radio check.”
“You’re a 10.”
“Is 10 good or bad? Is the scale from 1 to 10 or 10 to 1?”
“10 is good. It goes from 1 to 10.”
“Ok, thanks Weatherman. Out.”
Thanks to the Race Dezert folks for rebroadcasting this.
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.
INTERNATIONAL DIABETES FEDERATION and DESERT DINGO RACING HOST DIABETES AWARENESS EVENT ON FISHERMAN’S WHARF
June 8 event will promote the theme of this year’s World Diabetes Day campaign and showcase Desert Dingo Racing’s ‘World Diabetes Day” Baja 1000 race VW
SAN FRANCISCO, June 1, 2008 – The International Diabetes Federation (IDF), its World Diabetes Day official partners and Desert Dingo Racing will co-sponsor a public event at The Cannery on Fisherman’s Wharf on Sunday, June 8 to promote diabetes awareness and education.
The Federation will be distributing World Diabetes Day (WDD) material to draw attention to diabetes in children and inform people of the warning signs of diabetes. Desert Dingo Racing will have its 1969 VW Beetle (the World Diabetes Day car), which raced the 2007 Baja 1000, and team drivers will be on hand to sign hero cards, which also have the warning signs of diabetes printed on them.
* Relax. This is 1117, which I’m painting at my leisure. 1101 is dialed.
P.S. This is what it looks like when you steal a race motorcycle at yesterday’s Baja 500, throw it in the back of your pickup and tear off into the night, but forget to turn off the GPS transponder.
