Desert Dingo Racing

Tag: Desert Dingo Racing

  • Men at work

    Creech and Skid oversee Bob and Scott

    Let’s face it. Scott and Bob did the heavy lifting today (Sunday), though it didn’t exactly start that way.

    First we needed to move 1102 from my place to Creech’s. Richard was working on his tan in Hawaii (thanks for the phone call, man), so Creech volunteered his NYC cab with the 350 small block Chevy engine, stick shift and trailer hitch to move the car.

    Everything was cool till we got it all hooked up and were headed down the road when we realized we had a flat tire on the trailer. That required a set of bolt cutters followed by the realization that none of the eight tires on the trailer was a spare for the trailer. That was followed by a spate of phone calls and a trip to Costco where we picked up a new cheapo tire and killed time eating free food samples, because Creech had a Costco card.

    Got the new tire on the trailer and delivered the car to Bob and Scott, who were waiting at Creech’s for a couple of hours with bated breath. They dropped the engine and the tranny and started the autopsy. It became apparently, pretty quickly, that all that sparkly stuff was a good sign we’d trashed the gears. A rebuild is in order. If there’s any question after checking the photos, they got the most greasy this Sunday.

    The tranny is now in the back of my MPV, bound for a full autopsy by a local racer who also rebuilds transmissions. Just got a call from Bob who picked up a Baja Bug tranny that I’ll get from him tomorrow and also drop off with the race tranny builder. Gallery of photos is here.

  • And the repairs begin…

    A chorizo pizza, the size of the hood of a Baja 1000 pre-runner, delivered by motorcycle in Tijuana

    Sometime Sunday Creech is coming by with a Checker cab outfitted with a tow hitch to trailer 1102 to his place in Ben Lomond. Bob “Bus Boy” Russell, our team sommelier, will drop the engine and transmission. We’re pricing spare race transmissions as I write this, and looking to folks to rebuild our primary tranny.

    Photos tomorrow. It’s a new race day for the team.

    And, at Eric’s Tijuana workshop, that was the best chorizo and jalapeno pizza – the size of a car hood – I’d ever had.

  • The exotic life of the Baja 1000 racer

    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.

    Kids in the hood

  • Airborne at the Baja 1000

    1102 airborne at the Baja 1000

    There’s been a lot of discussion (if you consider three of us instant messaging each other as “discussion”) about how much air Scott and Seth caught off the Red Bull jump in the Ensenada wash.

    I think Richard thought it was about 12-18 inches. I maintained three feet, based on watching the video something like 50 times. I forget what Skid thought. I got a call from Eric Solorzano today and he maintains we could have jumped another Class 11.

    Judge for yourself. I edited the full Ensenada Deportes video down to our jump. (I included a trophy truck for comparison).

    I like this photo. It was the last time the car was clean.

    1102 on the staging ramp

  • Desert Dingos at Baja 1000 featured on ESPN Magazine online

    Desert Dingo Racing at the start of the 2008 Baja 1000

    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.