Desert Dingo Racing

Tag: KC Hilites

  • The shocks are in the mail

    I want one.

    I’ve got A.J. looking for one of these on Craigslist. It has nothing to do with us, except I want one.

    Richard pulled the front shocks off on Saturday. Bob pulled the rear shocks off on Sunday and today they were shipped to Bilstein in Southern California for upgrades in advance of next month’s KC Hilites Midnight Special out at Ridgecrest, Calif. Richard has also asked Joel and his team to prep a spare front and rear shock for us as well.

    It’s four months til World Diabetes Day and we’re in full planning mode for our outreach efforts. Designing a new hero card that will have the new WDD messaging in English, Spanish and French printed on the back. We’re locking in plans for the World Diabetes Congress in Montreal in October, where the car will be on display.

    After the KC Hilites race, we get a one month break before the 40th Annual South Point SNORE 250 on Oct. 2-4 outside Las Vegas. Then we have roughly three days to paint and re-decal the car before shipping it to the Montreal Convention Center .

    And we’ve got two big announcements coming up….

  • 1107 on the playa

    1107 and Logistics Maven Seth Schrenzel on the playa. (That’s Seth on the right.)

    Creech hauled 1107 out to Black Rock Desert for Fourth of JuPlaya and a plethora of team members took turns at the steering wheel. The consensus is that 1107 is “ready to win.” It hauled PVC to Double Hot. It floated across the mud flats and we’ve still got intercom issues. (You were expecting perfection, maybe?)

    Now that 1107 is back, we’ll be fixing a few bent parts and shipping the shocks down south to Bilstein for upgrades. There’s a lot more in the works as we prepare for the KC Hilites Midnight Special in August, the World Diabetes Congress in October and the Baja 1000 in November.

    This has nothing to do with us, but who doesn’t want to see what Top Gear can do with Ken Block:

    Updates as they occur. (Photo of 1107 courtesy of Michael “Skid” Aquino)

  • Preparing for the Playa

    Scott retrieves a dropped bolt. Or nut. Or wrench.

    Actually Scott is bolting in the co-driver’s race seat. We designed it such that it requires a contortionist to get one of the bolts properly torqued.

    1107 is coming back together now that we’ve had time to go through it from stem to stern. The reinforced bumpers went back on. Shawn even painted them to match the car. Shawn and Bob worked to bleed the brakes. Shawn installed the rear skid plate. Crusty and pretty much everyone worked to re-install the fuel cell.

    Crusty and I fueled the car and I managed to get my first “Sunoco facial”.  Actually, considering how much 110 Octane fuel I spilled on myself because I hadn’t tripped the fuel cell flapper valve, it was more a Sunoco full body wash.

    Skid, Seth, Creech and Crusty will be hauling 1107, sans fenders, out to the Black Rock Desert this week for Fourth of Juplaya for a bit of a shakedown run. Our next race, the KC Hilites Midnight Special, isn’t until August, so we’ve got plenty of time to dial the car in.

    I’ve got a 7 a.m. teleconference with the International Diabetes Federation folks to discuss plans for the World Diabetes Congress in Montreal in October and for World Diabetes Day and the Baja 1000 in November.

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

  • Did I mention our comm must be Mil-Spec?

    The brainstorming on a robust, long range race car to chase truck communications system for the Baja 1000 continues, this time between A.J. and me via instant messenger this morning:

    A.J.: Ok looks like we can build our own satellite pager with built in gps.  this little bad boy can do it all and all from the car. each message can be tagged with gps data so we’d know what the car is doing and where. automatically and ever few minutes. [link]

    Jim Graham: How much for a full up unit per car vs. renting the suckers?

    A.J.: Well we’d need to buy a modem for the car. set it up with sensors and just turn it on.  the system would automatically ‘ping’ us with it’s location and status at a rate we choose. the drivers could also operate it with a series of buttons to add pre-programmed messages and there is a voice option as well. that little box does it all.

    Jim Graham: So we might have a car with a blue screen of death?

    A.J.: Well I’d use the data911 cpu system I have. It has zero moving parts so it would be really hard to crash it. [link]

    Jim Graham: I didn’t understand half of what you just said.

    A.J.: That’s ok, you’re pretty.

    Jim Graham: Ok, I green light this.

    Since I’m not in the car for the KC Hilites Midnight Special, I’m volunteering to staff Road Crossing 11, which the closest one to the start/finish line. Fidel, who manages Class 11 Coalition and is the brains behind Unlimited Dirt, said he’d drop by with a “Ford Super Duty or Jeep XJ equipped w/ BBQ & ice chest…chips, dip, sausage, corn and Gordon Biersch.”

    I’m providing the marinated steaks. We’re going to set the standard by which all other Southern Nevada Off Road Enthusiast (SNORE) flagged road crossings are judged.

  • Rust and flagging

    Rust gets everywhere.

    Richard, Bob and Crusty were kind enough to unbolt the light bar so I could take it home and start sanding it down. With a couple of months before the KC Hilites Midnight Special, we’re going through the car with fine-tooth comb. I’ll sand off all the rust, Richard will weld another support bar onto it (the entire light bar sort of fell off at the Mint 400 due to vibration) and then we’ll repaint the whole shooting match.

    We got word from SNORE that we’ll be flagging Road Crossing 11 – the last one before the start finish line – at the race. You get to see all the race cars, you get an official t-shirt, and it’s great to help the volunteer organizers of the race.