Desert Dingo Racing

Tag: Mint 400

  • Line up for the Mint 400 announced

    Hunter S. Thompson

    Cursed road hooligan “Uncle” Ed Mahoney posted the starting lineup for Stock VWs (with his own commentary) for the upcoming Mint 400 in Vegas. As it stands we’re fifth off the line:

    #1121 Garey Leavitt (Clean Air, Welcome Back Kotter)

    #1106 Jeff Lee (Doing Good For Dogs, Eating Light Dust)

    #1111 Felipe Neri Sanchez (Fast At BAP But Can’t Drive “25”)

    #1101 Robert C. Johnson (Going For Two In Row)

    #1107 Richard Palasik (Look Out For Reckless Drivers)

    #1167 Scott Goodwin (When You Say Bugweiser, You’ve Said It All)

    #1191 Dave Cote (Pump Gas, Go Fast)

    #1102 Cory Vandermark (Hope He Makes It)

    #1100 Eddy Mahoney (Won’t Go Far In New Car)

    #1188 Mark Murrell (Smashing Ed’s Bumper By Mile 2)

    Boogity, Boogity, Boogity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Richard and Bob made a run to Bradford Racing Products in Prunedale and returned like conquering heros, bringing with them a replacement steering column, steering wheel, steering shaft, steering box, a Pitman arm (whatever that is), some extra long tie rods, three more fenders, a spare rear bumper and a front brake drum.

    We’re hoping to get our remanufactured shocks back from Bilstein by Saturday so we can do a major team meeting and work day on Sunday.

  • 2140 just means she’s big boned

    She has a good personality.

    Richard and I took 1107 to the Ben Lomond Transfer Station today because they’ve got the closest truck scale. Needed to weigh the car for several reasons. One is that we have a toy hauler and the car needs to fit in it. A.J. also went nuts and bought a 28′ used U-Haul truck (more on that later), and there’s one other thing that might require the car to be shipped across country (more on that later, too).

    Your stock ’69 VW weighs in at around 1650 pounds. Because we’re still prepping for our next race, Richard and I (mostly Richard) had to cram two spare tires (one in the passenger seat, and two unattached fenders (sticking out the rear window frame) onto the car when it rolled onto the scales.

    A lighter car has more power. It can get through silt without bogging down. It can run down Trophy Trucks. Ok, maybe not s much the last one.

    Or, as Shawn says, “Every 100 pounds is good for 1/10th off the quarter mile and there are 4,000 quarter miles in the Baja 1000.”

    I don’t know what that means, but it sounds good. Here are a handful of shots from our trip.

    Two weeks to the Mint 400.

  • Desert Dingo Racing featured in RaceDrive TV’s “99 Auto Racing Twitter Accounts to Follow”

    The headline says it all. I didn’t realize there were that many racing enthusiasts using Twitter until RaceDrive TV compiled them. We’re in good company.

    In other news, the team has decided to race the famous Mint 400 at the end of March. I’m going to have to re-read Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” He did great coverage of it back in the day.