And we’re back! About 12 hours from Ensenada to Felton. 1102 is safely ensconced on the trailer in the front yard. We’ll be needing a couple of new fenders, a rebuilt transmission, a short throw reverse lock out shifter and some other bits and bobs, but we should be back in business in short order.
Here’s a gallery of photos from Contingency Row on Thursday and the race on Friday. More to come.
Desert Dingos provide hands-on diabetes lesson to school children
Desert Dingo Racing, the team who have entered the official World Diabetes Day race car in the Baja 1000 off-road race later this month, recently took the car to Holly Oak Elementary School in San Jose, California to give the children a hands-on lesson in desert racing. Students in Ms. Battistella’s fourth grade class got the opportunity to add a little colour to the car, dipping their hands in red, blue or gold paint and pressing them to the car’s fenders.
Ok, it’s only one quote in a tremendously cool article written by Judy Smith, a veteran Baja racer and longtime writer for Hot VWs. A good number of the photos were shot by Trackside Photo, which got the great shot of us catching air at last year’s Baja 1000. They even mentioned our fundraising for World Diabetes Day. Click here or on the image to download a PDF of the article.
The folks at the Press Banner did a piece on us and a local motorcycle team prepping for the Baja 1000, “1000 reasons“. A great headline. Thank you Chuck and Peter.
Our 1102 numbers arrive from STS Graphics tomorrow via Fedex.
Shawn and I (mostly Shawn) complete painting the car tomorrow. I pick up the Desert Dingo logo for the hood, sponsor graphics and some surprise stuff on Monday.
The team is pulling together spare parts that we’ll either load in the car or carry in the chase vehicles.
We were contacted by the local American Diabetes Association with an offer to display the car at the San Jose City Hall rotunda. Unfortunately, we’ll be down in Mexico doing pre-running. I’ll be meeting with them on Monday, will give them hero cards and loads of crayons and we’ll figure out how we can work together on future events and have the car available. This should be fun.
BRUSSELS, Belgium, October 31, 2008/ — Whether your tastes tend toward bright lights and big cities, quiet contemplation or off-road racing, groups around the U.S. are gearing up to celebrate World Diabetes Day and raise awareness of the growing threat of diabetes.
The International Diabetes Federation (IDF), which led the effort to get the United Nations to recognize the existing World Diabetes Day (November 14) as an official UN world day, announced that this year’s campaign theme is “Diabetes in Children and Adolescents.”
Over 200 children a day are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and over 500,000 children under the age of 15 live with diabetes worldwide. In the U.S. 40 children a day develop type 1 diabetes, roughly 15,000 children each year.
“People around the globe have embraced the effort to raise awareness of the growing threat of diabetes,” said World Diabetes Day Campaign Director Phil Riley. “All diabetes is increasing and children are not spared. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that 75,000 children with type 1 diabetes worldwide cannot access the medication, monitoring and education they need to survive. This story goes largely ignored and these children remain in the shadows to face an uncertain future. We aim to bring diabetes to light.”