The shocks aren’t on. Nor are the fenders. But check out the clearance we have now, courtesy of Eric, Sam and Crusty.

One of the last things Eric and Sam did before buttoning up the car was to tune the engine. Adjust the valves. Check. Adjust the timing. Check. Pour a bottle of beer in the carburetor. Check.

(Note that this Corona has a slice of lemon in it).

For the record, the engine ran remarkably better after the beer.

Crusty and Sam work on hammering out the front end of 1101.

Eric Solorzano and his longtime friend and co-driver “Yosemite” Sam drove up to San Jose this past week to work their magic on 1101. By the time they buttoned it up on Saturday afternoon, we had a good 3-4 additional inches of clearance on the front, 4-5 inches in the rear and the Solorzano-built engine sounds like a beast.

Crusty and Sam also hammered out the front end that got smushed at the San Felipe 250 and they extended the roll cage to give more structural support at the front of the car.

Check out a handful of photos from Friday here.

We still have some more work to do. Eric has taken our shocks back down to Bilstein for re-valving and repair. We also need to pull the transmission and send it down to Transworks for some tweaking.

Here’s 1101 parked next to Eric’s car at the 250. Definitely shows the need for some expertise to get us a bit more ground clearance.

Max Davis dropped off a big batch of new decals he designed for us. We’ll probably do a big run of these in advance of the 1000.

(To anyone who wonders, it’s a cow, not a deer.)

A couple weeks back I posted on the Class 11 Coalition forum a question - “What breaks, what do you carry?” One of the greatest challenges for racing any desert class is what tools and spare parts you carry in the car and what you carry in the chase vehicles.

Dave Hendrickson - aka DaveCo11 - answered with an epic list, built over his decades of racing and helping other Class 11 teams. With his permission, I’m reposting it here.

“Being I run a 1967 with a 5 lug swing axle, I carry a spare rear drum, breaker bar with axle socket, axle nut, rear wheel bearing and 4 axle seal kits, inner and outer front wheel bearings greased in plastic bags, with washers and left and right deals to hold the front drum on.

I also carry 5 lug nuts, assorted nuts and bolts, 1 spare tire, bumper jack, 10 fan belts, spare tie rods, alternator pulley with the little key, spare ignition, including cap and rotor, fuel pump and line with 2 filters, spare front shock, spare rear shock that are custom made with attached reservoirs, welded brake line in case I blow a wheel cylinder, flat blade screw driver, crescent wrench, pickle fork, hammer, 13mm wrench, 9/16-1/2-3/4, 15-17mm sockets with extension, vise grips, push rod, 3 spare push rod tubes and extra seals, lash caps, rocker stud, rocker screws, complete rocker assembly, valve cover with gasket, duct tape, wire, rear cotter key, clutch cable, 3 throttle cables with 4 barrel nuts, clutch hook for the pedals, extra shock bolts, starter switch, alternator shims and pulley nut including the piece that goes against the pulley, distributer clamp, extra coil, and coil wire, set of plug wires, 2 spark plugs, JB quick weld in case I blow a spark plug out I can weld it back into the hole (YES, IT WORKS), upper and lower ball joints with a tool to change them, bulb for alternator light (won’t charge with out it) and 3 shift coupler bolts.

For the Baja 1000 I carry an extra distributor timed to drop right in and a shifter.

Sounds like a whole bunch of stuff, but most all of it fits into a bag I carry behind the seat, the shocks and tie rods have their mounts on the cage as well as the jack and lug wrench. Everything I have mentioned has failed me in the past. People wonder why I carry 10 fan belts. In the ‘06 Baja 1000 I used 9 in 36 miles in the silt beds, shit for sure happens.

I am able to fix dang near anything to keep going, but the list of things I carry, you are not going far if you don’t have them and they don’t weigh much at all. The trick is to run trouble free, but in a Baja 1000 it is not easy to do. In my 9 Baja 1000 wins, the 5 I won in class 11, 3 were nearly trouble free, mainly gas and go affairs. The main problems were brakes, bending brake shoes, blown wheel cylinders, fan belts, or rocker arm related. I smashed 3 push rods and tubes, resulting in major oil loss (I carry 5 quarts of oil). Shock bolts breaking.

One win we stripped the splines in both rear drums - one in the morning right after the start - the other about 600 miles in. Later I bent a tie rod. In one I broke the shifter off right at the base. Later the hook on the pedals for the clutch cable broke. I was able to change the shaft on the pedals in about 20 minutes or so in the middle of nowhere and continue.

I also had the alternator pulley break all the way around inside. Had I not had one we would have been finished, up above Mike’s Sky Ranch, and when I slid the piece off the little key fell out and could not be found. Lucky for me I had one.

Expect the least expected. Came into one of the pits, gassed and was ready to go, went to start the car, it would hardly turn over. Noticed the alternator light was not working, found the bulb was bad, changed it with no trouble the rest of the race. Without it we were screwed.

In my friend’s ‘68 going into La Paz, the right rear wheel bearing broke, 35 miles from the finish. We were able to replace it because we had it and win.

I have broken front wheel bearings at the real Mint 400 in 1977, we did not have one, it took a long time to get one from downtown Vegas. The 1980 Baja 1000 I led the entire race trouble free, the super diff in the transmission broke in half less than 4 miles from the finish coming into Ensenada. That has to go down as my worst race. We were in the city when it broke, and there were thousands of people willing to push us to the finish, so we got pushed up to the street leading to the finish line. Back then you could not push your car across the finish line, so we changed the tranny about 300 yards from the finish line, and I almost threw up when the second car drove across the line while we were hooking up the fuel line. Minus skid plates I drove it across the line for 2nd, less than 20 seconds out of the win. So if you can, carry a spare tranny in your chase truck, you never know what may happen.

If my dad had not put that junker tranny in the truck we would have been a DNF within sight of the finish line.

These are things that work for me. It is everybody else’s choice of what to carry, just know what you have in your car at all times. I have had friends DNF races that had the stuff with them to fix their car, but forgot they had it ’til they got home. I have DNFed races for not having what I needed in the car. You can’t carry everything, and sometimes having things in your chase truck is no help at all if you broke something out in the wilds of Baja.”

Photo of Dave’s VW from Trackside Photo.

Mike Cole is planning to ride his Harley Davidson 95 Softail from St. Johns Newfoundland to Victoria BC to raise awareness and community involvement about diabetes. He was diagnosed with Type I diabetes at the age of 8. “This ride is for more than just finding a cure. We need help now. We need more community involvement and government funding for education to reduce the risk of complications as well as to educate friends and love ones. More government involvement to help with the cost. More rehabilitation centers for diabetics that have lost their jobs due to diabetes.” We met Mike on Facebook where you can learn more about his plans and follow his “Winter Harley ride across Canada.” While you’re there, check out the videos Mike’s posted to learn more about living with diabetes.

The International Diabetes Federation folks have included a shot of 1101 in their new 30-page booklet promoting the World Diabetes Day 2008 campaign. The booklet is available to download as a pdf file in English, French, and Spanish. Click on the image above to download the version of your choice.

Seth hauled 1101 about 300 miles out to the Black Rock Desert because he needed transportation between camps as part of Fourth of JuPlaya, an annual gathering of folks on the 400 square mile lake bed that, in late August, is home to Burning Man.

I’m looking forward to his report on how it handled, but, in the interim, here’s a shot of the car skulking around at night.

Baja Racing News has posted a video from VW Motorsports on the history of VW racing down in Baja. You can check it out here. Eric Solorzano’s red Beetle makes an appearance.

Our friend and teammate Mike “Skid” Aquino needs a kidney transplant. He is currently in the hospital due to kidney failure, likely a complication of his diabetes. If you have Type O blood, please consider being a live donor.

Currently, the wait time for a donor is 3-6 years, depending on blood type. Until a compatible donor is found, Skid will need to undergo dialysis three times a week.

This from the UCSF website: “Most kidneys for transplant are from people who have died and whose families give permission for organ donation. However, there are not enough of these organs for everyone who needs one. Nationally, more than 70,000 patients are on the kidney transplant waiting list, and more are added each year. Because of the organ shortage, living donor kidney transplants are an important option. They’re possible because we’re born with two kidneys. When surgeons remove one of the donor’s kidneys, the remaining kidney grows slightly to compensate for the loss of the other and the kidney can function normally.”

Who pays for expenses?
Expenses, including the required testing to see if you are a good match, will be paid by Skid’s insurance.

What is it like to donate a kidney?
Another member of our team donated a kidney to a friend. If you have questions about what the experience is like, we’ll put you in touch with Seth.

You can also help by putting the word out. We’ll post updates here. Contact us with questions at info@desertdingo.com