Brett Svatek did a piece on the team and I spent most of my time talking about eating.

INTERVIEW: Jim Graham – Desert Dingo Racing
The Sporting Life, February 24, 2010
Jim Graham and his Desert Dingo racing team set out to conquer the Baja 1000 in a car that most people wouldn’t feel safe driving to the 7-11…they are truly living The Sporting Life.

An extremely early birthday present from Roxanne came in the mail today. A custom Flip HD camera with a photo of 1107 printed on the front. We’ve been using a standard Flip for several years with decent results. We’ll test it at the SNORE 250 in early October and at the World Diabetes Congress later in the month. And, naturally, at the Baja 1000.

Thank you Roxanne

You think you know a guy…

So Travis here was a first timer with us at the Baja 1000. Totally unflappable. Can-do attitude. Attacked the dirtiest jobs with gusto. Sometimes he attacked them with verve.

So most of the team had been up for more than 24 hours when we crashed out of the race after the car hit a tree. And then the transmission failed. And we pulled the engine and tranny to replace it, only to realize the replacement tranny wouldn’t fit. So we pack everything up and make the long drive back to Ensenada.

Everyone, exhausted, crashes. And Travis, and some wristwatch-wearing accomplice, wanders from trailer to truckbed, from RV to crew cab, photographing sleeping people with our 1102 pit sign, which, I’m assuming, he used for perspective.

Here now, is his gallery of images.

Scott qualifying for his pilot’s license at the 2008 Baja 1000.

Just ordered a couple of print copies of these photos from Trackside Photo. Jim Ober and his team are some of the best shooters who cover all the major races.

I’ll be out of town, but the team meets on Sunday to continue prep work on the car for the Mint 400 coming up March 26-29 in Vegas.

Here’s what’s on the to do list, courtesy of Busboy Bob:

Spare for trailer -Skid
Shock sent back to Bilstien – Richard
Tie Rod repair and improvement – Scott
2x new rear tires – Richard
Move transponder bracket – Scott/Richard
Repair front fender mount – Bob & Scott
Oil Change – Bob
Valve Check – Bob
Air Filter Check/clean – Creech
Make all hardware metric – Creech/Scott
Skid plate made into 1 piece/fix – Scott
Move air pump switch – Shawn
Inspect/replace/ grease wheel bearings -
New Zerts – Bob
Lower front seat – Creech/Richard
Cheap shock spares – Bob
Blue/Amber lights – sCary
Spark plug check – Bob
Power wash car -
Paint fenders – Shawn
Clean seats -
Ball joint replacement –
Tool Bag – Bob

With Scott’s additions:

Portable power washer for track
Portable air compressor for track
Fix the brushes on that damnable angle grinder
Gaffer tape for in-car toolbag
Rear-facing camera mount
Appoint camera czar
Source half-axles and bus CV spares.
Wire brush for toolkit
Source spare studded drum
Fab & weld footbrace for navigator

Bob vs. the engine

This weekend belonged to Bob, Creech, and Shawn. The whole weekend.

They installed the rebuilt transmission from Bradford Racing in Prunedale. On Saturday they drove nearly two hours to Hollister Hills SVRA for a shakedown test. The video says it all. Drive a couple hundred yards, stop. Check the transmission. Drive another couple hundred yards. Stop. Repeat. It kept popping out of second gear.

They packed it up after just one run and headed back to Bradford’s place. He drove it. It still popped out. The team trailered the car back to Creech’s and Bob dropped the engine and tranny in a record 75 minutes. They drove it back to Bradford’s and he committed to rebuilding it overnight.

Creech picked it up this morning and Bob worked his magic to get it re-installed. The engine, coaxed into place by Bob, Creech and me (while Shawn made a rocket run for transmission fluid), went in like buttah. (Bob had his own description for how smoothly it went).

Creech and Bob took it for a test drive just as it started to sprinkle. No joy. Still popping out of second gear. It really started to rain as we loaded 1102 onto the trailer. An hour drive to Prunedale. Steve says he’ll deliver us a working transmission, whatever it takes.

The team starts heading out for Vegas and the Battle at Primm on Thursday. A handful of photos here…

Who doesn’t get tired of looking at pictures of a flying Bug? This one from the driver’s side.

There is consensus building that the team will forego the San Felipe 250 and instead race the Battle at Primm in February.

Thanks to Zach Zander for shooting the photo and Bryan Grant for forwarding it to us.

Ok, so we didn’t make the NBC broadcast of the Baja 1000. To the best of my recollection, there was a brief glimpse of just one Class 11.

For those of you who want to relive the glory, Race-Dezert is replaying the entire recording of the Weatherman channel starting late Friday night, coinciding with exactly what was broadcast a few weeks ago. Weathernan is the air traffic controller of everything going on during the race. We usually switch between him and the Baja Pits frequencies. But if you want the big picture of what’s going on, who’s broken down and who’s out of the race, you listen to Weatherman.

I’ll probably set the alarm to get up at 2:10 a.m. to hear myself radio Weatherman and let him know we are out of the race.

Here’s how Race-Dezert describes it:

This Saturday (12-20-08) we will re-broadcast the last Baja 1000 weatherman audio stream. Lots of you guys were at the race and could not experience it the way those in front of a computer did that day. This is your chance.

We will start replaying it here at the same time of day. For example what happened 10am race day of the Baja 1000 live will be re-played here on RDC on Saturday at 10am. Technically the audio stream will start late Friday night because that’s when we started to record the Weatherman radio channel. However the more relevant content will be Saturday during the day when the SCORE Baja 1000 race unfolds.

The re-broadcast will be in a better experience then what you may have heard on race day. It’s a recording of what Weatherman hears and responds to while during the race. Often you can just hear one part of the conversation due to physical limits of radio waves.

For those that don’t know, Weatherman is Bob Steinberger’s nickname (Owner and founder of PCI). He is the volunteer that handles SCORE’s official 2-way radio communication during the Baja 1000. Radio conversation contains race car status, emergencies, vehicle break downs, Chase and support teams efforts and anything in between.

Since there’s no video of us from the Baja 1000, here’s a couple of great clips. Up top is rally car racer Ken Block doing some practice driving. I think after we win the Baja 1000, we switch to rally driving and Skid can drive the Segway (in the video). And below is, without question, the most awesome road test of any car ever invented, courtesy of Top Gear UK.

The Baja 1000 is on NBC this Sunday at 10 a.m. Pacfic Time. Aura 360 included a clip of Scott “Never Lift” Anderson going sub-orbital off the Red Bull jump in the Ensenada wash. There should be a segment on Eric Solorzano in this year’s show.

Some clips from the show (and the soon to be released documentary) are here.

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.

Considering we only did the San Felipe and the Baja 1000, we still racked up 64 points and finished 7th in all the Class 11s competing.

Wait til we win both races next year.