Desert Dingo Racing

The production on this piece Race Dezert is actually pretty good compared to a lot of work out there. Don’t blink or you’ll miss us.

Click here or on the image to watch the video.

One of the great things about Class 11 is that folks are more than willing to help, like when Richard and Mike got their first flat at the San Felipe 250.

When we got stuck in silt outside the Ensenada dump during the Baja 1000, four spectators helped me push the car out of it.

Thanks to Jose Castellanos of Rosarita for sending us the photos, and definitely check out his video of our unscheduled pit stop that I posted a few days ago.

Thanks to Henryque for translating it to “The bug 1101 got a flat.” The first of three

Thanks very much to Jose Castellanos for shooting and posting the video!

Richard and Skid take a well-deserved break.

This report from Seth (who also sent the photos):

Our valiant attempt to conquer the Baja 250 came to an end at Race Mile 72. In those 72 miles, we suffered 3 (three) flat tires, which when added to the two on Friday, were 2 more than we could handle.

Many of you know that we race to raise awareness of diabetes. That said, we decided to have our two diabetic team member start this race. Skid and Richard left the start line at just after 11 a.m. The first flat tire occured near race mile 5 (!). After a quick tire change, they were off again. At Mile 22, they were joined by Chase Captain Seth. There, they replaced the spare wheel with spare #2, performed a helmet swap, fixed the radio, and pulled the damaged bumper (from an early close-encounter with a creosote tree).

Off again, the course claimed tire #3 at Race Mile 46. The decision was made to run the car with the flat, and this they did admirably. And, at Race Mile 55, another tire went flat.

Richard and Skid carried 1101 all the way to Race Mile 72 with all tires on the left side of the vehicle flat. They finally stopped because they could not see through the smoke coming from the flat tires.

We chased them for 2 hours, and loaded 1101 onto the trailer. No racer wants to see the trailer…I think they were hoping we might have some more extra wheels and tires, but we did not.

1101 is now trailered, and will soon go home. But, as always, lessons were learned, and 1101 will not be down long.

You can check out race day photos here.

And so it ends.

I’d been following Gary’s updates all day and had sent him a note of appreciation for his work. We’re out for this race, but in the words of California’s governator, “We’ll be back.”

Two flats - a total of three today - and we’re done at RM 72

We haven’t had communication with the car, but expected it to stop at checkpoint 1 to be towed home with a flat tire. We’re only guessing they picked up a spare someplace because they’re tearing along at 21 mph toward RM 93 where they’ll do the driver changeout. Seth is picking up Scott and his race gear at Pete’s place as I type this.

Fingers are crossed.

1101 is headed toward Checkpoint 1 where Seth will meet them. Three flats in the course of 55 miles and we just ran out of spares.

We’ll take a look at what happened, adjust accordingly and set our sites on the next race.

Thanks to everyone who checked in with me during the race. We appreciate your support.

Updates as they occur.

Seth will do an email to me when he gets back to Pete’s Camp. Spent some time with Mike and Richard. They had a blowout at RM 5, then bottomed out and pressed the front bumper into the wheel well. They pulled that loose with a tow strat and the chase truck.

Other issues when Seth gets back.

You can listen live to the Weatherman, who coordinates search and rescue during the race by clicking here or on the image above.