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.

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.

We’ve scheduled a photo shoot for the car for April 27 at the Bonny Doon Airport. The managers are great folks and, like us, very community oriented. Brooks Institute-trained Santa Cruz photographer Jeff Luhn will do the photography. Larry, of Larry’s Electric, is bringing his boom truck. Why a boom truck, you might ask? Well, we want to simulate a photo of the car being photographed from a helicopter. Something like this, which I got a screen capture from “Dust to Glory”

To recreate this shot on an airport runway, Jeff says we need 25 pounds of flour. I’m guessing whole wheat.

(The above shot is of Eric Solorzano’s car, actually being chased by a helicopter).

We’ll be inviting the airport neighbors to come out and I should have some World Diabetes Day items to give out. If there’s time we hope to give some folks a ride in the car.

The photo will be used on hero cards that we’ll be printing. They’ll have the photo on the front and the warning signs of diabetes on the back. Our first run will be in English, but in advance of the Baja 1000, we’ll also do a print run in Spanish. We’ll be autographing these and giving them out to fans.

We’re also working with the International Diabetes Federation on an event in the Bay Area in early June. More on that once we firm up a few details.

A word of caution: the Baja 1000 is a grueling course and accidents do happen. Thankfully, there are no serious accidents ever reported for any Class 11 entry in the race.

Refresh this screen to get updates as they occur: http://tinyurl.com/3xn72m/ Vehicle incidents are reported by number. Class 11 numbers include 1100 (Eric Solarzano), 1101, 1146 (Go Team!), 1147, 1148 and 1149.

The goal of our team is to finish the race, safe and sound. Safety is #1, finishing #2. Winning would be icing on the cake.

Several cars out of the race due to injuries and breakdowns.

Two fatalities: pilot and copilot of a chase helicopter. Our prayers are with their families and team members.

Eric Solorzano got a new paint job for his Class 11. Very snazzy.

Photo originally posted by Chromoly77.

Baja Champion Baja Safari Team Solorzano Helps Desert Dingo Racing for Baja 1000 2007
Baja Racing News Live!
August 12, 2007
A local Santa Cruz, California team, rebuilt Volkswagen headed for Baja 1,000-mile off-road race in Baja, Mexico. With the help of World Famous Baja Champion Baja Safari Class 11 Team Solorzano.

The Baja 500 was this weekend. Looking forward to hearing the Class 11 results.

Finally got a chance to upload Charlie’s video of our trip to Tijuana to meet with Eric Solorzano.

And we had a work day today. Waiting for the photos from sCary. I’ll post those post haste.

We met at sCary’s place today to continue work on the body and front suspension. Skid was off in some desert paradise sipping mojitos, leaving sCary, Shawn (who still owes me a team bio) and me to do the heavy lifting.

sCary focused on gussets for the front suspension spindles – a tip passed along by Eric Solorzano, who we’re still talking about, starting sentences with “Well, Eric says…”

Before we headed out to sCary’s workspace, we watched Charlie’s 14-minute uncut video of our trip to Mexico. I’ll post a brief, expurgated clip next time.

Anyway, sCary worked on gussets. He’d already reinforced welds on other parts of the front suspension and is preparing to make some precision cuts that will allow him to adjust the front springs and buy us some front end ground clearance.

Shawn, who is already practicing for the Baja 1000 by taking his high-performance Corvette into Santa Clara County hill country, focused on sanding down the hood. His technique is amazing. He was pointing out variations in paint height that I couldn’t sense with my fingertips.

I got the coolest job – hammering out the curved lips on three of the four fenders. The issue with standard VW fenders is that, at the factory, they bend the metal under the fender. That’s all well and good for highway driving, but in a desert environment, the additional up and down tire travel means the tire can get gouged if it scrapes against the rough inside lip of the curved metal.

The inside curve of a VW fender is a perfect resonator and I spent 20-30 minutes apiece hammering down the rough edge on each fender. My ears are still ringing.

Here are a few shots from today’s efforts.