Desert Dingo Racing

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.

Skid, sCary, Charlie and I spent Saturday in San Diego meeting with Eric Solorzano, the nine-time winner of the Baja 1000 in the stock VW class. It’s hard to put into words how the day went. Eric is one of the nicest people you’d have the opportunity to meet.

I was re-parking the rental car when he told the gang we’d be going to Tijuana to his shop.

He endured hours of questions, allowed us to crawl all over his cars and offered to help us tune our car to make it competitive.

Eric’s a former offroad motorcycle racer who switched to VWs. He has two cars. One for short courses and one for the Baja 1000. He’s used the same cars since he started racing. They are bulletproof and incorporate things we’d never have thought of.

I strongly suspect we’ll be having Eric build our engine and doing our suspension tuning.

He was a great host and I expect we’ll be working extensively with him in the months leading up to the race.

Here’s a slideshow of our time with him.

We’re headed down to San Diego on Saturday, May 12 to spend the day with Eric Solorzano, the nine-time winner of Class 11 at the Baja 1000. We’ve been holding off on any construction to learn as much as we can from him.

This should be good.

I spent 40 minutes on the phone with Eric Solorzano, nine-time winner of the Baja 1000 Class 11 category. As Charlie said, “It’s like having Michael Jordan teach you how to shoot baskets.”

One page of questions turned into four pages of notes. Best part is he invited us to come down to San Diego to go through his car and he’d teach us some driving techniques.

Highlights from the conversation:

Class 11 VWs take a different line through the course than the other vehicles. Stay out of ruts made by other tires.

Change drivers before you get tired. When you’re tired you make mistakes. The helmet gets heavy after a while and when it’s hot, your head swells.

Hydrate in the days leading up to the race. He drinks Pedialyte when he’s in the car.

Install a 14-gallon fuel cell up front and a five-gallon fuel cell in the back seat. Only use the five-gallon one for emergencies. (We’d been thinking of a 22-gallon fuel cell in the back seat, but Eric said that it would put too much strain on the rear suspension and just try getting a car out of a silt bed with a full load of fuel in the back.)

He runs 235/75/15 tires all around. You can go larger, but you lose engine power.

Eric has a glass windshield (I’ve seen a lot of class 11s that don’t). “It gets cold at night and your body uses a lot of energy to keep warm.” He uses a Parker Pumper air system.

He installed the auxiliary oil cooler on the roof just above the rear window. “What about rolling the car?” “I don’t recommend that you roll the car.”

“You want a big amber light and a big red light to tell you if something is going wrong.” One for the alternator(?) and one for oil warning light. “You’ll never check your gauges because you’re focused on driving.”

His chase car carries a spare engine, spare transmission, a complete front end and a complete tie rod assembly. And a spare fuel pump, compufier(?), coil pack and distributor. Jetting for the carb, nuts and bolts, clutch cable and drive belt. And spare air filters and tires.

Never changed an engine. Changed a transmission once. Broke four or five spindles. You’ll get flats.

He also carries about $1700 worth of tools. “You want to carry the right tools so you can disassemble the entire car.” A cordless impact wrench is a must have.

We’ll probably fly down to San Diego in mid-May to go over his car.

My next post will summarize Eric (nine-time Baja 1000 Class 11 winner) Solorzano’s advice in our phone conversation, but before I get to that, this came in the mail.

The Stig rocks and I was kicking myself for missing the opportunity to order this shirt online after the Top Gear goes to America show aired.

I watched eBay (and even ebay.co.uk to no avail). In desperation I emailed the show. Hugh from Amber Promotions responded and said they’d kept a few back for the “pleaders”. I laid it on thick. I promised to wear it in media interviews (and I will).

Whomever co-drives with me will be listening to Robert Parker audiobooks.

How to describe today? Bought 1117 from Charlie. We have a full up race car and will likely run it on a MORE race in June. And spent 40 minutes on the phone with Eric Solorzano, the nine-time winner of Class 11 at the Baja 1000.

We have a lot of work in front of us. Eric has offered to let us go over his car and teach us what we need to know about racing. We’re already pricing flights to San Diego.

It’s like having Mario Andretti invite us over for dinner, or, as Charlie said, like “Having Michael Jordan teach you how to shoot hoops.”

This is going to happen.

(More on my call with Eric as soon as I type up my notes.)