Desert Dingo Racing

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.

To Be Called “Racer”: It’s the highest honor, and the Baja 1000 finds them.
ESPN Magazine online, November 25, 2008
In motorsports, there is one word above all others that exemplifies what our twisted metal, burning rubber, death-defying pursuit is all about. The term is never used lightly and bestowed upon only those have earned the right to wear it.

Racer.

Time to set your clock, friends and fans. The race starts Friday, November 21 @ 5 AM. Class 11 shoots out the gate around noon. Teams will have 31 hours from their designated start time to complete the course.

Folks at home have a couple of options to track the race. Hardcore supporters can listen to the online audio stream of Rob “The Weatherman” Steinberger, a man who’s practically as legendary as the race. The Weatherman volunteers each year, setting up a radio outpost on top of a windy mountaintop slightly southwest of Mikes Sky ranch at about 9500 feet elevation. He’s like the air traffic controller, reporting injuries, repair needs, checkpoint information, and so on. Bookmark his channel (http://www.race-dezert.com/radio/) but be aware that this is not entertainment. Accidents do happen, and an important part of the Weatherman’s job is to report them and help coodinate emergency services.

IRC is supposed to have all entries tracking on GPS at http://www.racetheworld.net.

Score will provide GPS tracking of five classes (SCORE Trophy Trucks, Class 1, Class 5-1600, Stock Mini and Class 8 ) live at http://www.2008scorebaja1000.com/. Unfortunately no Class 11 coverage.

Desert Dingos provide hands-on diabetes lesson to school children

Desert Dingo Racing, the team who have entered the official World Diabetes Day race car in the Baja 1000 off-road race later this month, recently took the car to Holly Oak Elementary School in San Jose, California to give the children a hands-on lesson in desert racing. Students in Ms. Battistella’s fourth grade class got the opportunity to add a little colour to the car, dipping their hands in red, blue or gold paint and pressing them to the car’s fenders.

Read the entire story here…

Ok, it’s only one quote in a tremendously cool article written by Judy Smith, a veteran Baja racer and longtime writer for Hot VWs. A good number of the photos were shot by Trackside Photo, which got the great shot of us catching air at last year’s Baja 1000. They even mentioned our fundraising for World Diabetes Day. Click here or on the image to download a PDF of the article.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, October 31, 2008/ – Whether your tastes tend toward bright lights and big cities, quiet contemplation or off-road racing, groups around the U.S. are gearing up to celebrate World Diabetes Day and raise awareness of the growing threat of diabetes.

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF), which led the effort to get the United Nations to recognize the existing World Diabetes Day (November 14) as an official UN world day, announced that this year’s campaign theme is “Diabetes in Children and Adolescents.”

Over 200 children a day are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and over 500,000 children under the age of 15 live with diabetes worldwide. In the U.S. 40 children a day develop type 1 diabetes, roughly 15,000 children each year.

“People around the globe have embraced the effort to raise awareness of the growing threat of diabetes,” said World Diabetes Day Campaign Director Phil Riley. “All diabetes is increasing and children are not spared. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that 75,000 children with type 1 diabetes worldwide cannot access the medication, monitoring and education they need to survive. This story goes largely ignored and these children remain in the shadows to face an uncertain future. We aim to bring diabetes to light.”

Read the entire press release here…

October 30, 2008, San Jose, Calif, – Desert Dingo Racing and GoPro have teamed to capture and broadcast high quality digital in-car video during the 41st Annual Baja 1000 offroad race in Mexico this November.

Desert Dingo Racing competes in Class 11, which is limited to pre-1983 Volkswagen Beetles and allows for only minor modifications to the engine and suspension. The Desert Dingo VW (No. 1102) is the official World Diabetes Day car in the race and the team is hosting a drive-a-thon fundraiser to raise money for diabetes awareness and education programs conducted by the International Diabetes Federation.

“We’ve tested a couple of different camera setups in the car and were never satisfied with the results,” said Desert Dingo team member Jim Graham. “GoPro’s Motorsports HERO unit is extremely durable - which is crucial for desert racing - and the 170-degree field of view will let us capture all the action.”

Read the entire press release here.

SCORE released the initial GPS track for the race. We purchase a more detailed version that loads into the Lowrance GPS unit mounted in front of the co-driver. It’s a bit more detailed and has cool little skull and crossbones icons that warn of things like sheer cliffs, deep water and boulder protruding into the course.

If you want to check it in Google Earth, you can download the KML file here.

Less than three weeks til we depart. We’ll drive to San Diego on Nov. 12, spend the night, then drive to Rosarita Beach the next morning and spend the next week with Eric Solorzano (who starts in front of us) tweaking the car and pre-running sections of the course.

Car still needs to be painted. That will happen next Sunday most likely. And we’re waiting on two digital video cameras that we’ll mount to capture in-car footage, that, if everything goes as planned, we’ll upload to the Internets during the race.

Still only three teams in Class 11 - Eric, us and Alaskan Michael Brown, who I’ve heard is making his first run at the race. I expect a few more will register in the next week or so.

If you’re checking in from seeing the KPIX, howdy. If you can spare a few dollars, we’d love it if you pledged to our drive-a-thon fundraiser. Even a penny or five cents a miles would be fantastic. And 100% of the money goes toward diabetes awareness and education programs managed by the International Diabetes Federation. You can donate by clicking on the “Donate” button on the upper right side of this web page.

You might want to bookmark this page. On the day of the race you’ll be able to track us in real time on Google maps. One of the GPS transponders on the car relays our car number (1102), position and speed and updates every two minutes. We’ll be using this to keep our chase trucks updated on the race car’s location, because it’s almost impossible to communicate via radio unless you’re pretty close to each other.

Any questions or comments? Shoot me a note at jim@desertdingo.com .

KPIX sports reporter Kim Coyle and cameraman Greg (who swims from Alcatraz for fun) came by last night to do an advance piece on our planning for this year’s Baja 1000.

KPIX followed our exploits last year and you can check out the pieces here, here, and here.

I’m going to be uploading in-car video to them during the race. Looks like I’m going to have to rent that satellite uplink after all.

The first piece should air after this Sunday’s 49er’s game. Photos from the video shoot are here.