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The Mint 400 (Matt Martelli) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Break fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
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all over the auto sphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
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designers, and everything in between.
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Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrol heads that wonder.
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How did they get that job or become that person?
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The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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The Mint 400 is the oldest and most prestigious of off road races in America.
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held each year in the treacherous foothills of Sin City.
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The multi day event features a massive vehicle parade down the world famous
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Las Vegas Strip, a two day festival on historic Fremont Street, and two days of
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grueling off road racing on a desolate and punishing 400 mile race course.
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Off road and recreational enthusiasts come to watch 500 race teams in 50
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classes from 25 different states and 15 different countries go
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door to door out in the desert.
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And with me tonight is my co host, GTM er and veteran off roader David
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Drew Andrews, who you might recall from our All the Torquems and Jesus
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Take the Wheel episodes, Joining us is Matt Martelli, marketing director
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for the Mint 400 to tell us about the great American off road race.
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So welcome Drew and welcome Matt.
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Hello.
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Yeah.
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Thank you.
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Thanks for having me on.
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Absolutely.
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So Matt, let's jump in with the first question we always ask people,
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which is what is the origin story?
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There's always some how it all got started that people have forgotten about
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this race has been going on since 1968.
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It has a lot of history.
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It's actually a really cool origin story that ties in with the
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origin of off road racing in North America, which really spawned off
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road racing all over the world.
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In 1967, these two brothers decided to go down the peninsula
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of Baja and start racing.
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See how fast they could do it.
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And they, they did it in motorcycles, the Eakins brothers, their world war two vets
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that were back from war and kind of bored.
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And they're like, let's go do this.
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Right.
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It got national attention.
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You know, there was no social media or internet at the time, but every
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magazine in the world covered it.
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These guys in Las Vegas at the mint hotel looked at that and went,
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Hey, that's a really good idea.
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We should do the same thing.
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Let's send a couple of dune buggies from Las Vegas to their
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sister hotel in Reno Tahoe.
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They loaded two buggies with a couple of reporters and sent them.
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And it took them like five days to get there, right?
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Cause there was no plotted course or nobody knew if it could be done.
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And while it worked and they too got a ton of attention, you know,
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nationally and all the big magazines.
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So the very next year.
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They're like, well, let's do a race.
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Right.
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And simultaneously that same year was the first all 1000 in 1968.
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We had the first mint 400 that year as well.
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And it was a loop race that they ran just South of Vegas.
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Very similar to the area that we're running now.
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And it was really just all promotional stunt for the mint hotel.
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And it just kept going from there and getting bigger and bigger.
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And pretty soon it was.
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Uh, rivaling the Indy 500 as, you know, one of the biggest races in North America.
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I mean, who knew?
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Right.
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I mean, especially for those of us here based out of the East
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coast, it's like mind blowing.
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Right.
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And then obviously you're talking about Vegas.
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So my mind wanders and you start thinking about showgirls and
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swingers and a million other things.
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Right.
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So the race went on lots of famous people involved in it, lots of
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action over like a 30 year period.
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And then what happened in 1988?
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Yeah.
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It went dormant.
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So basically the mint hotel was sold.
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It was turned into Binion's hotel and they didn't really have any
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interest in the race anymore.
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And actually Nissan was heavily invested into it.
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So they ran it for another two years as the Nissan 400, but it just didn't have
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the same bite that the traditional race.
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Pad and it faded away.
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So about 12 years ago, a small club out of Las Vegas, Southern Nevada, off
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road enthusiasts, they resurrected it.
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And we got involved from a content standpoint.
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We're doing the television.
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And after doing that for a couple of years, we, you know, looked at the
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opportunity and said, I think we could do this, you know, like we can take all
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the worldly experience that we had as marketers and content producers and And
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turn it into more of an X games, right?
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Like scale it up, build more of an event around it, not just have
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it be about the core off road race enthusiast, but bring back like a lot
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of the glory and, you know, all the special events that it used to have.
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We've been doing that for the last 10 years.
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You know, it's funny when I looked back over the history of the Mint 400,
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especially in that time period between 68 and 88, my eyes just kept getting bigger
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and bigger when I looked at some of the famous racing names that were involved
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in the Mint 400 that I never realized.
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I mean, folks like Parnelli Jones.
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Al Unser, Rick Mears, Roger Ward.
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You got Mickey Thompson, Ivan Stewart, Jack Flannery, Bill Muncy, even TV
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stars like Steve McQueen, who is a known petrolhead, were involved
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in the Mint 400 at some point, especially in those early decades.
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And it's like, holy cow, how did we not know about this?
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In today's world of the Mint 400, are there other petrolhead
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celebrities involved in the event?
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Oh yeah, tons of them.
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And that's really been one of the coolest things about this is that that's
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part of the DNA of the men, you know, having this inclusionary event that you
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really didn't know anything, you can still come try your hand at the race.
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And so you had Patrick Dempsey race it actually twice, Cowboy Cerrone.
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Got introduced to it last year.
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And now he's like deep into off road racing, you know, he became an addict,
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like all of us, you know, lots of different UFC fighters, like Dominic
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Cruz have come and raced it had Jensen button formula one champ, and the
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list keeps growing and getting bigger.
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It's really cool and fun, you know, to bring those guys and share it
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with them and see their reaction because they're either used to not
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having this much fun or their forms of racing that are very controlled.
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They're very different than what the men 400 is.
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I always describe to people, Mint 400 is like, if you took every fighter in
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the UFC, and put them into the ring at the same time, that's what it's like.
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When you're thrown into that event spectacle, it's really something
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that attracts a lot of crazy people.
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Really, to simplify it, right?
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You know, Jesse Hughes from Eagles of Death Metal race last year with us,
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different other rock stars and celebrities and fighters and so on and so forth.
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So, and it keeps happening.
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Been contacted by a few people this year who are going to race with us.
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And it's always really cool and fun, but that is part of the DNA of it is,
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like you said, you, you talked about a few of the other celebrities, but
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some other big ones, Chuck Norris raced, James Garner race, you know,
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all these guys are part of the DNA.
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I'm going to guess pistol Pete Sorenson as well.
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Rest in peace.
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Oh yeah, Pistol raced quite a bit.
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Yeah, he raced this race quite a bit.
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Some people may know him as one of the co hosts of Truck Night in America.
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If you go back in the history vault, you can watch some of his work
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before he passed away, regrettably.
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And you know, to your point, I mean, this is super exciting and
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I'm, I'm going to date myself now.
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You know, when you think about celebrity races, I fall back to
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the eighties and nineties of the Toyota Celicas at Long Beach.
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And you're like, it's just a giant crash fest.
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But this is way more exciting.
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Like I want to tune in and watch this.
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The other thing was kind of filler between other races, but this is super cool.
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One of the other things I noticed was at one point there
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were the girls of the mint 400.
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Now, you know, take that for what it is a different time, a different era, et
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cetera, but I have to say you had me at Linda Carter, you know, Wonder Woman.
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And then Vanna White.
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I mean, is that still like a thing too?
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Are there other celebrities really promoting the event as well?
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So the Miss Mint contest was something that.
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You know, one of the, our forebears KJ Howe came up with, and, you know, that was
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a note that he took from Playboy magazine at the time was they were doing these
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big pieces on all the different colleges and stuff, super popular at the time.
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So he created the Miss Mint contest.
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Like you said, you know, Linda Carter, Vanna White came out of
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that, you know, lots of beautiful women and incredible celebrities.
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So we've done that for a few years and we still name a Miss Mint.
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It's a little bit different now.
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And one of the things that's Kind of funny that it's transferred into
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is a lot of women racing with us.
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Last year, we have 56 women race with us and that number continues to grow.
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There's a lot of women that have come in and they've been successful
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racing in a lot of them, high profile that have brought more women racing.
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So it's really cool to see Danica.
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Patrick, if you're listening, we're waiting to see, right?
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Exactly.
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Hey.
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Exactly.
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Compared to what she was spending a trophy truck.
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Rental is a piece of cake.
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As we kind of wrap up the history of the mint a little bit, you know you
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mentioned that the mint got sold.
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It doesn't exist anymore.
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It's in basically old town Las Vegas.
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Yeah.
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What is it today?
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What replaced it?
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Or is it still the casino that bought it in the eighties?
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Yeah, so it's still the same casino.
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So, you know, obviously this race has a ton of history.
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And for my brother and I, it was like somebody asking you, like, if you want
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to buy Wrigley Field, you're like, yeah, which arm do you need me to cut off?
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You know, so the history is really important to us.
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And in celebrating that the mint hotel was down in Fremont street, old Las Vegas.
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So we've kept our there.
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Unlike a lot of ot and you can't get to them the street, it's
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free and 30, 000 people down in the six blocks of East Fremont.
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I mean, you could touch the vehicles.
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You can talk to the drivers, you take your photo.
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It's totally interactive.
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And again, one of the big things to stress is that it's free and open to the public.
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So talk about, you know, a value for a family, you know, and that's.
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How I was brought into it as a kid is going to see this with my family and
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friends standing in the middle of the desert, watching the vehicles go by, you
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know, with a cooler and some sandwiches.
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So we still have that.
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The only thing that we charge for is tickets for the actual
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race and or VIP and parking.
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Our off road festival downtown Fremont is the Thursday before the race.
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And it's free and open to the public.
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So we've kept that in place because that's connected to where that hotel was.
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And in the early days of the race, they actually started the race right there.
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Could see a Lamont start on off roaders being a little awkward.
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So, you know, hey, whatever, right?
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Hey, they used to do it.
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I mean, You know, the tradition was, and part of the reason why this race was so
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hard to keep together was in the, in the very beginning, they would start four
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motorcycles next to four cars, right?
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I think the bikes have an advantage, right?
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Yeah, exactly.
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I was just going to say, I don't think it would be what people in America envisions.
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These drivers are actually athletes.
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They are not Billy Bob in a tight driving suit trying to giddy up to his truck.
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The American Stig, right?
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The American Stig.
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Yeah, but that's actually a great transition.
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Let's turn to Drew to kind of geek out on the racing part of
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this as our veteran off roader.
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Yeah.
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So it sounds like you have a really diverse group of drivers.
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So what's your driver talent field looking like?
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Is it just professional driver?
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Big name driver strictly?
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Do y'all have amateur drivers piled in with the mix or backyard drivers
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that wanna try their hand at the mint?
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That's a really good question.
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It's everybody.
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And that's one of the important things about our culture is that we celebrate
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the guy who builds our lowest class, which is a class 11 stock VW bug, you
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know, in his garage with his buddies.
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And he comes out and he races the same race course that our top tier trophy truck
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racers with million dollar rigs race.
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I'll be a little bit slower, but he's still.
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Having the same experience.
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So no, we we've got over 50 classes of vehicles and bikes, you know, that's
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the other important part is like, we even have a bike class for Harleys.
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So you can go buy a 500 sports tour and come out and race
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with us in the hooligan class.
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And then really everything in between.
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So if you're a petrol head and you're into vehicles, it's really an incredible
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experience to come see the variety of vehicles at different levels of
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performance and vintage vehicles, vehicles that are powered by VW
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engines that are no longer sold really.
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are manufactured all the way up to our trophy truck class, which is really
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the only true form of unlimited racing.
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And when I say that, I mean that they have no budget restrictions.
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They have very little restrictions.
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So if you can make a vehicle go faster than what we currently have, whatever
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engine package, suspension, whatever you can do, the limitations are like
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really minor as far as safety goes.
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build it and come race it.
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We're really at a point right now that's exciting because just in the last couple
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of years, we've had the introduction of four wheel drive trophy trucks that
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are now kind of setting new records.
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It sounds weird for people at home to understand that most of the vehicles
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are two wheel drive, but that's because of the travel limitations.
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So when you have a two wheel drive vehicle, you have More suspension travel.
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And just in the last few years, they figured out how to get the proper
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suspension travel out of a four wheel drive vehicle and allow it
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to live through our rough course.
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That's interesting because I saw the all wheel drive trucks on your mint
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400 highlights of 2020, and I was like, wait a minute, when did we start
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doing all wheel drive trophy trucks?
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And I said, that.
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Is a dangerous combo when you can get all four wheels to
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get traction on those jumps.
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That is a higher complex feat of engineering.
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How do those trucks hold up?
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They've gotten a lot better.
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They've been winning other races.
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Uh, no four wheel drive trophy truck has ever won the net.
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There are several that will be coming this year.
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We're right at the precipice of this technology evolution.
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And it's really cool because the two wheel drive trophy trucks
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are dominant because particularly on this course, it's very rough.
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So they have a slight advantage in that their wheel travel and they have
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less moving parts to break, but the four wheel drive trucks are there.
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Bryce Menzies just won the Bob 400 in a four wheel drive truck.
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Uh, Luke McMillan has just won multiple races in his, you know, it's right there.
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So it's exciting to watch because it's not quite over the crest yet.
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They've won a lot of races.
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They haven't won the mint 400 yet.
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And that'll be really the proving point.
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To add to that.
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Are you seeing EVs yet?
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At the InMid 400, has anybody positioned one of those?
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Yeah, so earlier this year we announced our EV classes and have
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reached out to several of the the EV vehicle companies in hopes that
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they would take on the challenge.
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There's a couple of privateers that I think are going to do it
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and they're, they're home builds.
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They're vehicles that they've built in their garage and they've outfitted
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them with different battery platforms.
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We're working with them.
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They're not going to be front runners and You know, likely they're not going to
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be able to finish all four laps because of the limitations of current batteries.
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It's one thing that we're very open to is if you have a vehicle that we think
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is worthy, a technology that you think is worthy, we're very open to creating
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class for you and working with you.
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Um, we want people to come use off road racing as a proving ground for.
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Yeah.
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I mean, you won't see too many front wheel drives out there and that's an
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inside joke for our listeners out there.
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But the reason I bring up the EVs is because recently we talked about in one
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of our drive thru episodes where Audi has decided to build an EV for Dakar.
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And so, you know, you never know every once in a while, they'll
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just pop out and go test somewhere.
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Right.
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Doubtful that maybe they'll be at the 400, but that would be kind of cool.
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And that's, what's been in the back of my head is you're starting to see
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this EV revolution spreading throughout all the different disciplines.
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We heard NHRA is now adopting EV classes.
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I'm glad to hear the Mintas as well.
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And we're seeing formula E all this kind of stuff.
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So I'm really curious to see what happens now.
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Until they, I guess they figure out the solar roofs, it's going to be
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really hard to your point to recharge on a longer event or a longer race.
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Yeah.
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But the technology is evolving quickly.
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So, you know, I have no doubt that we'll see a day where they are
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threatening for the overall one.
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You know what I mean?
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That's the evolution of technology.
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We don't know.
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And maybe I'm wrong.
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Maybe it's hydrogen powered vehicles or, you know, something else that we
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don't even consider at this point, but that's the beauty of what.
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American off road racing is, is it's more cowboy than,
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than any other form of racing.
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So we're very open to trying things, you know, we're, we don't have
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this super rigid bull set of like, Hey, we're never going to do that.
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Or it's gotta be this way or what have you.
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We celebrate kind of the funk going back into the history.
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And like, one of the other cool things I love about the mint is all the
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sedans and people raced RVs and a tank.
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And wait, wait, wait, a tank.
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Oh yeah, it was the U.
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S.
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Army entered a tank.
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It started, I don't think it went very far, but and same thing with the
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RV, like there was a famous off road RV called the Condor and, you know,
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they came out and were trying to sell their brand of RVs and use the Mint
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as a, you know, marketing tactic.
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So, you know, really cool.
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I mean, we have a military classes of vehicles that come out and race with us.
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So last year we had a fifth special forces group come out And they started
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last on the line and out of the limited class, you know, they drove the vehicles
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that they actually use in combat actually kind of did retrieval for us
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of all the people that were broken.
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So it was, it was really cool.
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Oh yeah.
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Oh, retrieval would be great with an M one Abram.
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Just come up there with your jet powered tank and just, you know, Hey
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guys, I'm actually going to race you.
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Yeah, no, no.
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Go ahead.
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Get on down range and then I'm gonna send me around . Scare the crap outta somebody.
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. Absolutely not a live round.
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You know, like a big balloon, right?
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. There you go.
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Big heavy sand built balloon.
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So, I guess I should say the Mint seems like a really good platform for up and
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comers, new engineers trying things.
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We kind of talked about that a little bit for the E-Class,
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if you wanna call it that.
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So has anyone created an.
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A household name that springboarded off of your platform.
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Yeah.
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I mean, we have several things actually that have come out of the vent and even
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recently, like Chris from BS for build contacted us and goes, Hey, uh, I'm
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going to build an off road Lamborghini.
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Can I race it?
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And I was like, Yeah, man, if you pass safety inspection,
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definitely you can race it.
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You know, I, I kind of dismissed it and then he popped back up
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again and he's like, here it is.
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And I'm like, great, let's go test it.
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So, uh, we went out and tested with them and he's got some bugs to work out.
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That's the nature of building vehicles.
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So that's one.
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The other one is, you know, there's a pretty well known
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guy in off road Blake Wilkie.
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He's known for his VW bug builds.
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He called me and said, Hey, I'm, I want to build a trophy
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truck with a VW bug body on it.
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Currently the tradition and trophy truck has always been, or the rule has always
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been, it's got to have a truck body.
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So I said, you know, we'll bend a rule, build it and
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like bring it out and race it.
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So him and his partner, Kevin have designed and engineered
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that vehicle from the ground up.
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And there's a video about it on our YouTube page.
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You can check out.
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Question.
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Is that the one where he did like a Jim Connor style in the middle of downtown LA?
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I think I've seen it.
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So no, that, that one was a class five, so that's a closer to a stock bug.
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But yeah, that's where Blake got famous is, you know, he did that
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video downtown, actually San Diego.
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Oh, okay.
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And then was consequently arrested for it, unfortunately.
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I'd imagine So.
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His name isn't Ken Block, so he can't just go ahead and do that, you know.
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Well, it's funny because, I dunno how much you know about the history of
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us, but my brother and I produced and directed the first three, Jim Kanas.
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We're well aware of, you know, what it takes to produce that type
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of content and lots of permits is, is a part of the process.
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So imagine, so you can't just go out and jump a fricking dump truck.
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I think we just found our pit stop.
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We're going to talk to Matt about the Gymkhana videos.
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later.
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But your point about the jump a can is well placed because that's
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actually how we got connected.
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It came across our news desk for the drive through.
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And I'm like, jump a can, like, you got to be kidding me.
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So BS for bill put out the video.
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And you guys were there when they were testing it, you know, they had some
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issues and I hear this, the MIT 400.
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I'm like, excuse me, what?
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And so that's, that's.
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How we are here today, obviously, but let's dive a little
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bit deeper into this race.
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Cause this is really interesting to your point about off roading as we've
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talked about in the past, there's like sub disciplines within off roading
20:56
there's the motorcyclist, there's the mutters, there's the rock crawlers, the
21:00
trophy trucks, and so on in the line.
21:02
So this is like the big gathering, the reunion of all these types of sub
21:06
disciplines of off roading in one spot.
21:08
Like a lot of other motor sport, you have this big challenge of figuring
21:12
out how to class things, right?
21:14
We have the same problem in road racing and the same problem in drag racing.
21:17
So how do you figure out where to put everybody in their
21:20
appropriate buckets to make it fair?
21:22
It's always an ongoing thing, right?
21:24
It helps that we're petrol heads to begin with.
21:27
And so we look at stuff and we're like, okay, how do we class this
21:31
vehicle and how can we keep it fair?
21:33
And also the, one of our biggest.
21:35
Mandates is to keep the costs reasonable because as you know, in racing, it's
21:39
very easy for a guy to come in and wallet race everybody and, and when,
21:45
cause he has superior equipment or superior budget, it's an ongoing battle.
21:49
But, um, fortunately we have a really good team and I would say I cheat because.
21:53
We've brought some people that helped write the book, like our
21:57
technical director, Bill Savage.
21:59
He literally wrote the rule book for SCORE and ran it for years.
22:04
And then we have an advisory group.
22:06
That's like, you know, some of the most brilliant people in
22:09
off road and they're not shy.
22:10
They'll call me up and say, Hey, you know, you need to look at this
22:13
because I'll give you current topic.
22:16
We started youth racing in our other race six years ago in off road with
22:20
The advent of the razor one 70, and, you know, it was really just a toy
22:25
vehicle for kids, but I knew right away that parents were going to race it.
22:28
They were, they were going to put their kid in it and they
22:30
were going to want to race.
22:31
Well, the thing is it's a toy and so it had to be modified, but now those
22:36
modifications, you know, have gone crazy.
22:38
And so now we have parents calling us up going, Hey, it doesn't say that
22:43
we can't use titanium on the frame.
22:45
They're making 80, 000 cars for their kids, right?
22:49
Managing all that and in different classes.
22:52
And there's some give and take.
22:53
You know, there's mistakes that I feel have been made in the past by other
22:57
race organizations that we inherited.
22:59
Some of those aren't fixable because people have gone down a path and
23:02
invested in a certain platform.
23:04
We let those guys race.
23:06
And we say, Hey, you know, you four guys, you six guys, whatever it is, you guys
23:10
are going to have your own class because.
23:11
If you're grouped within this bigger class, you have cheater cars, right?
23:15
We try and manage it the best we can.
23:17
You know, it's definitely a challenge and history repeats itself.
23:20
It doesn't matter what kind of vehicle you have.
23:22
Like, how are you going to cheat with your engine?
23:24
How are you going to cheat with your suspension?
23:26
How are you going to cheat with weight?
23:28
Where are all those points?
23:29
And we look at them and we're like, okay, that's not fair.
23:31
Or okay, cool.
23:32
We can allow that.
23:34
Our goal is to have everybody race.
23:35
We try and be as reasonable as possible and listen to our racers.
23:39
There's been some things that I've been wrong about that racers have taught me
23:43
and pointed out technology evolutions and said, Hey, if we spend this money
23:46
now, it's going to save us money down the line, you know, maybe it's painful
23:50
right now, but, but in the future, it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll be worth it.
23:53
Even everything out, it's definitely an ongoing struggle.
23:56
If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.
23:59
Us gentlemen, drivers like to call it innovating until caught or told
24:05
otherwise, but no, all kidding aside, actually, you brought up a really
24:08
good point about the youth racing.
24:10
What's the minimum age?
24:11
Do you have to be a licensed driver?
24:13
Like 15, 16 years old, or can you be younger than that?
24:15
How does that program work?
24:16
Our youngest drivers are six years old and they're not, they're not
24:20
driving on the bigger course.
24:21
We have an infield course for those kids.
24:23
It was important for us to get those kids involved and give them a positive
24:27
experience because that's breeding future generations of off road racers.
24:31
And we've never really had that up until the advent of the UTV, a vehicle prior
24:36
to that, that was called trophy cart.
24:38
Which was a purpose built youth vehicle, but they quickly got really expensive.
24:43
So it priced out most of what I would call middle class America.
24:47
So UTVs have just exploded and they brought us a lot of new people.
24:53
And it's been fantastic.
24:54
You know, we really love those vehicles and and UTVs for our listeners.
24:58
That's something like a Can Am or a Polaris or something like that.
25:01
Yeah.
25:02
So there's several manufacturers now, Polaris being the dominant one, Can Am.
25:06
Yeah.
25:06
Yamaha, Kawasaki, Honda, Robbie Gordon's new speed UTVs, and then
25:12
there's a handful of other ones.
25:14
Wildcat.
25:15
They all look like the tumbler from Batman, basically.
25:18
Yeah, they're buggy, but for the dollar, it's a very capable off road machines.
25:23
You know, we have a class called the rally class where it is a stock UTV
25:27
from your dealer with a aftermarket cage seats, harnesses, and a
25:31
couple pieces of safety equipment.
25:33
And you're racing.
25:34
You're talking about maybe a two or 300 a month bill plus a few thousand
25:39
dollars in safety equipment and you're literally racing them in and safety
25:42
equipment, helmets, gloves, driving suit, belts, all that kind of stuff.
25:46
That's pretty normal.
25:47
Yeah.
25:47
Fire extinguisher.
25:49
We do require aftermarket cages, just for safety.
25:51
For safety and the classes.
25:53
Do you require Hans devices or like Simpson hybrids or anything like that?
25:56
Yeah, it's a good idea.
25:58
We have some interesting crashes in off road.
26:01
We tend to end up sideways a lot more than road racing.
26:05
So yeah, it's, that's a requirement as well.
26:07
It's just a really good idea.
26:08
Yeah.
26:09
Before we get even deeper, let me ask you this side note question.
26:12
What's the coolest.
26:14
Thing you've seen run the mint 400 and all your years working with it or your
26:18
favorite or your favorite out of all of them, you know, there's a car that raced
26:21
with us two years ago as a vintage car.
26:23
It was one of Mickey Thompson's challenger cars.
26:26
So he had actually built this vehicle specifically for the mint 400.
26:30
He came out and raced and it didn't never finished.
26:33
And then he was killed a few years after that, that car sat.
26:37
Dormant, then it was purchased by a friend of mine who restored it.
26:40
That's one of the coolest things about the vintage vehicles and
26:43
off road is people race them.
26:45
They don't just restore them and go, Hey, look at this beautiful machine.
26:48
They bring them out and they bang the crap out of them and scratch them.
26:51
And they use them for what they were supposed to be used for.
26:53
Right.
26:54
Then they cleaned the vehicle up and they painted it again and, you
26:56
know, try and get it all shiny again.
26:59
My friend Rory came out, he restored that car and came out and
27:02
raced it and, uh, won his class.
27:04
So for me, that was a very personal thing.
27:07
Mickey Thompson was, uh, you know, an inspiration to us.
27:11
And we grew up going to his races and really learning from him.
27:15
So to be able to put out that press release that said Mickey Thompson
27:17
won the mint 400 was pretty special.
27:20
So that's a big one, but I would say.
27:23
I really love the builder culture, right?
27:26
So one thing that's important for people to understand is other
27:29
than in the UTV class, we don't have any major factories involved.
27:33
So the evolution of technology is being pushed by different companies like Fox
27:38
Shocks and then some small builders.
27:41
So one of the lead companies right now, that's.
27:44
You know, we've been pushing the four wheel driver up
27:46
revolutions based in motorsports.
27:48
These are just regular guys.
27:50
I mean, originally they weren't even trained as engineers, but they've
27:54
created technology that will change street vehicles because it starts in
27:58
racing and then gets integrated into street vehicles by sort of an osmosis.
28:03
You know, what they've been able to design, build and achieve is incredible
28:08
as well as a lot of other builders.
28:09
You know, these aren't.
28:11
Big companies.
28:11
These are generally family owned businesses that are super passionate about
28:16
making a vehicle go faster in the desert.
28:18
What's like one vehicle or a couple of vehicles you never want
28:21
to see come back to the mid 400.
28:22
You don't have to name names, but just be like, I honestly, I don't
28:26
think any, I look at ourselves more like a fight promoter.
28:29
It's up to you to train and get in shape and you know, all the analogies
28:34
of, of a fighter versus a racer.
28:36
But like I'm not here to dictate to you how to have fun,
28:40
how you choose to have fun.
28:42
I'm just here to put on the event.
28:44
And if you want to have fun, you know, in a poorly prepped piece of crap
28:48
vehicle, and that's what, you know, you can afford or whatever that that's cool.
28:51
Cause I can tell you personally, I've raced dozens and
28:54
dozens of different classes.
28:55
I've never had a bad time.
28:57
You know, I, I've raced in class 11, jeep speed bikes,
29:01
UTVs, like all sorts of classes.
29:03
And I continue to do such cause it's fun.
29:05
I think it's cool.
29:06
I like to get into mix it up.
29:08
Yeah.
29:08
Different vehicles and go, all right, this is odd.
29:11
I got to make adjustments and this is what this vehicle is capable of.
29:15
And.
29:15
Just go have fun in it.
29:16
And so I think there isn't a vehicle that I ever looked at when, man, I
29:20
hope that vehicle doesn't come back.
29:22
Now there's people that I'm glad to have because they're giant pain in my ass.
29:27
But, you know, again, it's like, I kind of take it all with a grain of salt and
29:31
go, like, we're attracting a lot of egos.
29:34
And a lot of weirdos, truthfully, a lot of fun people.
29:37
You know what I mean?
29:37
Like it's fun.
29:38
Like sometimes, you know, I'm challenged in certain situations,
29:41
but I look at it and I'm like, this is off road racing, man.
29:44
Like we're like almost the opposite of every other form of racing where it's
29:49
like, we don't want to be prim and proper and, and hold our pinkies in the air.
29:54
It's like, no man, this is.
29:55
Through and through American Wild West off road racing.
29:59
It's gnarly.
30:00
It's a spectacle.
30:02
It's a little bit chaotic.
30:03
By the end of it, you're going to have a blast.
30:06
Whether you're a racer, a spectator, you're going to come away and
30:09
you're going to be tired, but you're going to be stoked, you know?
30:13
Give Matt a break people trying to run a good event here.
30:17
And you over here trying to act like y'all going to get something.
30:19
It sounds awesome though.
30:20
It sounds like controlled chaos.
30:22
It's amazing.
30:23
Exactly.
30:23
And like, that's the thing is one of my favorite things is being at the race
30:27
site and seeing these guys come across the finish line, even when they don't,
30:31
they break down, they come over to me and they're like, that was gnarly.
30:35
That was a blast.
30:36
I can't believe we got to wait a year to do it again, you know, and for most
30:40
of us, we're never going to go to war.
30:41
This is the closest thing that we're going to have as far as a war simulation.
30:45
It's going to test you.
30:46
It's going to test your vehicle.
30:48
It's going to test your friends and family.
30:50
And I think you quickly find out what you're made of.
30:52
It also reshapes your thought processes because it's very easy
30:56
to get into these situations and be like, Oh man, this sucks.
30:59
It was horrible.
31:00
I was cold.
31:01
I was hot.
31:02
It was sweaty.
31:03
I got nerfed, stuff broke.
31:05
I spent hours in the desert waiting for somebody to pick me up.
31:08
But at the end of the day, you're smiling and you're like, wow,
31:12
that was, that was awesome.
31:13
That experience was totally awesome.
31:16
Putting everything together and testing your system and going to war and all
31:20
that stuff, it has to be accounted for.
31:23
So what's the format like?
31:25
How is the point to points track?
31:27
Is it just one big circuit?
31:30
Do you have multiple circuits?
31:32
How long are the circuits and is it GPS tracked or is it good old stopwatch track?
31:37
How does that format look?
31:39
Yeah.
31:39
Let's talk about the race itself.
31:40
I mean, we've been talking about everything else, but yeah,
31:43
no, those are good questions.
31:44
So we run on a hundred mile loop just outside of Las Vegas.
31:47
So it's four laps of a hundred miles, right?
31:51
Which actually makes the racing very interesting because every time I
31:54
watch pavement racing and they go, the course is going to get deteriorated.
31:59
I'm laughing because I'm like, we have boulders, the size of refrigerators
32:03
that get thrown into the course lap to lap and it changes radically.
32:07
So it's a lap race.
32:08
We have timing and scoring, you know, just like Formula One.
32:12
And, uh, we actually have trackers on the vehicles too, so that we can keep track
32:15
of them in case there's a emergency and or make sure that nobody's course cutting
32:21
because 40 miles away, it's difficult for us to see what people are doing.
32:24
We've got the whole course filled with course workers and key locations.
32:29
You're started by class.
32:31
So, depending on the size and class of vehicle, you start within the same
32:35
class, and those starts are staggered.
32:37
We start two by two, so you would go off next to somebody in your class.
32:42
Our top classes, Trophy Truck, 6100, and Class 1, we qualify.
32:48
So, those guys qualify for position.
32:50
Everybody else gets their positions actually based on
32:54
when they enter the race.
32:56
So wait, so they're qualifying on a hundred mile loop or are they qualifying
32:59
on a different circuit for that?
33:01
Yeah.
33:01
So we haven't qualifier in a shorter five mile loop.
33:04
Um, just still substantial.
33:06
That's longer than most racetracks or road racing tracks.
33:09
No, totally.
33:10
Well, we try and.
33:11
Mimic the variety of terrain because you get guys who specialize in
33:17
certain things and we try and make the qualifying as fair as possible.
33:21
Right?
33:21
So it's not too rough.
33:23
It's not too smooth.
33:24
It's not too soft.
33:25
Same thing with short.
33:27
It's like we have off road short course racing.
33:29
So those guys are very good at qualifying.
33:31
Desert racing is it's like Daytona or Lamar.
33:34
It's a long race.
33:36
Yeah, it's an endurance race.
33:38
So it's more about the mental game of challenging or beating your
33:43
own mind, not killing the vehicle.
33:45
You got to beat the Mojave desert, which is, that is the most difficult
33:48
opponent there is, you know, and then you've got to beat all your other racers.
33:51
So the dynamics going on are pretty wild.
33:54
It's all 400 miles in one shot.
33:57
It's not like a rally where there's stages and stops and breaks to fix.
34:02
And well, like extended pit stops.
34:03
It's.
34:04
400 miles continuous.
34:06
Right.
34:06
Yeah.
34:07
And so it's time.
34:08
So basically like you could come from behind and technically when it's just
34:12
less likely because the guys that qualify out front get cleaner air and they get
34:18
less lap traffic, just the variables are immense, you know, it's like, it
34:22
would be like if formula one was racing and there were VW bugs out of course,
34:27
and they had to get around those guys.
34:28
Right.
34:28
So it's like Lamont's it's four races in one race.
34:31
Right.
34:32
So yeah.
34:32
Yeah.
34:32
Yeah.
34:33
So we have the race days are split up.
34:35
So we have all the limited vehicles racing in one day on Friday, and then
34:39
all the unlimited vehicles race on Saturday, just to try and keep the vehicle
34:44
sizes, you know, one of the challenges that we have is like when you have a
34:48
trophy truck and it has a North of a hundred mile an hour closing speed on
34:53
a smaller vehicle, that's dangerous.
34:55
We separated those classes of vehicles.
34:57
And then.
34:58
Bikes actually run a completely separate course this year.
35:02
They'll be running at the same time.
35:03
Uh, last year they ran at a different time.
35:06
So we keep those guys on a bike specific course so that they're safe as well.
35:10
What's the average lap time and what's the course record on some
35:14
of the more popular classes?
35:16
A hundred mile loop.
35:17
They do that in just over two hours, which is super fast.
35:21
And I'm talking trophy trucks.
35:23
When you see the pace these guys are putting down, it's pretty mind blowing.
35:27
That's one of the things that we fell in love with as kids.
35:31
And, you know, as promoters, we really wanted to bring that to the forefront
35:35
and showcase these vehicles because the technology of a trophy truck dancing
35:41
over three and a half foot whoops over a hundred miles an hour is mind boggling.
35:45
That suspension technology is the same suspension technology that's
35:49
in Raptors, that's in Jeeps.
35:51
Everybody driving around the street now going, Oh man,
35:53
this is really bitching ride.
35:55
That's because of what we do in the desert, you know, and especially
35:57
I got to give props to Fox shocks.
36:00
And they literally started one of the main guys who designed a lot of the
36:05
shocks, John marking, race them in, in a buggy in a lower class and pee blood
36:10
for three days afterwards and said, I need to figure out this, this suspension
36:14
stuff, you know, the lap times vary wildly, you know, so there's, there's
36:19
Some of the lower classes only do two laps because they simply wouldn't make four
36:24
laps, you know, in less than 16 hours.
36:26
So we have a closure limit with the BLM of two days.
36:30
So we've got to, you know, kind of cram everybody into those two days.
36:33
But that two hour mark is just a blistering pace.
36:36
And every year they get faster and faster.
36:39
And this race started out and it was really just.
36:42
Survive it, it was just get through three laps and on the last lap, if
36:46
you're there, you're probably going to podium, especially at the top
36:49
level, it's turned into a sprint.
36:51
It's pretty wild.
36:52
And then you have going down in the different classes, then it's
36:56
three hours and four hours, six hours and so on and so forth.
37:00
So I think people don't, don't really understand unless they come to it and they
37:04
go, okay, class 11 guys are out there.
37:06
They're in a car for 12 hours, right?
37:08
Completing two lap, pretty incredible variant.
37:11
That is amazing.
37:13
Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who have never exited your zip code to go to
37:18
Meemaw's house, if your grandmother lives 400 miles away, on average, it is going
37:23
to take you five to six and a half hours.
37:26
And that's if you do an 80.
37:28
They're just over six hours.
37:31
All right.
37:32
Well, that's still amazing because, you know, You're going down in the interstate
37:36
and you're doing that same time.
37:38
That's smooth ride.
37:40
You literally said they're in the course and if anyone takes the time
37:44
to research and review the videos and you see what the suspension is doing.
37:48
These are not like little railroad tracks.
37:51
These people are going over.
37:52
They're going over like massive.
37:54
Moguls and boulders.
37:56
Unbelievable.
37:57
That is pretty cool.
37:58
It is a site to behold, that's for sure.
38:00
So is the race televised?
38:02
Like for those of us that can't physically be there, will we be
38:04
able to tune in live stream or watch it on TV or something like that?
38:08
Yeah, both.
38:09
So we, uh, we live stream it during the event.
38:12
We have two days of live streaming and that's free that we have it
38:15
available on YouTube, Facebook.
38:16
Book and we just signed a deal with flow racing.
38:19
They're going to carry it as well.
38:20
You can tune in there.
38:21
And then we do a television show as part of world of X every year.
38:25
And that's more of a summary of post event.
38:27
Like here's all the sexy stuff that happened and, you know, crush it into
38:31
one hour, because obviously it's like 14 hours plus of racing each in two days.
38:37
How do you tell that story in an hour?
38:39
It's pretty impossible, but we do the gloss over for that television show too.
38:43
And it's been a really cool tool for us to reach new eyeballs.
38:47
Think of like Red Bull TV and some of the coverage they do, which I
38:49
find to be absolutely phenomenal.
38:51
WRC.
38:52
Yeah.
38:52
Well, they do WRC amongst a million other things, but that'd be really cool
38:55
to be like, tune in a Red Bull and be like, ah, it's, it's, it's the mid 400.
38:58
You know how cool.
38:59
Yeah.
38:59
The Red Bull was, uh, we were actually part of the Red Bull
39:02
programming for a couple of years.
39:04
Oh, nice.
39:05
Yeah.
39:05
And it was great.
39:06
We do all of our own television.
39:08
We do all of our own live stream.
39:09
Cause that's where we came from was content production.
39:12
And it's important to us because there's a tendency for production groups to kind of
39:17
phone it in and we live and breathe this.
39:20
So like, if you look at the documentaries that we've produced, my brother and I
39:23
write those, we direct them, we produce them, you know, we argue about them.
39:27
Frequently, we think it's very important to share with people how credible, you
39:32
know, this sport and culture is and how much it's open to people, you know, you
39:35
don't have to be from the West coast.
39:37
You don't have to be rich.
39:38
You don't have to be blonde hair and blue eyed to be a part of this.
39:42
Everybody's welcome.
39:43
Every vehicle make every style of vehicle.
39:45
I mean, one of the things I enjoy is the phone calls of like, Hey, I've
39:49
got this vehicle, this is what it is.
39:51
Can I erase it?
39:52
Very rarely do we say no.
39:54
Uh, most of the time it's like, here are our safety protocols.
39:58
Get, get those in order and let's see if we can find a class for you.
40:02
And if not, we'll, you know, we'll consider making a class for you.
40:05
How does one go about getting.
40:07
Started and registered to compete.
40:09
What type of timeframe do they need to reach out and get registered?
40:14
Like how long is the process and what do they need to do?
40:16
We don't have licensing like many other forms of motor sports, which
40:20
that may have to come at some point.
40:22
But as of right now, you could call up and rent a trophy truck and come race.
40:27
As crazy as it sounds, our registration opens usually like
40:30
six months or so in advance.
40:32
We have rental vehicles and everything from buggies to bikes to
40:36
UTVs that we can line you up with.
40:38
And there are some of the builders that have rental trophy trucks
40:41
and a 6100s or trophy trucks back.
40:44
So a huge variety of vehicles available, you know, or if you have a vehicle
40:48
that you want to race, you know, you just, you know, Get on the website
40:51
and sign up and, you know, hopefully you fit within an existing class
40:55
that makes it easy and that's it.
40:57
You show up, you pass technical inspection and you go race.
41:01
I always suggest that people are interested in getting involved, that
41:04
they come and join a team and chase and kind of learn the ropes first,
41:08
just to get acclimated, because I think you're going to have a better time.
41:11
You know, it is pretty daunting.
41:13
I've had a few instances where people are stuck way back.
41:16
We have a large mountain that we race around.
41:18
And all of a sudden you're like, I'm out of cell service.
41:22
I'm in the middle of nowhere.
41:23
Does anybody know I'm here?
41:24
Fortunately, we have a good safety crew and sweep and all that stuff.
41:28
And we've never lost anybody.
41:30
We showed up on some tired and scared people, but you know,
41:33
we've never lost anybody.
41:35
Does OnStar work out in the middle of the desert?
41:37
Like nothing.
41:41
Dude, being stuck out in the desert?
41:43
Oh my God, man.
41:45
Bring, bring back some trauma.
41:46
Bro, I've been out there, man.
41:48
That's some trouble you don't want, is hot sand and, uh Snakes and
41:53
scorpions that go with it, right?
41:55
Yeah, that, you don't want that shit.
42:00
It's funny because You know, again, we have tracking on everybody
42:04
and it's satellite direct.
42:05
So that's really the only way to do it.
42:07
But you're off the grid.
42:08
And what's funny is you're really only not even 20 miles outside of Vegas
42:12
and it just drops off into the Mojave.
42:14
I mean, you know, the Mojave desert is, if you haven't spent time there,
42:17
it's just absolutely beautiful.
42:19
You know, we still have bighorn sheep, mountain lions and all sorts of animals,
42:25
you know, Thank you, Jesus and Glownass.
42:27
That's right.
42:28
Exactly.
42:29
You talked about tech.
42:31
And so in our world, for a lot of our listeners, they're used to,
42:33
Oh, fill out a piece of paper.
42:35
And some guy looks and checks my lug nuts, you know, things like that, or we put
42:38
it up on the lift and you look it over.
42:40
So how does tech differ for an event like the Mint 400?
42:43
Is it done day of, or is it done ahead of time?
42:45
We call it tech and contingency, and that's really part
42:48
of our off road festival.
42:49
So what happens is you show up with your vehicle.
42:52
You parade it down Fremont street.
42:54
And at the very end of Fremont street, our technical inspection
42:57
goes through and mainly check safety.
42:59
Usually the vehicles have some sort of previous tag on them from other races.
43:04
So we know like, Hey, this cage is correct.
43:07
Like a long book type of, yeah, exactly.
43:09
A little bit.
43:10
It's pretty easy to look at a vehicle and go.
43:13
Okay.
43:13
That's not up to snuff every single vehicle, every single bike, it's
43:17
tech two days before the event it's off to the races from there.
43:20
So what happens if you fail tech?
43:21
I mean, obviously a minor indiscretion, you could probably fix it then and there,
43:25
but something more major, do you have the opportunity to try to rectify it?
43:30
Or are you pretty much disqualified?
43:31
No, you have the opportunity to rectify it, but being that we
43:35
only have a day or so before the event, it's a tight time window.
43:38
What we typically do is if somebody has a question, we try and steer them
43:42
in the right direction, look at their vehicle before they get to that point
43:46
and steer them in the, you know, really just get them ready for that.
43:48
Because.
43:49
The last thing that we want to do is fail somebody and not allow them to race.
43:53
Which actually gets us back to another point that I want to bring up.
43:56
And Drew was kind of alluding to with registering for this event.
44:00
You've said several times, it's a festival.
44:01
It takes place over several days, right?
44:04
There's all sorts of different events and attractions and things that are available.
44:07
So obviously there's a costing structure.
44:09
That's, what's going to be on everybody's mind.
44:10
What does it cost to do this?
44:11
You mentioned the Fremont part of it is free.
44:14
If you want to come out and check out the cars.
44:15
But how much does spectating cost?
44:17
How much do the tickets cost?
44:18
What is the entry fee like?
44:19
Is it dependent on the class?
44:21
You know, how does that all break down?
44:22
Yeah.
44:22
Entry fee depends on the class bikes being the least expensive unlimited
44:27
vehicles being the most expensive.
44:29
And they're really at that price.
44:31
They're only a few thousand dollars.
44:33
Which is in my eyes, very low considering what they're going to be able to do
44:38
cheaper than a LA Lakers game, right?
44:40
Spectating is 15 bucks.
44:42
Can't beat that.
44:43
Yeah.
44:43
It's super minor.
44:44
We have a really bitching VIP area with, uh, an amazing chef, Drew Deckman,
44:49
a good friend of mine who comes up from Baja and does all of our food.
44:52
And that's a couple hundred bucks a day for, you know, shade, heat, food, drink.
44:57
That's the way to do it.
44:58
You know, that's why we We started that Matt.
45:00
Come on, man.
45:01
Hook a brother up.
45:02
Let me get one of them VIP tickets.
45:06
I guarantee you, you end up adding weight.
45:12
Part of the danger of it with that.
45:14
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm with you.
45:16
It's like, Oh, we're what happened?
45:17
It was two days in VIP at the men I put on about 10 pounds, right?
45:23
You lost 20 in water weight though, from sweating out in the desert.
45:26
Oh, definitely.
45:26
Definitely.
45:27
I can see it now.
45:28
I'm going to be on my 500 pound life.
45:31
But what happened in your life?
45:32
And you know, their story is usually, Oh, I was abused.
45:35
No, I went to the Mint.
45:36
Yeah.
45:38
It all started with the Mint 400.
45:40
Matt gave me them good tickets and I got to meet them chefs and I ate everything.
45:45
Yeah, definitely.
45:46
And that's a funny part of our culture too, is that off
45:49
road racing simultaneously started in America and in Baja.
45:53
So when we all go race in Baja, we eat the food, right?
45:56
And the food in that region is pretty special because of the ocean and
46:01
the land and you know, the history.
46:04
So you go down there and you have that as part of the The racing experience.
46:08
And then you, you come back here and we wanted to bring that back, you
46:11
know, and share it with people here.
46:12
So, um, that's why we, we did it with our friend, Drew Deckman, you know,
46:17
kind of ties the culture together.
46:19
I'm guessing there'll be concerts at night and other stuff like that as well.
46:22
Yeah, we've done that in the past and we always shoot for the moon,
46:25
but it depends on, you know, what sponsors are willing to pay for.
46:28
And we were able in 2020 to get the race done right before COVID.
46:33
So we're blessed.
46:34
Able to get that done.
46:35
And then this year, normally we'd be in March, but Las Vegas wasn't
46:40
issuing any special events permits.
46:42
So this year we're in December and then we'll be back in March in 2022.
46:46
Wow.
46:46
That's ambitious.
46:47
One right behind the other.
46:48
I mean, we're on our way to doing more races, so we
46:52
anticipate the schedule anyways.
46:53
We'll be four to six races a year.
46:55
So let's get it going.
46:58
Exactly.
46:58
Send it, send it.
46:59
I also noticed in doing my research that there's some volunteer opportunities
47:04
that are aligned with this event.
47:05
Things like the desert cleanup.
47:07
Do you want to expand on that a little bit?
47:09
First off volunteers.
47:10
I mean, every form of racing is running on volunteers and it's
47:13
a great way to get acclimated.
47:15
If you don't know anything about off road racing, you want to
47:17
come learn, volunteering for the races is a great way to do it.
47:21
And it's actually a lot of fun.
47:22
You know, we have all sorts of different positions to fill
47:25
from track positions on the.
47:27
Course to people that are helping us with timing and scoring tech and the
47:30
vehicles, like really everything.
47:32
So it's another part of the event that I really enjoy is meeting all
47:36
these people that come from all over the United States and even the world.
47:39
We have some good volunteers that show up every year from Japan.
47:42
I had the first year they showed up.
47:44
I'm like.
47:44
I don't know how we're going to do this because my Japanese sucks, but
47:48
we use some sign language and we got it figured out, but it's really fun.
47:53
In addition to that, there's always been this big misnomer that off
47:57
roaders somehow destroy the desert.
48:00
And that's far from the truth.
48:01
We go out in the desert because it's beautiful and it doesn't look
48:04
like the city, it's not trash.
48:06
So it's important for us to be good citizens.
48:08
So, a few years ago we decided to lead by example and we started
48:13
the Mint 400 Desert Cleanup.
48:14
And we talked to a local group that does trash logistics,
48:18
Republic Services in Las Vegas.
48:20
Because we quickly found out that one of the most expensive things about
48:24
doing desert cleanups was paying for the garbage disposal, right?
48:28
So paying for all the garbage to get to the landfill via dumpsters.
48:32
And so they came right in and got involved and they donated.
48:35
And so, you know, we've pulled like, I think we're up to like 50 tons
48:39
trash out of the regional desert.
48:41
And every year it grows.
48:43
So last year we had like a few hundred volunteers come out and we filled
48:47
10 roll offs full of garbage and pulled that out of the desert roll
48:51
offs for people that don't know them.
48:53
It's basically the.
48:54
The size of a semi.
48:55
So we filled up 10 semis with trash and cleaning the area that we race in.
48:59
And one other important thing is that that's not trash from us.
49:03
That's trash from illegal dumpers and people that go
49:06
out and shoot in the desert.
49:08
We have a leave it better policy of Every time we go out and race,
49:12
we clean the course, we make sure none of our garbage is anywhere
49:16
in the desert every time we leave.
49:18
So just leading by example and showing people that we can enjoy the desert
49:22
and be environmentally responsible.
49:24
It's part of the DNA of off road.
49:26
Awesome.
49:26
What I wanted to ask is I'm a veteran.
49:29
I did eight years in the United States army.
49:33
I wanted to know, do you have any types of partnerships with
49:37
the United States armed forces?
49:39
Do you have any active or veteran persons, a part of your personnel
49:44
staff or driving or anything?
49:48
And actually drew brings up a really great point on a couple of previous episodes.
49:52
We had Peter Klein on from vet motor sports, where they're looking
49:55
to put as a non clinical program for rehabilitation of veterans.
50:00
They put them in motor sports situations.
50:03
So we're wondering, you know, is there a crossover there with those
50:05
types of organizations with the men?
50:07
Actually, absolutely.
50:08
And I'm glad you asked.
50:09
Talking about the founding of this culture was started by veterans and
50:13
veterans and active duty military have always been involved in part of the DNA.
50:17
And so a few years ago, we started the military challenge
50:20
as a way to first recognize it.
50:22
And secondly, raise awareness about our veterans that are coming back from
50:27
war with various injuries, whether it's PTSD or physical injuries, we're
50:31
here in San Diego, our headquarters are next to camp Pendleton.
50:34
So I see it every day.
50:35
And a lot of my friends are active duty and different types of roles,
50:40
everything from special forces to the grunts on the ground.
50:43
So it is a part of our culture.
50:45
And like I said, we started the military challenge as a way to celebrate that.
50:49
Yeah.
50:50
And also raise some money for some of the charities.
50:52
So we have a fundraising aspect that you can get on our website and donate to.
50:57
And it's, it's kind of a race a thon format.
50:59
Any racer can join it and raise funds for these different charities
51:03
to give back to our, our military.
51:05
But it's a very important part of, of off road racing culture.
51:08
That we wanted to recognize, you know, it was started a couple of years ago,
51:12
actually by a racer who came and raced and he was, um, uh, Marsock colonel.
51:17
And he said, Hey, I'd like to do a fundraiser.
51:19
Are you cool with it?
51:20
I said, yeah, we'll help you.
51:22
And the first year he did it, he raised 20, 000 last year.
51:25
We raised north of a hundred thousand dollars, but even more than the
51:29
money, it's about the recognition and, you know, the camaraderie
51:32
of, of putting our arms around.
51:34
Um, active duty and, and veterans and going like you're
51:37
Americans, you're part of us.
51:38
And without you, we wouldn't have the freedoms that we have.
51:41
And, you know, in light of everything that's gone on recently with Afghanistan,
51:45
it's been one of those things that's hit home really hard, especially
51:48
because of 11 of the soldiers that were killed in the bombing of Afghanistan
51:52
were from camp Pendleton here.
51:54
So, so yeah, that's an important one.
51:56
One of the main charities that we work with is a charity here out
51:59
of San Diego, a warfighter made and they're a great organization.
52:03
So I got to ask.
52:04
Which do you prefer and which is better the mint or king of the hammers?
52:09
That's just tougher.
52:10
I should say not better tougher I think the king of the hammers
52:13
technically is a tougher race because it is rock crawling, right?
52:17
And so, you know the ultra four vehicles, they're incredible.
52:20
I love hammers.
52:21
My friend dave cole runs it I think it's a really cool event, but it's
52:25
very different from what we do.
52:26
What we do is Really about speed.
52:29
There's sections of hammers that are open desert, but there's
52:32
nothing like the Mint 400.
52:34
I mean, it is, like I said, it's the Lamont, it's the lamonts of off-roading.
52:38
I mean, that's what it sounds like to me.
52:39
It's, it's even more, but it's more savage, you know?
52:42
And it's more punk rock, right?
52:44
Yeah, absolutely.
52:45
You know, one of the things I love about.
52:47
The promoter side of it is people come to me always and
52:50
they're like, who's going to win?
52:51
Who's going to win?
52:51
And I honestly don't know last year.
52:54
I would have bet the house on Bryce Menzies and he had a little bit of
52:59
technical problem in the beginning and that made him push really hard.
53:04
Then he continued to have, have some issues.
53:07
Luke McMillan won it.
53:08
And Luke was one of those guys who I knew was.
53:11
Coming up, you know, and I knew there was going to be a point where he was
53:14
going to get kind of into his prime and start winning and winning a lot, but I
53:18
didn't think he was going to do it yet.
53:20
He drove a very smart race and was there at the end to pick up the pieces.
53:26
Well, you know, all these other guys had pushed too hard.
53:29
Right.
53:29
I think that hammers is an awesome race and definitely a spectacle and they do
53:33
a great job of the live stream coverage.
53:36
It was very different than what we do.
53:37
You know, our, our event is like, Flat out, savage, yeah, like full send and
53:45
there's no like, lol, you know, there's like, Oh, here's where you get to rest.
53:49
There's none of that, you know, and, and even different from the other race
53:52
that we love the bottom 1000, that's a fantastic race has less racers.
53:58
It's a different, uh, longer race.
54:00
It has more like it's more like Dakar.
54:03
So yeah.
54:03
Yeah.
54:04
It has more graded roads, more kind of pavement sections where you get to rest.
54:07
So it's just a different beast altogether.
54:09
It's really cool.
54:10
And there's no place like Baja, but in terms of like the absolute spectacle
54:16
that you can drive up and watch go down.
54:19
You know, there's nothing like the mint, it definitely takes the cake.
54:22
Absolutely.
54:23
And you know what I think is fun about all of this and all these different episodes
54:27
that we do is that at the end of the day, we share a common bond as petrol heads.
54:31
I think we can all really respect each other's disciplines and draw from one
54:36
another and also draw parallels, right?
54:38
Where like we're talking about, this is like the mint is like,
54:40
you know, like Lamont's and Baja's like Dakar and this and that.
54:43
But you draw these parallels, but we all get excited about it.
54:46
We want to see man and machine and the elements and what's going to happen.
54:50
And I'm really excited to see where this goes and to see what
54:53
the 2021 mint 400 looks like.
54:56
You know, obviously we're going to be rooting for the Jumper Can guys.
54:58
We want it from BS for Bill.
54:59
We want to see how that turns out.
55:01
We check out the live feeds and everything like that.
55:03
But Matt, we want to give you the opportunity as well.
55:05
Are there any other sponsors, partners, or shout outs you want
55:08
to make before we close out?
55:10
Um, and there's, there's huge lists.
55:12
I'll just try and do the big ones, but one, Hey, one thing I do want to mention
55:15
is that we are an inclusionary event.
55:17
We're an inclusionary culture.
55:19
It means like, I don't really care whether you're a pavement guy or what
55:24
subsect of pavement racing, or, or if you're just into cars, I mean,
55:28
hell, if you're, you just want to come check it out, we want you to come.
55:31
We want you to come spectate.
55:33
We want you to race.
55:34
So think of that as an open invitation, you know, you know, that that's been
55:37
really important to me and we've been successful in bringing racers from
55:41
many different disciplines out to really just have fun, you know, and
55:45
come try our, our form of, of racing, you know, as well as, you know,
55:49
different spectators, right, as far as.
55:51
Shout outs and everything.
55:52
There's so many at first, you know, my team here, like, you know, I
55:56
live, breathe and eat and sleep this.
55:58
And we've got a fantastic team.
55:59
My brother's my partner, my cousin works with us and he's like my right hand, you
56:04
know, and then some of our sponsors, like you have an amazing relationship with BF
56:09
Goodrich tires, multi year relationship with them that continues to grow.
56:12
I can't talk higher about their product.
56:14
And even they just launched a new navigation app for
56:17
off roading called on trail.
56:19
Yeah.
56:19
That's really cool.
56:20
And just really all of our sponsors, we have a lot of sponsors that
56:23
support us and it's really cool.
56:25
Most of them have been with us for years and we continue to gain, you know, new
56:29
sponsors, you know, cause we really work our ass off to give value back to
56:33
them, you know, and grow our reach and grow the reach of off road racing and.
56:38
You know, off road culture in general, but yeah, just, you know, come out
56:41
to the men and have a good time.
56:43
I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
56:45
It's one of those things that I love sharing with people because
56:48
the usual responses, I can't believe I didn't know about this.
56:51
It's a good thing, but yeah, it's going to be an awesome year.
56:54
I'm excited for this year.
56:55
We have 25 trophy trucks registered and about 300 racers, you know,
57:00
December is going to be a big year.
57:01
It'll be a bit cooler than we're used to, but you know, that's off road racing.
57:05
We, we race.
57:06
There's no rain delays and you know, there's none of that in off road racing.
57:10
We race regardless.
57:11
And, uh, that's part of the deal.
57:13
Right?
57:13
Yeah.
57:14
We need to get you guys out there and especially in that VIP tent.
57:17
Right.
57:18
You see, that's my boy, Matt.
57:22
I see tickets.
57:25
Very cool.
57:26
Well, Matt, I have to say this has been an education.
57:29
It sounds absolutely epic, and we're looking really forward to it.
57:33
And for our listeners out there, there is no other off road race that
57:38
allows fans the thrilling experience of watching the top off road race
57:42
teams from around the world battle for fame and glory in a festival setting.
57:48
Like Las Vegas.
57:49
So to learn more about the Mint 400, be sure to visit to their website,
57:54
www the mint four hundred.com, or follow them on social at the Mint 400.
58:01
And you know, reach out to Matt for more information as well.
58:04
Be sure to buy your tickets as they are coming up soon, because the mint
58:07
will be on which weekend in December.
58:09
December 1st through fifth.
58:11
Well, Matt, thank you so much for coming on the show.
58:13
This has been an absolute pleasure.
58:14
I can't thank you enough.
58:15
Yeah.
58:16
Thanks for having me.
58:16
It was fun.
58:17
Like I, so I really appreciate it.
58:18
And Drew, thanks for being my co host.
58:20
Hey, thanks for having me, man.
58:26
That's right.
58:27
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58:27
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