The Mint 400

• Origin Story of the race itself –“The storied history of the Mint is steeped in celebrity, drama and excitement as the city of Las Vegas itself. “
• What’s your driver talent field looking like?
• Has the event created a platform for new names/teams and brands to become household names? 
• Rules and Regs, Classing? Types of Vehicles Allowed?
• So how does someone go about getting registered to compete?  What are the requirements, and how long out should one begin the process? 
• This is advertised as a festival – what types of events & attractions are available. Spectating – Fees? Types of Tickets – Promotions? Discounts?
• Volunteer opportunities: The Desert Clean Up.
• Mint or King of the Hammers?  Which one is more grueling? What are the differences?

and much, much more!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Break fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the auto sphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrol heads that wonder. How did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: The Mint 400 is the oldest and most prestigious of off road races in America. held each year in the treacherous foothills of Sin City. The multi day event features a massive vehicle parade down the world famous Las Vegas Strip, a two day festival on historic Fremont Street, and two days of grueling off road racing on a desolate and punishing 400 mile race course.

Off road and recreational enthusiasts come to watch 500 race teams in 50 classes from [00:01:00] 25 different states and 15 different countries go door to door out in the desert. And with me tonight is my co host, GTM er and veteran off roader David Drew Andrews, who you might recall from our All the Torquems and Jesus Take the Wheel episodes, Joining us is Matt Martelli, marketing director for the Mint 400 to tell us about the great American off road race.

So welcome Drew and welcome Matt.

Matt Martelli: Hello. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. So Matt, let’s jump in with the first question we always ask people, which is what is the origin story? There’s always some how it all got started that people have forgotten about this race has been going on since 1968.

It has a lot of history.

Matt Martelli: It’s actually a really cool origin story that ties in with the origin of off road racing in North America, which really spawned off road racing all over the world. In 1967, these two brothers decided to go down the peninsula of [00:02:00] Baja and start racing. See how fast they could do it.

And they, they did it in motorcycles, the Eakins brothers, their world war two vets that were back from war and kind of bored. And they’re like, let’s go do this. Right. It got national attention. You know, there was no social media or internet at the time, but every magazine in the world covered it. These guys in Las Vegas at the mint hotel looked at that and went, Hey, that’s a really good idea.

We should do the same thing. Let’s send a couple of dune buggies from Las Vegas to their sister hotel in Reno Tahoe. They loaded two buggies with a couple of reporters and sent them. And it took them like five days to get there, right? Cause there was no plotted course or nobody knew if it could be done.

And while it worked and they too got a ton of attention, you know, nationally and all the big magazines. So the very next year. They’re like, well, let’s do a race. Right. And simultaneously that same year was the first all 1000 in [00:03:00] 1968. We had the first mint 400 that year as well. And it was a loop race that they ran just South of Vegas.

Very similar to the area that we’re running now. And it was really just all promotional stunt for the mint hotel. And it just kept going from there and getting bigger and bigger. And pretty soon it was. Uh, rivaling the Indy 500 as, you know, one of the biggest races in North America.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, who knew? Right.

I mean, especially for those of us here based out of the East coast, it’s like mind blowing. Right. And then obviously you’re talking about Vegas. So my mind wanders and you start thinking about showgirls and swingers and a million other things. Right. So the race went on lots of famous people involved in it, lots of action over like a 30 year period.

And then what happened in 1988? Yeah.

Matt Martelli: It went dormant. So basically the mint hotel was sold. It was turned into Binion’s hotel and they didn’t really have any interest in the race anymore. And actually Nissan was heavily invested into it. So they ran it for another two years as the Nissan [00:04:00] 400, but it just didn’t have the same bite that the traditional race.

Pad and it faded away. So about 12 years ago, a small club out of Las Vegas, Southern Nevada, off road enthusiasts, they resurrected it. And we got involved from a content standpoint. We’re doing the television. And after doing that for a couple of years, we, you know, looked at the opportunity and said, I think we could do this, you know, like we can take all the worldly experience that we had as marketers and content producers and And turn it into more of an X games, right?

Like scale it up, build more of an event around it, not just have it be about the core off road race enthusiast, but bring back like a lot of the glory and, you know, all the special events that it used to have. We’ve been doing that for the last 10 years.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, it’s funny when I looked back over the history of the Mint 400, especially in that time period between 68 and 88, my eyes just kept getting bigger and bigger when I looked at some of the famous racing names that were involved in the Mint [00:05:00] 400 that I never realized.

I mean, folks like Parnelli Jones. Al Unser, Rick Mears, Roger Ward. You got Mickey Thompson, Ivan Stewart, Jack Flannery, Bill Muncy, even TV stars like Steve McQueen, who is a known petrolhead, were involved in the Mint 400 at some point, especially in those early decades. And it’s like, holy cow, how did we not know about this?

In today’s world of the Mint 400, are there other petrolhead celebrities involved in the event?

Matt Martelli: Oh yeah, tons of them. And that’s really been one of the coolest things about this is that that’s part of the DNA of the men, you know, having this inclusionary event that you really didn’t know anything, you can still come try your hand at the race.

And so you had Patrick Dempsey race it actually twice, Cowboy Cerrone. Got introduced to it last year. And now he’s like deep into off road racing, you know, he became an addict, like all of us, you know, lots of different UFC fighters, like Dominic Cruz have come and raced it had Jensen button formula [00:06:00] one champ, and the list keeps growing and getting bigger.

It’s really cool and fun, you know, to bring those guys and share it with them and see their reaction because they’re either used to not having this much fun or their forms of racing that are very controlled. They’re very different than what the men 400 is. I always describe to people, Mint 400 is like, if you took every fighter in the UFC, and put them into the ring at the same time, that’s what it’s like.

When you’re thrown into that event spectacle, it’s really something that attracts a lot of crazy people. Really, to simplify it, right? You know, Jesse Hughes from Eagles of Death Metal race last year with us, different other rock stars and celebrities and fighters and so on and so forth. So, and it keeps happening.

Been contacted by a few people this year who are going to race with us. And it’s always really cool and fun, but that is part of the DNA of it is, like you said, you, you talked about a few of the other celebrities, but some other big ones, Chuck Norris raced, James Garner race, you know, all these [00:07:00] guys are part of the DNA.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m going to guess pistol Pete Sorenson as well. Rest in peace.

Matt Martelli: Oh yeah, Pistol raced quite a bit. Yeah, he raced this race quite a bit.

Crew Chief Eric: Some people may know him as one of the co hosts of Truck Night in America. If you go back in the history vault, you can watch some of his work before he passed away, regrettably.

And you know, to your point, I mean, this is super exciting and I’m, I’m going to date myself now. You know, when you think about celebrity races, I fall back to the eighties and nineties of the Toyota Celicas at Long Beach. And you’re like, it’s just a giant crash fest. But this is way more exciting. Like I want to tune in and watch this.

The other thing was kind of filler between other races, but this is super cool. One of the other things I noticed was at one point there were the girls of the mint 400. Now, you know, take that for what it is a different time, a different era, et cetera, but I have to say you had me at Linda Carter, you know, Wonder Woman.

And then Vanna White. I mean, is that still like a thing too? Are there other celebrities really promoting the event as well?

Matt Martelli: So the Miss Mint contest was something that. You know, one of the, our forebears [00:08:00] KJ Howe came up with, and, you know, that was a note that he took from Playboy magazine at the time was they were doing these big pieces on all the different colleges and stuff, super popular at the time.

So he created the Miss Mint contest. Like you said, you know, Linda Carter, Vanna White came out of that, you know, lots of beautiful women and incredible celebrities. So we’ve done that for a few years and we still name a Miss Mint. It’s a little bit different now. And one of the things that’s Kind of funny that it’s transferred into is a lot of women racing with us.

Last year, we have 56 women race with us and that number continues to grow. There’s a lot of women that have come in and they’ve been successful racing in a lot of them, high profile that have brought more women racing. So it’s really cool to see

Crew Chief Eric: Danica. Patrick, if you’re listening, we’re waiting to see, right?

Exactly.

Matt Martelli: Hey. Exactly. Compared to what she was spending a trophy truck. Rental is a piece of cake.

Crew Chief Eric: As we kind of wrap up the history of the mint a little bit, you know you [00:09:00] mentioned that the mint got sold. It doesn’t exist anymore. It’s in basically old town Las Vegas. Yeah. What is it today? What replaced it?

Or is it still the casino that bought it in the eighties?

Matt Martelli: Yeah, so it’s still the same casino. So, you know, obviously this race has a ton of history. And for my brother and I, it was like somebody asking you, like, if you want to buy Wrigley Field, you’re like, yeah, which arm do you need me to cut off? You know, so the history is really important to us.

And in celebrating that the mint hotel was down in Fremont street, old Las Vegas. So we’ve kept our there. Unlike a lot of ot and you can’t get to them the street, it’s free and 30, 000 people down in the six blocks of East Fremont. I mean, you could touch the vehicles. You can talk to the drivers, you take your photo.

It’s totally interactive. And again, one of the big things to stress is that [00:10:00] it’s free and open to the public. So talk about, you know, a value for a family, you know, and that’s. How I was brought into it as a kid is going to see this with my family and friends standing in the middle of the desert, watching the vehicles go by, you know, with a cooler and some sandwiches.

So we still have that. The only thing that we charge for is tickets for the actual race and or VIP and parking. Our off road festival downtown Fremont is the Thursday before the race. And it’s free and open to the public. So we’ve kept that in place because that’s connected to where that hotel was. And in the early days of the race, they actually started the race right there.

Crew Chief Eric: Could see a Lamont start on off roaders being a little awkward. So, you know, hey, whatever, right?

Matt Martelli: Hey, they used to do it. I mean, You know, the tradition was, and part of the reason why this race was so hard to keep together was in the, in the very beginning, they would start four motorcycles next to four cars, right?

I think the bikes have

Crew Chief Eric: an advantage, right? Yeah, exactly.

David Andrews: I was just going to say, I don’t think it would be what people in America [00:11:00] envisions. These drivers are actually athletes. They are not Billy Bob in a tight driving suit trying to giddy up to his truck.

Crew Chief Eric: The American Stig, right? The American

David Andrews: Stig. Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: but that’s actually a great transition.

Let’s turn to Drew to kind of geek out on the racing part of this as our veteran off roader.

David Andrews: Yeah. So it sounds like you have a really diverse group of drivers. So what’s your driver talent field looking like? Is it just professional driver? Big name driver strictly? Do y’all have amateur drivers piled in with the mix or backyard drivers that wanna try their hand at the mint?

Matt Martelli: That’s a really good question. It’s everybody. And that’s one of the important things about our culture is that we celebrate the guy who builds our lowest class, which is a class 11 stock VW bug, you know, in his garage with his buddies. And he comes out and he races the same race course that our top tier trophy truck racers with million dollar rigs race.

I’ll be a little [00:12:00] bit slower, but he’s still. Having the same experience. So no, we we’ve got over 50 classes of vehicles and bikes, you know, that’s the other important part is like, we even have a bike class for Harleys. So you can go buy a 500 sports tour and come out and race with us in the hooligan class.

And then really everything in between. So if you’re a petrol head and you’re into vehicles, it’s really an incredible experience to come see the variety of vehicles at different levels of performance and vintage vehicles, vehicles that are powered by VW engines that are no longer sold really. are manufactured all the way up to our trophy truck class, which is really the only true form of unlimited racing.

And when I say that, I mean that they have no budget restrictions. They have very little restrictions. So if you can make a vehicle go faster than what we currently have, whatever engine package, suspension, whatever you can do, the limitations are like really minor as [00:13:00] far as safety goes. build it and come race it.

We’re really at a point right now that’s exciting because just in the last couple of years, we’ve had the introduction of four wheel drive trophy trucks that are now kind of setting new records. It sounds weird for people at home to understand that most of the vehicles are two wheel drive, but that’s because of the travel limitations.

So when you have a two wheel drive vehicle, you have More suspension travel. And just in the last few years, they figured out how to get the proper suspension travel out of a four wheel drive vehicle and allow it to live through our rough course.

David Andrews: That’s interesting because I saw the all wheel drive trucks on your mint 400 highlights of 2020, and I was like, wait a minute, when did we start doing all wheel drive trophy trucks?

And I said, that. Is a dangerous combo when you can get all four wheels to get traction on those jumps. That is a higher complex feat of engineering. How do those trucks hold up?

Matt Martelli: They’ve gotten a lot better. They’ve been [00:14:00] winning other races. Uh, no four wheel drive trophy truck has ever won the net. There are several that will be coming this year.

We’re right at the precipice of this technology evolution. And it’s really cool because the two wheel drive trophy trucks are dominant because particularly on this course, it’s very rough. So they have a slight advantage in that their wheel travel and they have less moving parts to break, but the four wheel drive trucks are there.

Bryce Menzies just won the Bob 400 in a four wheel drive truck. Uh, Luke McMillan has just won multiple races in his, you know, it’s right there. So it’s exciting to watch because it’s not quite over the crest yet. They’ve won a lot of races. They haven’t won the mint 400 yet. And that’ll be really the proving point.

Crew Chief Eric: To add to that. Are you seeing EVs yet? At the InMid 400, has anybody positioned one of those?

Matt Martelli: Yeah, so earlier this year we announced our EV classes and have reached out to several of the the EV vehicle companies in hopes that they would take on the challenge. There’s a couple of [00:15:00] privateers that I think are going to do it and they’re, they’re home builds.

They’re vehicles that they’ve built in their garage and they’ve outfitted them with different battery platforms. We’re working with them. They’re not going to be front runners and You know, likely they’re not going to be able to finish all four laps because of the limitations of current batteries. It’s one thing that we’re very open to is if you have a vehicle that we think is worthy, a technology that you think is worthy, we’re very open to creating class for you and working with you.

Um, we want people to come use off road racing as a proving ground for.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. I mean, you won’t see too many front wheel drives out there and that’s an inside joke for our listeners out there. But the reason I bring up the EVs is because recently we talked about in one of our drive thru episodes where Audi has decided to build an EV for Dakar.

And so, you know, you never know every once in a while, they’ll just pop out and go test somewhere. Right. Doubtful that maybe they’ll be at the 400, but that would be kind of cool. And that’s, what’s been in the back of my head is you’re starting to see this EV [00:16:00] revolution spreading throughout all the different disciplines.

We heard NHRA is now adopting EV classes. I’m glad to hear the Mintas as well. And we’re seeing formula E all this kind of stuff. So I’m really curious to see what happens now. Until they, I guess they figure out the solar roofs, it’s going to be really hard to your point to recharge on a longer event or a longer race.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. But the technology is evolving quickly. So, you know, I have no doubt that we’ll see a day where they are threatening for the overall one. You know what I mean? That’s the evolution of technology. We don’t know. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s hydrogen powered vehicles or, you know, something else that we don’t even consider at this point, but that’s the beauty of what.

American off road racing is, is it’s more cowboy than, than any other form of racing. So we’re very open to trying things, you know, we’re, we don’t have this super rigid bull set of like, Hey, we’re never going to do that. Or it’s gotta be this way or what have you. We celebrate kind of the funk going back into the history.

And like, one of the other cool things I [00:17:00] love about the mint is all the sedans and people raced RVs and a tank. And

David Andrews: wait, wait, wait, a tank.

Matt Martelli: Oh yeah, it was the U. S. Army entered a tank. It started, I don’t think it went very far, but and same thing with the RV, like there was a famous off road RV called the Condor and, you know, they came out and were trying to sell their brand of RVs and use the Mint as a, you know, marketing tactic.

So, you know, really cool. I mean, we have a military classes of vehicles that come out and race with us. So last year we had a fifth special forces group come out And they started last on the line and out of the limited class, you know, they drove the vehicles that they actually use in combat actually kind of did retrieval for us of all the people that were broken.

So it was, it was really cool.

David Andrews: Oh yeah. Oh, retrieval would be great with an M one Abram.

Just come up there with your jet powered tank and just, you know, Hey guys, I’m actually going to race [00:18:00] you. Yeah, no, no. Go ahead. Get on down range and then I’m gonna send me around . Scare the crap outta somebody. . Absolutely not a live round. You know, like a big balloon, right? . There you

go.

David Andrews: Big heavy sand built balloon.

So, I guess I should say the Mint seems like a really good platform for up and comers, new engineers trying things. We kind of talked about that a little bit for the E-Class, if you wanna call it that. So has anyone created an. A household name that springboarded off of your platform.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. I mean, we have several things actually that have come out of the vent and even recently, like Chris from BS for build contacted us and goes, Hey, uh, I’m going to build an off road Lamborghini.

Can I race it? And I was like, Yeah, man, if you pass safety inspection, definitely you can race it. You know, I, I kind of dismissed it and then he popped back up again and he’s like, here it is. And I’m like, great, let’s go test it. So, uh, we went out and tested with them and he’s got some [00:19:00] bugs to work out.

That’s the nature of building vehicles. So that’s one. The other one is, you know, there’s a pretty well known guy in off road Blake Wilkie. He’s known for his VW bug builds. He called me and said, Hey, I’m, I want to build a trophy truck with a VW bug body on it. Currently the tradition and trophy truck has always been, or the rule has always been, it’s got to have a truck body.

So I said, you know, we’ll bend a rule, build it and like bring it out and race it. So him and his partner, Kevin have designed and engineered that vehicle from the ground up. And there’s a video about it on our YouTube page. You can check out.

David Andrews: Question. Is that the one where he did like a Jim Connor style in the middle of downtown LA?

I think I’ve seen it.

Matt Martelli: So no, that, that one was a class five, so that’s a closer to a stock bug. But yeah, that’s where Blake got famous is, you know, he did that video downtown, actually San Diego. Oh, okay. And then was consequently arrested for it, unfortunately. I’d

David Andrews: imagine So.

Crew Chief Eric: His name isn’t Ken Block, so he can’t just go ahead and do that, you [00:20:00] know.

Well, it’s

Matt Martelli: funny because, I dunno how much you know about the history of us, but my brother and I produced and directed the first three, Jim Kanas. We’re well aware of, you know, what it takes to produce that type of content and lots of permits is, is a part of the process. So

David Andrews: imagine, so you can’t just go out and jump a fricking dump truck.

Crew Chief Eric: I think we just found our pit stop. We’re going to talk to Matt about the Gymkhana videos. later. But your point about the jump a can is well placed because that’s actually how we got connected. It came across our news desk for the drive through. And I’m like, jump a can, like, you got to be kidding me. So BS for bill put out the video.

And you guys were there when they were testing it, you know, they had some issues and I hear this, the MIT 400. I’m like, excuse me, what? And so that’s, that’s. How we are here today, obviously, but let’s dive a little bit deeper into this race. Cause this is really interesting to your point about off roading as we’ve talked about in the past, there’s like sub disciplines within off roading there’s the motorcyclist, there’s the mutters, there’s the [00:21:00] rock crawlers, the trophy trucks, and so on in the line.

So this is like the big gathering, the reunion of all these types of sub disciplines of off roading in one spot. Like a lot of other motor sport, you have this big challenge of figuring out how to class things, right? We have the same problem in road racing and the same problem in drag racing. So how do you figure out where to put everybody in their appropriate buckets to make it fair?

Matt Martelli: It’s always an ongoing thing, right? It helps that we’re petrol heads to begin with. And so we look at stuff and we’re like, okay, how do we class this vehicle and how can we keep it fair? And also the, one of our biggest. Mandates is to keep the costs reasonable because as you know, in racing, it’s very easy for a guy to come in and wallet race everybody and, and when, cause he has superior equipment or superior budget, it’s an ongoing battle.

But, um, fortunately we have a really good team and I would say I cheat because. We’ve brought some people that helped write the book, like our technical director, Bill Savage. He [00:22:00] literally wrote the rule book for SCORE and ran it for years. And then we have an advisory group. That’s like, you know, some of the most brilliant people in off road and they’re not shy.

They’ll call me up and say, Hey, you know, you need to look at this because I’ll give you current topic. We started youth racing in our other race six years ago in off road with The advent of the razor one 70, and, you know, it was really just a toy vehicle for kids, but I knew right away that parents were going to race it.

They were, they were going to put their kid in it and they were going to want to race. Well, the thing is it’s a toy and so it had to be modified, but now those modifications, you know, have gone crazy. And so now we have parents calling us up going, Hey, it doesn’t say that we can’t use titanium on the frame.

They’re making 80, 000 cars for their kids, right? Managing all that and in different classes. And there’s some give and take. You know, there’s mistakes that I feel have been made in the past by other race organizations that we inherited. Some of those aren’t [00:23:00] fixable because people have gone down a path and invested in a certain platform.

We let those guys race. And we say, Hey, you know, you four guys, you six guys, whatever it is, you guys are going to have your own class because. If you’re grouped within this bigger class, you have cheater cars, right? We try and manage it the best we can. You know, it’s definitely a challenge and history repeats itself.

It doesn’t matter what kind of vehicle you have. Like, how are you going to cheat with your engine? How are you going to cheat with your suspension? How are you going to cheat with weight? Where are all those points? And we look at them and we’re like, okay, that’s not fair. Or okay, cool. We can allow that.

Our goal is to have everybody race. We try and be as reasonable as possible and listen to our racers. There’s been some things that I’ve been wrong about that racers have taught me and pointed out technology evolutions and said, Hey, if we spend this money now, it’s going to save us money down the line, you know, maybe it’s painful right now, but, but in the future, it’ll, it’ll, it’ll, it’ll be worth it.

Even everything out, it’s definitely an ongoing struggle.

David Andrews: If you

Crew Chief Eric: ain’t

David Andrews: cheating, you ain’t trying.

Crew Chief Eric: Us [00:24:00] gentlemen, drivers like to call it innovating until caught or told otherwise, but no, all kidding aside, actually, you brought up a really good point about the youth racing. What’s the minimum age? Do you have to be a licensed driver?

Like 15, 16 years old, or can you be younger than that? How does that program work?

Matt Martelli: Our youngest drivers are six years old and they’re not, they’re not driving on the bigger course. We have an infield course for those kids. It was important for us to get those kids involved and give them a positive experience because that’s breeding future generations of off road racers.

And we’ve never really had that up until the advent of the UTV, a vehicle prior to that, that was called trophy cart. Which was a purpose built youth vehicle, but they quickly got really expensive. So it priced out most of what I would call middle class America. So UTVs have just exploded and they brought us a lot of new people.

And it’s been fantastic. You know, we really love those vehicles and and

Crew Chief Eric: UTVs for our listeners. That’s something like a Can Am [00:25:00] or a Polaris or something like that.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. So there’s several manufacturers now, Polaris being the dominant one, Can Am. Yeah. Yamaha, Kawasaki, Honda, Robbie Gordon’s new speed UTVs, and then there’s a handful of other ones.

Wildcat.

Crew Chief Eric: They all look like the tumbler from Batman, basically.

Matt Martelli: Yeah, they’re buggy, but for the dollar, it’s a very capable off road machines. You know, we have a class called the rally class where it is a stock UTV from your dealer with a aftermarket cage seats, harnesses, and a couple pieces of safety equipment.

And you’re racing. You’re talking about maybe a two or 300 a month bill plus a few thousand dollars in safety equipment and you’re literally racing them in

Crew Chief Eric: and safety equipment, helmets, gloves, driving suit, belts, all that kind of stuff. That’s pretty normal.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. Fire extinguisher. We do require aftermarket cages, just for safety.

For safety and the classes. Do you

Crew Chief Eric: require Hans devices or like Simpson hybrids or anything like that?

Matt Martelli: Yeah, it’s a good idea. We have some [00:26:00] interesting crashes in off road. We tend to end up sideways a lot more than road racing. So yeah, it’s, that’s a requirement as well. It’s just a really good idea. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Before we get even deeper, let me ask you this side note question. What’s the coolest. Thing you’ve seen run the mint 400 and all your years working with it or your favorite or your favorite out of all of them,

Matt Martelli: you know, there’s a car that raced with us two years ago as a vintage car. It was one of Mickey Thompson’s challenger cars.

So he had actually built this vehicle specifically for the mint 400. He came out and raced and it didn’t never finished. And then he was killed a few years after that, that car sat. Dormant, then it was purchased by a friend of mine who restored it. That’s one of the coolest things about the vintage vehicles and off road is people race them.

They don’t just restore them and go, Hey, look at this beautiful machine. They bring them out and they bang the crap out of them and scratch them. And they use them for what they were supposed to be used for. Right. Then they cleaned the vehicle up and they painted it again and, you know, try and get it all shiny again.

My friend Rory [00:27:00] came out, he restored that car and came out and raced it and, uh, won his class. So for me, that was a very personal thing. Mickey Thompson was, uh, you know, an inspiration to us. And we grew up going to his races and really learning from him. So to be able to put out that press release that said Mickey Thompson won the mint 400 was pretty special.

So that’s a big one, but I would say. I really love the builder culture, right? So one thing that’s important for people to understand is other than in the UTV class, we don’t have any major factories involved. So the evolution of technology is being pushed by different companies like Fox Shocks and then some small builders.

So one of the lead companies right now, that’s. You know, we’ve been pushing the four wheel driver up revolutions based in motorsports. These are just regular guys. I mean, originally they weren’t even trained as engineers, but they’ve created technology that will change street vehicles because it starts in racing and then gets [00:28:00] integrated into street vehicles by sort of an osmosis.

You know, what they’ve been able to design, build and achieve is incredible as well as a lot of other builders. You know, these aren’t. Big companies. These are generally family owned businesses that are super passionate about making a vehicle go faster in the desert.

Crew Chief Eric: What’s like one vehicle or a couple of vehicles you never want to see come back to the mid 400.

You don’t have to name names, but just be like, I

Matt Martelli: honestly, I don’t think any, I look at ourselves more like a fight promoter. It’s up to you to train and get in shape and you know, all the analogies of, of a fighter versus a racer. But like I’m not here to dictate to you how to have fun, how you choose to have fun.

I’m just here to put on the event. And if you want to have fun, you know, in a poorly prepped piece of crap vehicle, and that’s what, you know, you can afford or whatever that that’s cool. Cause I can tell you personally, I’ve raced dozens and dozens of different classes. I’ve never had a bad time. You know, I, I’ve raced in class 11, jeep [00:29:00] speed bikes, UTVs, like all sorts of classes.

And I continue to do such cause it’s fun. I think it’s cool. I like to get into

Crew Chief Eric: mix it

Matt Martelli: up. Yeah. Different vehicles and go, all right, this is odd. I got to make adjustments and this is what this vehicle is capable of. And. Just go have fun in it. And so I think there isn’t a vehicle that I ever looked at when, man, I hope that vehicle doesn’t come back.

Now there’s people that I’m glad to have because they’re giant pain in my ass. But, you know, again, it’s like, I kind of take it all with a grain of salt and go, like, we’re attracting a lot of egos. And a lot of weirdos, truthfully, a lot of fun people. You know what I mean? Like it’s fun. Like sometimes, you know, I’m challenged in certain situations, but I look at it and I’m like, this is off road racing, man.

Like we’re like almost the opposite of every other form of racing where it’s like, we don’t want to be prim and proper and, and hold our pinkies in the air. It’s like, no man, this is. Through and through American Wild West off road racing. [00:30:00] It’s gnarly. It’s a spectacle. It’s a little bit chaotic. By the end of it, you’re going to have a blast.

Whether you’re a racer, a spectator, you’re going to come away and you’re going to be tired, but you’re going to be stoked, you know?

David Andrews: Give Matt a break people trying to run a good event here. And you over here trying to act like y’all going to get something.

Crew Chief Eric: It sounds awesome though. It sounds like controlled chaos.

It’s amazing.

Matt Martelli: Exactly. And like, that’s the thing is one of my favorite things is being at the race site and seeing these guys come across the finish line, even when they don’t, they break down, they come over to me and they’re like, that was gnarly. That was a blast. I can’t believe we got to wait a year to do it again, you know, and for most of us, we’re never going to go to war.

This is the closest thing that we’re going to have as far as a war simulation. It’s going to test you. It’s going to test your vehicle. It’s going to test your friends and family. And I think you quickly find out what you’re made of. It also reshapes your thought processes because it’s very easy to get into these situations and be like, Oh man, this sucks.

It was [00:31:00] horrible. I was cold. I was hot. It was sweaty. I got nerfed, stuff broke. I spent hours in the desert waiting for somebody to pick me up. But at the end of the day, you’re smiling and you’re like, wow, that was, that was awesome. That experience was totally awesome.

David Andrews: Putting everything together and testing your system and going to war and all that stuff, it has to be accounted for.

So what’s the format like? How is the point to points track? Is it just one big circuit? Do you have multiple circuits? How long are the circuits and is it GPS tracked or is it good old stopwatch track? How does that format look?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Let’s talk about the race itself. I mean, we’ve been talking about everything else, but

Matt Martelli: yeah, no, those are good questions.

So we run on a hundred mile loop just outside of Las Vegas. So it’s four laps of a hundred miles, right? Which actually makes the racing very interesting because every time I watch pavement racing and they go, the course is going to get deteriorated. I’m laughing [00:32:00] because I’m like, we have boulders, the size of refrigerators that get thrown into the course lap to lap and it changes radically.

So it’s a lap race. We have timing and scoring, you know, just like Formula One. And, uh, we actually have trackers on the vehicles too, so that we can keep track of them in case there’s a emergency and or make sure that nobody’s course cutting because 40 miles away, it’s difficult for us to see what people are doing.

We’ve got the whole course filled with course workers and key locations. You’re started by class. So, depending on the size and class of vehicle, you start within the same class, and those starts are staggered. We start two by two, so you would go off next to somebody in your class. Our top classes, Trophy Truck, 6100, and Class 1, we qualify.

So, those guys qualify for position. Everybody else gets their positions actually based on when they enter the race.

Crew Chief Eric: So wait, so they’re qualifying on a hundred mile loop or are they qualifying on a [00:33:00] different circuit for that?

Matt Martelli: Yeah. So we haven’t qualifier in a shorter five mile loop. Um, just

Crew Chief Eric: still substantial.

That’s longer than most racetracks or road racing tracks.

Matt Martelli: No, totally. Well, we try and. Mimic the variety of terrain because you get guys who specialize in certain things and we try and make the qualifying as fair as possible. Right? So it’s not too rough. It’s not too smooth. It’s not too soft. Same thing with short.

It’s like we have off road short course racing. So those guys are very good at qualifying. Desert racing is it’s like Daytona or Lamar. It’s a long race. Yeah, it’s an endurance race. So it’s more about the mental game of challenging or beating your own mind, not killing the vehicle. You got to beat the Mojave desert, which is, that is the most difficult opponent there is, you know, and then you’ve got to beat all your other racers.

So the dynamics going on are pretty wild.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s all 400 miles in one shot. It’s not like a rally where there’s stages and [00:34:00] stops and breaks to fix. And well, like extended pit stops. It’s. 400 miles continuous. Right.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. And so it’s time. So basically like you could come from behind and technically when it’s just less likely because the guys that qualify out front get cleaner air and they get less lap traffic, just the variables are immense, you know, it’s like, it would be like if formula one was racing and there were VW bugs out of course, and they had to get around those guys.

Right. So

Crew Chief Eric: it’s like Lamont’s it’s four races in one race. Right. So yeah. Yeah.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. So we have the race days are split up. So we have all the limited vehicles racing in one day on Friday, and then all the unlimited vehicles race on Saturday, just to try and keep the vehicle sizes, you know, one of the challenges that we have is like when you have a trophy truck and it has a North of a hundred mile an hour closing speed on a smaller vehicle, that’s dangerous.

We separated those classes of vehicles. And then. Bikes actually run a [00:35:00] completely separate course this year. They’ll be running at the same time. Uh, last year they ran at a different time. So we keep those guys on a bike specific course so that they’re safe as well.

David Andrews: What’s the average lap time and what’s the course record on some of the more popular classes?

A

Matt Martelli: hundred mile loop. They do that in just over two hours, which is super fast. And I’m talking trophy trucks. When you see the pace these guys are putting down, it’s pretty mind blowing. That’s one of the things that we fell in love with as kids. And, you know, as promoters, we really wanted to bring that to the forefront and showcase these vehicles because the technology of a trophy truck dancing over three and a half foot whoops over a hundred miles an hour is mind boggling.

That suspension technology is the same suspension technology that’s in Raptors, that’s in Jeeps. Everybody driving around the street now going, Oh man, this is really bitching ride. That’s because of what we do in the desert, you know, and especially I got to give props to [00:36:00] Fox shocks. And they literally started one of the main guys who designed a lot of the shocks, John marking, race them in, in a buggy in a lower class and pee blood for three days afterwards and said, I need to figure out this, this suspension stuff, you know, the lap times vary wildly, you know, so there’s, there’s Some of the lower classes only do two laps because they simply wouldn’t make four laps, you know, in less than 16 hours.

So we have a closure limit with the BLM of two days. So we’ve got to, you know, kind of cram everybody into those two days. But that two hour mark is just a blistering pace. And every year they get faster and faster. And this race started out and it was really just. Survive it, it was just get through three laps and on the last lap, if you’re there, you’re probably going to podium, especially at the top level, it’s turned into a sprint.

It’s pretty wild. And then you have going down in the different classes, then it’s three hours and four hours, six hours and so on and so [00:37:00] forth. So I think people don’t, don’t really understand unless they come to it and they go, okay, class 11 guys are out there. They’re in a car for 12 hours, right?

Completing two lap, pretty incredible variant.

David Andrews: That is amazing. Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who have never exited your zip code to go to Meemaw’s house, if your grandmother lives 400 miles away, on average, it is going to take you five to six and a half hours. And that’s if you do an 80.

Matt Martelli: They’re just over six hours.

All

David Andrews: right. Well, that’s still amazing because, you know, You’re going down in the interstate and you’re doing that same time. That’s smooth ride. You literally said they’re in the course and if anyone takes the time to research and review the videos and you see what the suspension is doing. These are not like little railroad tracks.

These people are going over. They’re going over like massive. Moguls and boulders. Unbelievable.

Crew Chief Eric: That is pretty cool. It is a site to behold, that’s for [00:38:00] sure. So is the race televised? Like for those of us that can’t physically be there, will we be able to tune in live stream or watch it on TV or something like that?

Matt Martelli: Yeah, both. So we, uh, we live stream it during the event. We have two days of live streaming and that’s free that we have it available on YouTube, Facebook. Book and we just signed a deal with flow racing. They’re going to carry it as well. You can tune in there. And then we do a television show as part of world of X every year.

And that’s more of a summary of post event. Like here’s all the sexy stuff that happened and, you know, crush it into one hour, because obviously it’s like 14 hours plus of racing each in two days. How do you tell that story in an hour? It’s pretty impossible, but we do the gloss over for that television show too.

And it’s been a really cool tool for us to reach new eyeballs.

Crew Chief Eric: Think of like Red Bull TV and some of the coverage they do, which I find to be absolutely phenomenal. WRC. Yeah. Well, they do WRC amongst a million other things, but that’d be really cool to be like, tune in a Red Bull and be like, ah, it’s, it’s, it’s the mid 400.

You know how cool. Yeah. The

Matt Martelli: [00:39:00] Red Bull was, uh, we were actually part of the Red Bull programming for a couple of years. Oh, nice. Yeah. And it was great. We do all of our own television. We do all of our own live stream. Cause that’s where we came from was content production. And it’s important to us because there’s a tendency for production groups to kind of phone it in and we live and breathe this.

So like, if you look at the documentaries that we’ve produced, my brother and I write those, we direct them, we produce them, you know, we argue about them. Frequently, we think it’s very important to share with people how credible, you know, this sport and culture is and how much it’s open to people, you know, you don’t have to be from the West coast.

You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be blonde hair and blue eyed to be a part of this. Everybody’s welcome. Every vehicle make every style of vehicle. I mean, one of the things I enjoy is the phone calls of like, Hey, I’ve got this vehicle, this is what it is. Can I erase it? Very rarely do we say no.

Uh, most of the time it’s like, here are our safety protocols. Get, get those in order and let’s [00:40:00] see if we can find a class for you. And if not, we’ll, you know, we’ll consider making a class for you.

David Andrews: How does one go about getting. Started and registered to compete. What type of timeframe do they need to reach out and get registered?

Like how long is the process and what do they need to do?

Matt Martelli: We don’t have licensing like many other forms of motor sports, which that may have to come at some point. But as of right now, you could call up and rent a trophy truck and come race. As crazy as it sounds, our registration opens usually like six months or so in advance.

We have rental vehicles and everything from buggies to bikes to UTVs that we can line you up with. And there are some of the builders that have rental trophy trucks and a 6100s or trophy trucks back. So a huge variety of vehicles available, you know, or if you have a vehicle that you want to race, you know, you just, you know, Get on the website and sign up and, you know, hopefully you fit within an existing class that makes it easy and that’s it.

You show up, you pass technical inspection [00:41:00] and you go race. I always suggest that people are interested in getting involved, that they come and join a team and chase and kind of learn the ropes first, just to get acclimated, because I think you’re going to have a better time. You know, it is pretty daunting.

I’ve had a few instances where people are stuck way back. We have a large mountain that we race around. And all of a sudden you’re like, I’m out of cell service. I’m in the middle of nowhere. Does anybody know I’m here? Fortunately, we have a good safety crew and sweep and all that stuff. And we’ve never lost anybody.

We showed up on some tired and scared people, but you know, we’ve never lost anybody.

Crew Chief Eric: Does OnStar work out in the middle of the desert? Like nothing.

David Andrews: Dude, being stuck out in the desert? Oh my God, man.

Crew Chief Eric: Bring, bring back some trauma.

David Andrews: Bro, I’ve been out there, man. That’s some trouble you don’t want, is hot sand and, uh Snakes and

Crew Chief Eric: scorpions that go with

David Andrews: it, right?

Yeah, that, you don’t want that shit. [00:42:00]

Matt Martelli: It’s funny because You know, again, we have tracking on everybody and it’s satellite direct. So that’s really the only way to do it. But you’re off the grid. And what’s funny is you’re really only not even 20 miles outside of Vegas and it just drops off into the Mojave.

I mean, you know, the Mojave desert is, if you haven’t spent time there, it’s just absolutely beautiful. You know, we still have bighorn sheep, mountain lions and all sorts of animals, you know,

David Andrews: Thank you, Jesus and Glownass. That’s right. Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: You talked about tech. And so in our world, for a lot of our listeners, they’re used to, Oh, fill out a piece of paper.

And some guy looks and checks my lug nuts, you know, things like that, or we put it up on the lift and you look it over. So how does tech differ for an event like the Mint 400? Is it done day of, or is it done ahead of time?

Matt Martelli: We call it tech and contingency, and that’s really part of our off road festival.

So what happens is you show up with your vehicle. You parade it down Fremont street. And at the very end of Fremont street, our technical inspection goes through and mainly check safety. [00:43:00] Usually the vehicles have some sort of previous tag on them from other races. So we know like, Hey, this cage is correct.

Like a long book

Crew Chief Eric: type of, yeah, exactly. A little

Matt Martelli: bit. It’s pretty easy to look at a vehicle and go. Okay. That’s not up to snuff every single vehicle, every single bike, it’s tech two days before the event it’s off to the races from there.

Crew Chief Eric: So what happens if you fail tech? I mean, obviously a minor indiscretion, you could probably fix it then and there, but something more major, do you have the opportunity to try to rectify it?

Or are you pretty much disqualified?

Matt Martelli: No, you have the opportunity to rectify it, but being that we only have a day or so before the event, it’s a tight time window. What we typically do is if somebody has a question, we try and steer them in the right direction, look at their vehicle before they get to that point and steer them in the, you know, really just get them ready for that.

Because. The last thing that we want to do is fail somebody and not allow them to race.

Crew Chief Eric: Which actually gets us back to another point that I want to bring up. And Drew was kind of alluding to with registering for this event. [00:44:00] You’ve said several times, it’s a festival. It takes place over several days, right?

There’s all sorts of different events and attractions and things that are available. So obviously there’s a costing structure. That’s, what’s going to be on everybody’s mind. What does it cost to do this? You mentioned the Fremont part of it is free. If you want to come out and check out the cars. But how much does spectating cost?

How much do the tickets cost? What is the entry fee like? Is it dependent on the class? You know, how does that all break down?

Matt Martelli: Yeah. Entry fee depends on the class bikes being the least expensive unlimited vehicles being the most expensive. And they’re really at that price. They’re only a few thousand dollars.

Which is in my eyes, very low considering what they’re going to be able to do cheaper than a LA Lakers game, right? Spectating is 15 bucks.

Crew Chief Eric: Can’t beat that.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. It’s super minor. We have a really bitching VIP area with, uh, an amazing chef, Drew Deckman, a good friend of mine who comes up from Baja and does all of our food.

And that’s a couple hundred bucks a day for, you know, shade, heat, food, drink. That’s the way to do it. You know, that’s why we We [00:45:00] started that

David Andrews: Matt. Come on, man. Hook a brother up. Let me get one of them VIP

Matt Martelli: tickets. I guarantee you, you end up adding weight. Part of the danger of it with

David Andrews: that.

Matt Martelli: Yeah, no, I’m, I’m, I’m with you.

It’s like, Oh, we’re what happened? It was two days in VIP at the men I put on about 10 pounds, right?

Crew Chief Eric: You lost 20 in water weight though, from sweating out in the desert. Oh,

Matt Martelli: definitely. Definitely. I

David Andrews: can see it now. I’m going to be on my 500 pound life. But what happened in your life? And you know, their story is usually, Oh, I was abused.

No, I went to the Mint.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. It all started with the Mint 400.

David Andrews: Matt gave me them good tickets and I got to meet them chefs and I ate everything.

Matt Martelli: Yeah, definitely. And that’s a funny part of our culture too, is that off road racing simultaneously started in America and in Baja. So when we all go race in Baja, we eat the food, right?

And the food in that region is pretty [00:46:00] special because of the ocean and the land and you know, the history. So you go down there and you have that as part of the The racing experience. And then you, you come back here and we wanted to bring that back, you know, and share it with people here. So, um, that’s why we, we did it with our friend, Drew Deckman, you know, kind of ties the culture together.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m guessing there’ll be concerts at night and other stuff like that as well.

Matt Martelli: Yeah, we’ve done that in the past and we always shoot for the moon, but it depends on, you know, what sponsors are willing to pay for. And we were able in 2020 to get the race done right before COVID. So we’re blessed. Able to get that done.

And then this year, normally we’d be in March, but Las Vegas wasn’t issuing any special events permits. So this year we’re in December and then we’ll be back in March in 2022. Wow.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s ambitious. One right behind the other.

Matt Martelli: I mean, we’re on our way to doing more races, so we anticipate the schedule anyways.

We’ll be four to six races a year. So let’s get it going.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. Send it, send it. I [00:47:00] also noticed in doing my research that there’s some volunteer opportunities that are aligned with this event. Things like the desert cleanup. Do you want to expand on that a little bit?

Matt Martelli: First off volunteers. I mean, every form of racing is running on volunteers and it’s a great way to get acclimated.

If you don’t know anything about off road racing, you want to come learn, volunteering for the races is a great way to do it. And it’s actually a lot of fun. You know, we have all sorts of different positions to fill from track positions on the. Course to people that are helping us with timing and scoring tech and the vehicles, like really everything.

So it’s another part of the event that I really enjoy is meeting all these people that come from all over the United States and even the world. We have some good volunteers that show up every year from Japan. I had the first year they showed up. I’m like. I don’t know how we’re going to do this because my Japanese sucks, but we use some sign language and we got it figured out, but it’s really fun.

In addition to that, there’s always been this big misnomer that off roaders somehow destroy the desert. [00:48:00] And that’s far from the truth. We go out in the desert because it’s beautiful and it doesn’t look like the city, it’s not trash. So it’s important for us to be good citizens. So, a few years ago we decided to lead by example and we started the Mint 400 Desert Cleanup.

And we talked to a local group that does trash logistics, Republic Services in Las Vegas. Because we quickly found out that one of the most expensive things about doing desert cleanups was paying for the garbage disposal, right? So paying for all the garbage to get to the landfill via dumpsters. And so they came right in and got involved and they donated.

And so, you know, we’ve pulled like, I think we’re up to like 50 tons trash out of the regional desert. And every year it grows. So last year we had like a few hundred volunteers come out and we filled 10 roll offs full of garbage and pulled that out of the desert roll offs for people that don’t know them.

It’s basically the. The size of a semi. So we filled up 10 semis with trash and cleaning the area that we race in. [00:49:00] And one other important thing is that that’s not trash from us. That’s trash from illegal dumpers and people that go out and shoot in the desert. We have a leave it better policy of Every time we go out and race, we clean the course, we make sure none of our garbage is anywhere in the desert every time we leave.

So just leading by example and showing people that we can enjoy the desert and be environmentally responsible. It’s part of the DNA of off road. Awesome.

David Andrews: What I wanted to ask is I’m a veteran. I did eight years in the United States army. I wanted to know, do you have any types of partnerships with the United States armed forces?

Do you have any active or veteran persons, a part of your personnel staff or driving or anything? And

Crew Chief Eric: actually drew brings up a really great point on a couple of previous episodes. We had Peter Klein on from vet motor sports, where they’re looking to put as a non clinical program for [00:50:00] rehabilitation of veterans.

They put them in motor sports situations. So we’re wondering, you know, is there a crossover there with those types of organizations with the men?

Matt Martelli: Actually, absolutely. And I’m glad you asked. Talking about the founding of this culture was started by veterans and veterans and active duty military have always been involved in part of the DNA.

And so a few years ago, we started the military challenge as a way to first recognize it. And secondly, raise awareness about our veterans that are coming back from war with various injuries, whether it’s PTSD or physical injuries, we’re here in San Diego, our headquarters are next to camp Pendleton. So I see it every day.

And a lot of my friends are active duty and different types of roles, everything from special forces to the grunts on the ground. So it is a part of our culture. And like I said, we started the military challenge as a way to celebrate that. Yeah. And also raise some money for some of the charities. So we have a fundraising aspect that you can get on our website and donate to.

And it’s, it’s kind of a race a thon format. Any [00:51:00] racer can join it and raise funds for these different charities to give back to our, our military. But it’s a very important part of, of off road racing culture. That we wanted to recognize, you know, it was started a couple of years ago, actually by a racer who came and raced and he was, um, uh, Marsock colonel.

And he said, Hey, I’d like to do a fundraiser. Are you cool with it? I said, yeah, we’ll help you. And the first year he did it, he raised 20, 000 last year. We raised north of a hundred thousand dollars, but even more than the money, it’s about the recognition and, you know, the camaraderie of, of putting our arms around.

Um, active duty and, and veterans and going like you’re Americans, you’re part of us. And without you, we wouldn’t have the freedoms that we have. And, you know, in light of everything that’s gone on recently with Afghanistan, it’s been one of those things that’s hit home really hard, especially because of 11 of the soldiers that were killed in the bombing of Afghanistan were from camp Pendleton here.

So, so yeah, that’s an important one. One of the main charities that we work with is a charity here out of San [00:52:00] Diego, a warfighter made and they’re a great organization.

David Andrews: So I got to ask. Which do you prefer and which is better the mint or king of the hammers?

Matt Martelli: That’s just

David Andrews: tougher. I should say not better tougher

Matt Martelli: I think the king of the hammers technically is a tougher race because it is rock crawling, right?

And so, you know the ultra four vehicles, they’re incredible. I love hammers. My friend dave cole runs it I think it’s a really cool event, but it’s very different from what we do. What we do is Really about speed. There’s sections of hammers that are open desert, but there’s nothing like the Mint 400. I mean, it is, like I said, it’s the

Crew Chief Eric: Lamont, it’s the lamonts of off-roading.

I mean, that’s what it sounds like to me. It’s,

Matt Martelli: it’s even more, but it’s more savage, you know? And it’s more punk rock, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah,

Matt Martelli: absolutely. You know, one of the things I love about. The promoter side of it is people come to me always and they’re like, who’s going to win? Who’s going to win? And I honestly don’t know last year.

I would have bet the house on Bryce Menzies and he had a little bit of [00:53:00] technical problem in the beginning and that made him push really hard. Then he continued to have, have some issues. Luke McMillan won it. And Luke was one of those guys who I knew was. Coming up, you know, and I knew there was going to be a point where he was going to get kind of into his prime and start winning and winning a lot, but I didn’t think he was going to do it yet.

He drove a very smart race and was there at the end to pick up the pieces. Well, you know, all these other guys had pushed too hard. Right. I think that hammers is an awesome race and definitely a spectacle and they do a great job of the live stream coverage. It was very different than what we do. You know, our, our event is like, Flat out, savage, yeah, like full send and there’s no like, lol, you know, there’s like, Oh, here’s where you get to rest.

There’s none of that, you know, and, and even different from the other race that we love the bottom 1000, that’s a fantastic race has less racers. It’s a different, uh, [00:54:00] longer race. It has more like

Crew Chief Eric: it’s more like Dakar. So yeah.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. It has more graded roads, more kind of pavement sections where you get to rest.

So it’s just a different beast altogether. It’s really cool. And there’s no place like Baja, but in terms of like the absolute spectacle that you can drive up and watch go down. You know, there’s nothing like the mint, it definitely takes the cake.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And you know what I think is fun about all of this and all these different episodes that we do is that at the end of the day, we share a common bond as petrol heads.

I think we can all really respect each other’s disciplines and draw from one another and also draw parallels, right? Where like we’re talking about, this is like the mint is like, you know, like Lamont’s and Baja’s like Dakar and this and that. But you draw these parallels, but we all get excited about it.

We want to see man and machine and the elements and what’s going to happen. And I’m really excited to see where this goes and to see what the 2021 mint 400 looks like. You know, obviously we’re going to be rooting for the Jumper Can guys. We want it from BS for Bill. We [00:55:00] want to see how that turns out. We check out the live feeds and everything like that.

But Matt, we want to give you the opportunity as well. Are there any other sponsors, partners, or shout outs you want to make before we close out?

Matt Martelli: Um, and there’s, there’s huge lists. I’ll just try and do the big ones, but one, Hey, one thing I do want to mention is that we are an inclusionary event. We’re an inclusionary culture.

It means like, I don’t really care whether you’re a pavement guy or what subsect of pavement racing, or, or if you’re just into cars, I mean, hell, if you’re, you just want to come check it out, we want you to come. We want you to come spectate. We want you to race. So think of that as an open invitation, you know, you know, that that’s been really important to me and we’ve been successful in bringing racers from many different disciplines out to really just have fun, you know, and come try our, our form of, of racing, you know, as well as, you know, different spectators, right, as far as.

Shout outs and everything. There’s so many at first, you know, my team here, like, you know, I live, breathe and eat and sleep this. And we’ve got a fantastic team. My [00:56:00] brother’s my partner, my cousin works with us and he’s like my right hand, you know, and then some of our sponsors, like you have an amazing relationship with BF Goodrich tires, multi year relationship with them that continues to grow.

I can’t talk higher about their product. And even they just launched a new navigation app for off roading called on trail. Yeah. That’s really cool. And just really all of our sponsors, we have a lot of sponsors that support us and it’s really cool. Most of them have been with us for years and we continue to gain, you know, new sponsors, you know, cause we really work our ass off to give value back to them, you know, and grow our reach and grow the reach of off road racing and.

You know, off road culture in general, but yeah, just, you know, come out to the men and have a good time. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. It’s one of those things that I love sharing with people because the usual responses, I can’t believe I didn’t know about this. It’s a good thing, but yeah, it’s going to be an awesome year.

I’m excited for this year. We have 25 trophy trucks registered and about 300 [00:57:00] racers, you know, December is going to be a big year. It’ll be a bit cooler than we’re used to, but you know, that’s off road racing. We, we race. There’s no rain delays and you know, there’s none of that in off road racing. We race regardless.

And, uh, that’s part of the deal. Right? Yeah. We need to get you guys out there and especially in that VIP tent. Right.

David Andrews: You see, that’s my boy, Matt. I see tickets.

Crew Chief Eric: Very cool. Well, Matt, I have to say this has been an education. It sounds absolutely epic, and we’re looking really forward to it. And for our listeners out there, there is no other off road race that allows fans the thrilling experience of watching the top off road race teams from around the world battle for fame and glory in a festival setting.

Like Las Vegas. So to learn more about the Mint 400, be sure to visit to their website, www the mint four hundred.com, or follow them on social at [00:58:00] the Mint 400. And you know, reach out to Matt for more information as well. Be sure to buy your tickets as they are coming up soon, because the mint will be on which weekend in December.

Matt Martelli: December 1st through fifth.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Matt, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been an absolute pleasure. I can’t thank you enough.

Matt Martelli: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was fun. Like I, so I really appreciate it.

Crew Chief Eric: And Drew, thanks for being my co host. Hey, thanks for having me, man.

That’s right. Listeners. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our Patreon for a follow on Pitstop mini sowed. So check that out on www. patreon. com forward slash GT motorsports and get access to all sorts of behind the scenes content from this episode and more.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www.

gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have [00:59:00] suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770. Or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports. org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of BreakFix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge.

As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig newtons, gummy bears, and Monster.

Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, [01:00:00] none of this would be possible.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Introduction to Break/Fix Podcast
• 00:27 The History of the Mint 400
• 01:05 Meet the Guests: Drew and Matt
• 01:31 Origins of Off-Road Racing
• 02:50 The Mint 400’s Rise to Fame
• 03:44 The Mint 400’s Dormant Years and Revival
• 05:22 Celebrity Involvement in the Mint 400
• 07:55 Modern Day Mint 400 and Inclusivity
• 11:23 Diverse Driver Talent at the Mint 400
• 13:02 Technological Innovations in Off-Road Racing
• 24:16 Youth Racing and UTV Explosion
• 26:14 Vintage Vehicles and Builder Culture
• 28:22 The Spirit of Off-Road Racing
• 31:39 Race Format and Circuit Details
• 32:42 Qualifying and Class Structure
• 33:34 Race Dynamics and Challenges
• 38:00 Spectating and Live Coverage
• 40:05 Getting Involved: Registration and Volunteering
• 50:07 Military Involvement and Charity
• 52:04 Comparing the Mint 400 to Other Races
• 54:23 Final Thoughts and Shoutouts

Bonus content available as a #PITSTOP mini-sode.

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