We totally understand the plight of the lapsed racing fan. The kind of people who once loved motorsport in whatever form was put in front of their faces but wound up drifting from it for one reason or another. If there was a nickel for every time someone said it'd be ten, 20, or even 30 years since they watched racing, you could buy a trophy truck.
Ultimately, the reason why doesn't need to matter. If you're a fallaway racing fan, the Mint 400 is your ticket back. As it happens, that ticket is only $30 bucks, apart from the airfare to Las Vegas, the hotel, the rental car etc, etc. Listen, you can't have your cake and eat it too these days. But regardless, the Mint 400 manages to be a legit outlaw race while also laying claim to being one of the most historic off-road truck races in the world. How it manages to do this can only be understood when you look at the history.
It only makes sense that a desert race with as few rules and regulations as possible finds its roots in the sinful sands of Las Vegas. The event's namesake, The Mint Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, was the brainchild of the notorious real estate developer and one-time owner of the New York Yankees, Del Webb. In the years after his time working in real estate construction with legit mob bosses like Bugsy Seigel, Webb, with his promotions director and long-time confidant Norm Johnson, were hard at work devising public events that could funnel traffic from the Las Vegas Strip into their beloved Mint Las Vegas.
Such was the impetus of the first-ever Mint 400 Race in 1968. Wherein over 100 vehicles across the spectrum of dirtbikes to trucks and everything in between raced from the starting line on Las Vegas' Freemont Street across the Nevada Desert sands for a lucrative cash prize. For the next 20 years, the Mint 400 represented not only America's greatest opportunity at off-road racing superstardom but also a high-marquee event frequented by celebrities like megastar actors Steve McQueen and James Garner, Indy 500 winners like Rick Mears and Al Unser, and even the former NASA Mercury/Gemini astronaut Gordon Cooper. In every sense of the word, the Mint 400 was as counter-culture as the Grateful Dead and Phish put together.
With its bare minimum of regulations and dozens of different racing classes to choose from, the Mint 400 was a race the common citizen could compete in against some of the most famous and influential people in motorsports of the period. Be it racing trucks, motorcycles, side-by-sides, or whatever could be retrofitted for desert racing, there was a spot for everybody at the Mint 400. Say what you will about Formula 1 and NASCAR, but no other race in the country can claim a similarly laid-back, "chillaxed" race event philosophy.
Photo: The Mint 400
For years, the race began at the sight of the Mint Hotel on Las Vegas' Freemont Street before the mad dash across the sand began. This being Vegas, the proceedings leading up to the big race were often an enormous impromptu party. But the good times couldn't last forever. In 1988, the Mint Hotel venue was sold off to a new consortium of investors led by Jack Binion, owner and operator of the iconic Horseshoe Club nearby on Freemont Street.
From there, the Mint 400 would only be held two more times, using Nissan as its primary sponsor, before the race entered a period of dormancy after 1989. But you can't keep the spirit of American rebellion down forever. Nearly 20 years later, General Tire, one of the original Mint 400's surviving sponsors, reached out to the Southern Nevada Off-Road Enthusiasts' organization with the intent of bringing America's greatest off-road race back from the dead. On March 29th, 2008, the Mint 400 made its triumphant return with even more race classes, fewer restrictions, and more fun to be had by all.
Early runnings of the re-incarnated Mint 400 did indeed have the same iconic flare as the classic race, but one particular pair of brothers figured they could make it even better. Though originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Matt and Joshua Martelli are two men with Las Vegas' desert sands running through their veins. As equal partners in their media production and advertising firm, Mad Media, and with experience in action sports dating back to the mid-90s, if any team on Earth could get the most out of the revived Mint 400, it was the Martelli Brothers.
With the sale to the two brothers finalized in 2011, the pair have spent the last 13 years working to preserve the pantomime and the history of the Mint 400 intact while gathering vital sponsorships needed to keep a modern motor racing series afloat. At that time, the race underwent one or two changes meticulously planned out by the Martelli brothers to keep the purity of the race intact. Items like door-to-door fast start, where two vehicles line up to start the race rather than a single file, add an element of closely-packed racing not often associated with desert races.
Photo: The Mint 400
The sheer magnitude of different classes and the volume of participants is something to behold, as well, with over three hundred bespoke racing teams when the race returned in the late 2000s. These days, that number is well over 500 race teams across. In a modern America where the average folks can't afford to race unlimited trophy trucks, they could just as easily race in one of the event's lower-class vehicles and have an experience ostensibly very similar to the big boys. More to the point, the Mint 400's stark lack of bureaucracy means that, theoretically, any combination of vehicle and drivetrain is permissible with very few questions asked.
Want to be the first all-electric truck to complete a desert race in North America? That's something Rivian laid claim to at this year's running. Want to run a Trophy truck with the gas turbine engine out of a helicopter? So long as it can pass safety tests, the answer is yes. It's this profound freedom of choice that makes the Mint 400 the archetypal American truck race. Simply put, you try and take a race like the Mint anywhere else in the world and watch their stuffy, rule-stickler aristocracy's brains melt.
These days, the pre-race festivities on Freemont Street near the start of the old race make for a curious mix between a mini SEMA show and your typical Las Vegas block party. In a touch under 15 years, the Martelli brothers have managed to take the Mint 400 and turn it into a race that modern social media-enclined types can post all over TikTok and Instagram while the purists can still bask in the glory of the race it used to be. In a way no other race in the world can replicate, the Mint 400 is the race for every man, every woman, and every red-blooded American kid can use to re-ignite their passion for racing.
At the end of the day, that dynamic wombo-combo is worth the price of admission alone. With the Martelli Brothers at the helm, chances are good that the Mint 400 will only become more thrilling, accessible, and even more of a must-see event on the annual racing calendar. As a microcosm of the essence of what American racing series used to be like, the Mint 400 was nothing short of a portal into a simpler time. A time before politics, social media, and every societal ill of the world today turned us all against each other.
Photo: The Mint 400
When there are a few hundred screaming race cars hurdling across the desert, you'd be surprised just how easy it is to forget all of that garbage. To let all of that noise drown out under a hail of V8s roaring in unison is nothing short of glorious. Be sure to check back soon for more coverage of the Mint 400 right here on autoevolution.
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