LIVEMINT400.com
Via the Blacke Media Offices
in Baja California, Mexico!
Gary Newsome
Owner, Publisher
Welcome to our Lead-Up to the LIVE! Coverage from Las Vegas at the 2020 FUCT FESTIVAL
***HERE COMES THE PAIN>>>
PLEASE HELP SUPPORT THE INJURED CO-DRIVER THANKS!
A motorcycle racer was injured during this event, we don't see Mad Media supporting his recovery efforts, WHY?
A co-driver lost his foot because of the Martelli Brothers failure to adequately address medical responses during their events...they STILL haven't
Remember when Pistol Pete Sohren was killed by the Martellis? CLICK HERE
This is just a PARTIAL LIST of the dead and injured from the FUCT FESTIVAL>>>LOADING>>>
2020 Coverage begins, Monday, March 2 and runs through Sunday, March 8
On Monday at 6PM WEST Monday, March 2,
HAMMER-KING RACE-RADIO
KICKS OFF THE Coverage
LIVE! ONLINE HERE ON LiveMint400.com
LIVE! MINT 400 FUCT FESTIVAL FROM VEGAS
OFFICIAL SCHEDULE
*Monday at 6PM WEST March 2,
-HAMMER-KING RACE-RADIO
KICKS OFF THE Coverage
*Wednesday, March 4, 2-5PM WEST
-RACERS PARADE IN LAS VEGAS LIVE!
*Thursday, March 5, 7AM-8PM
-QUALIFYING? Last Year This was a Yard Sale!
-RACER INSPECTIONS AND CONTINGENCY
-MISS LIVEMINT400.com ANNOUNCED!
*Friday, March 6, 7AM-2AM WEST
-MOTORCYCLE RACES LIVE! ONLINE 6AM
-LIMITED CLASS RACE LIVE! ONLINE 1PM
*Saturday, March 7 2PM-2AM WEST
-UNLIMITED CLASS RACE LIVE! ONLINE 1PM
*Sunday, March 8
THE UGLY WRAP-UP FROM THE FUCT FESTIVAL!
***Now we get to tell you the ENTIRE REALITY! Many moons ago, our team started coverage of this event, eleven (11) years of LIVE! Coverage!
But, the REAL STORY began before 2009. In years prior to the changing of the title owners of the "Mint 400", Blacke Media used to follow our hit numbers, very closely.
Today, we don't give a fuck!
Can you tell?
During those days, we noticed a constant viewer from Oceanside, California. After some research, we discovered it was an obscure skateboard pimple on his mothers ass, constantly on our pages! He lived at his mothers house, with his brother, learning about off-road 'culture'.
There were times he left his computer on all hours, on OFF-ROAD LIVE!
Then pictures of the pimple showed up on Race-Dezert, it was now latched onto the butts of Klaus and Curtis of child-porn fame [CLICK THE LINK]. He then jizzed onto Lucas Hand and stole mint400 from SNORE, the Southern Nevada racing association that operated the event for some years, after its founding.
Then he bought into the 'Not-for-Profit' Klaus abortion and stuck his hands up the asses of the underappreciated whores of west coast racing, like BFGoodrich Tires. We've documented the frauds for over a decade and the verdict has been in for some time.
When we talked with Casey Folks before he died, he lamented fucking this one up. That's OK Casey, we'll make good for you, in this LIVEMINT400.com 2020 LIVE! Coverage!
Founder Norm Johnson Talks about the LIVEMINT400.com
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| Mint 400, Desert Off-Road Rally started in 1968 at the old Fremont Street casino of the same name. Billed as “The Great American Desert Race,” the original ran for 20 years. For years, it disappeared. Las Vegas News Bureau Photo |
MINT 400 is the one of the world’s oldest and most famous of Western North America's desert off-road races, having staged its "50th anniversary race", in 2018. In actuality, the event hasn't been run or operated for 50 consecutive years.
As someone who was there at the beginning of the race and played a key role in launching it (so humble), I’d like to share the story of how it got started.
In 1967, when I was an assistant publicity and promotion director for the Mint Hotel, I read a story about a group of four-wheel drive enthusiasts who had raced from Tijuana to La Paz in Baja California, Mexico.
The complete history of Baja Racing now resides with the BAJA Racing HALL Of Fame.
SEE BajaRacingNews.com FOR HISTORY & UPDATED NEWS
Around the same time, I became acquainted with two locals, LeRoy Wickham and John Sexton, who were constructing glass-bodied dune buggies and had approached the hotel to suggest we purchase one of the vehicles as a prize for our annual deer-hunting contest.
We discussed various promotion ideas with the two buggy builders and came up with a wild plan. We would purchase one buggy and send it on an off-road journey from the Mint to our sister hotel in Lake Tahoe. The deal was approved by Bill Bennett, general manager of the Mint Hotel, and Wickham and Sexton agreed to make the trip. In August 1967, the two men left Las Vegas with a photographer from the Las Vegas News Bureau, two dune buggies and camping equipment.
The trip took six days at a cost of $560. News coverage of the trip was unbelievable. We began getting news clippings from the around the world, and that’s when a light bulb went off to have a race like the Baja event. Wickham and Sexton were hired to lay out the course. Permission from more than 60 landowners, including Howard Hughes, was obtained. Senator Alan Bible helped coax the Bureau of Land Management into approving the event, stipulating that it would charge $10 for each vehicle entered in the race. Bob Fuerhelm, who worked for a Jeep dealership in California; Pete Condos, a pioneer in off-road accessories; and Don Arnett, who had just designed a new glass buggy, agreed to help. We staged a news conference in Los Angeles, and responses from the publicity, word-of-mouth, and wire stories began to trickle in to the hotel. The Del Webb Mint 400 Desert Rally was on its way to fame and glory.
I talked to racing legend Parnelli Jones, my friend from my early days of racing, and convinced him to enter. The Ford Motor Co.’s Lee Iacocca, then best known for spearheading the development of the iconic 'Mustang', agreed to provide a newly launched off-road sports-car, the 'Bronco' that would be modified for Parnelli. Before we announced Jones’ entry, the Mint had received 56 entries. After the announcement, the entries just poured in. We ended up with 109 cars and motorcycles officially entered. The entry fee, $150.
With the assistance of Arnett, Condos and NASCAR driver Mel Larson, who also agreed to compete, we came up with some basic rules. Competitors needed a roll bar if they were driving an open-air vehicle, as well as a helmet, lap belt and fire extinguisher. We established a guaranteed purse of $15,000 for the race, plus contingency funding from auto equipment and oil companies. By race day, the total purse had grown to $30,000 plus a lot of free products. After the mayor of Las Vegas allowed us to block off Fremont Street the morning of the race, 109 vehicles lined up in front of the Mint. Del Webb was on the platform along with Lt. Gov. Ed Fike, who waved the starting flag.
With police escorts, the parade left Fremont Street and headed six miles to a junkyard, where a dirt road began. No race of this magnitude had ever been staged in the nation!
During pre-race staff meetings, it was estimated how long it would take for a race vehicle to arrive at a given checkpoints, through Mojave-Basin Desert locations such as Ash Meadows, Shoshone and Beatty. That would determine what time it needed to be staffed and ready to time each vehicle as it stopped. Our estimation for Beatty was off by nearly 30 minutes. A Mint staff member who’d been assigned to checkpoint duty arrived in Beatty only to discover that three motorcycles and a pair of cars had already been fueled at the checkpoint’s gas station and were on their way back to Las Vegas.
Fortunately, the station attendant had recorded the numbers and times. Although people have made false claims about the first race over the years — including that a checkpoint official forgot to show up and the original rules were borrowed from the new Baja racing events like the Mexican 1000 Rally, that had popped-up recently — those were the only real hiccups.
As early as 1905, automobile racing and hill-climbs had arisen in the west. A series of "Triple A" (AAA) sanctioned cross-country, point-to-point Western United States desert racing events had started in 1907. The 'Desert Classic' series of events had been almost totally forgotten at that time.
Our tiny event grew to the point that 400 cars were entered, but it was canceled in 1988 after the Mint was "sold".
Stay tuned HERE, we'll talk more about the SMACK of the MINT, in this years coverage!
In 2008, SNORE, the Southern Nevada Off-Road Enthusiasts brought the race back! From 2008 until today, OFF-ROAD LIVE! has webcast the LIVEMINT400.com free and online.
2020 is this years 11 Year mark of 'Total Coverage' of the desert off-road racing event, "and as they say, the rest is history". LIVE! & ONLINE ONLY HERE!
Author Norm Johnson, is the humble Founder of the Mint 400 and a Las Vegas resident since 1965. Norm is a former sports columnist for the Las Vegas Sun and started racing cars at 14 while growing up in Southern California. Mr. Johnson is the foremost news-sports media personality on the center stage of the planet! Working in the State of Nevada, Clark County and the Entertainment Capital of the World, Las Vegas.
Las Vegas, en Vivo! Nevada Desert Off-Road Race
CLICK HERE FOR THE MINT 400 2019
CLICK HERE FOR THE MINT 400 2018
CLICK HERE FOR THE MINT 400 2017 JUMPS THE SHARK
CLICK HERE FOR THE MINT 400 2016 RACE RESULTS SCREW-UPS
CLICK HERE FOR THE MINT 400 2015 RACE DISASTER!
CLICK HERE! FOR THE MINT 400 2014
CLICK HERE! FOR THE MINT 400 2013
CLICK HERE FOR THE MINT 400 HISTORY
LIVEMINT400.com
