At the Mint 400

This past February I attended the General Tire Mint 400 offroad race south of Las Vegas, next to the small town of Jean, Nevada. This annual race started in 1967 as a promotion for the now defunct Mint Hotel/Casino in downtown Las Vegas. With the demise of the Mint property, so went the race. The last one was in 1988. But wait....the Mint 400 would not die and was resurrected in 2008, albeit in a milder format and is still run today



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The early races promised huge cash bounties for the winners and soon became a Southern Nevada fixture which drew contestants from the ranks of Indy racers, Hollywood stars and even astronauts. James Garner, Steve McQueen and Gordon Cooper were all racers at the event at one time.

GORDO

                                                 


Perhaps the most infamous association of this event was with the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. You see, HST was awarded a commission by Sports Illustrated  to cover the Mint 400 and write some puff piece about the race. Well as we all know, Hunter got distracted and ended up penning a little manuscript called Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. SI magazine saw Hunter's scribblings and noticed they had little to do with the race and even less to do with the magazine's target audience. SI shitcanned Mr. Thompson's article.

DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON

                                             
What happened next was that someone at the then more "underground" Rolling Stone magazine found Hunter's 2500 word manuscript and published it. This turned out to be an instant hit and the manuscript became a best-selling novel, a definitive statement of the times, a movie starring Johnny Depp and  made a
celebrity out or Dr. Thompson.

ROLLING STONE ISSUE FEATURING "FEAR AND LOATHING"

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THE MOVIE

                               

So I decided one afternoon to see this event for myself. The track circuit was in and about a dry lake bed adjacent to Jean, Nevada, about 20 miles south of Las Vegas. My online research showed several primitive spectator areas. No bleachers, stadiums, concessions or souvenir stands, just a couple of Porta-Potties at each parking area. You got by with what you brung from home. Several of these areas were already full when I arrived so I had to go to what I thought was the least desirable. I was wrong as the place I ended up was at the apex of a very sharp turn which provided great spectator and photo opportunities as the highly modified machines slid around the 90 degree curves. The wind was such that after each competitor negotiated the turn, an opaque wall of dust infested each and every. I got covered by the talcum powder grade dirt in places I never knew I had. There were no fences or barricades that separate spectators from the competitors so that was cool.

              

             

              

                

                 

                  

                    

                    

STRIP SKYLINE FROM MY PATIO

As usual, the Gummit in the form of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) officers were around to show some Federal force in scolding folks to keep off the weeds at the side of the track. Seems they could care less if a member of general public got turned into something like a week old pizza after an encounter with a wayward buggy, the posies had to be protected by armed agents.

BLM RUFFIAN

                                   
 As a fan of offroad racing, I enjoyed every minute of it! The sights, sounds, smells and even the dust were all enjoyed. There is nothing like competition in a race that has an ever changing track. The Mint 400 is as close as one can get to a ringside seat at the Baja 500! Maybe even better! Do it for Hunter!

How Ironic!

I got this in an email the other day from ADNEC (Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center) for an upcoming event in the UAE capitol city.

BRING THE KIDS!

Geez, I guess I could have saved all the trouble and expense of actually moving to Las Vegas and experienced "Sin City" in my old stomping grounds of Abu Dhabi.....sans the scantily clad dancing girls, booze, gambling, colorful language and debauchery of the original Rat Pack of course. Frank, Dean and Sammy, we miss you! Its interesting that this show is featured as Las Vegas style entertainment doesn't seem congruous to the morality of this Islamic country and I'll wager the show is "Sanitized for Your Protection". However, the music from that era is good and if the performers can succeed in parroting the sound, banter and mannerisms of the original guys, it could be an entertaining night. What's next for ADNEC.......The "Ladyboys of Bangkok" revue"??? I copied this post from my other blog, Abu Dhabi Dispatches as there is a tie between the two cities. Also, a year ago I offered a solution to Dubai's money woes. That would be the Vegasification of that flashy, celebrity infested city. The Sheikhs didn't seem to take my advice and Dubai is still on the edge of bankruptcy as the once globally acclaimed artificial offshore islands sadly sink back into the Arabian Gulf and overly ambitious projects die on the vine due to the lack of money to keep them afloat. They should have listened to me!

Pardon My Dust

Welcome to all who stumbled across this blog and especially my readers that clicked here from my other blog,  http://expatuae.blogspot.com/ Setting up a new blog is no easy or quick task. First, one has the job of choosing and personalizing the theme. This choice is important as the theme is the "skin" that contains the content (guts). It must grab attention but complement, not compete against the content and be setup for easy reading and navigation. There are numerous widgets and tools available that can be imported to the blog to accomplish this. Once the theme is all polished up and ready for public consumption ( I am not there yet, but I will leave it "live" for now so you can follow the progress), the blog must be connected to the internet.That part is easy, all you need is a distinctive URL and a server service. Most importantly though, the new blog must be introduced to and shake hands with King Google, the Benevolent Dictator of Webovia. Without the acceptance and blessing of the King, your site will go largely unnoticed to anyone outside your immediate family and sink to the bottom of Lake Webovia to settle with all the other URL detritus, rarely to be seen again.

HIS EMINENCE

You see, Jolly King Google has the power of getting your site introduced to the world through his mighty search engines. Upon his approval of your site, he unleashes millions of "cyber spiders" that crawl around its digital innards to find relevant data and keywords. These spiders report their findings back to the Merry Monarch and he decides your pecking order in his search engines. The more relevant your site is to a topic, the higher you go and the chances of your site being discovered is increased. The Holy Grail is your site appearing on the first two pages of a specific search term. You can do all this without King Google's help but the road to recognition will be far longer and rougher, your old Aunt Nellie may be your only regular reader for many months to come. The Royal assistance is basically free but the Cunning Czar gets his compensation in other ways which is a subject for another post.

GOOD LUCK!

So I will be up and running 100% soon. This blog may look radically different by the time I get through mucking around with it. Please stay tuned!

Testing

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