Early in the morning on March 9th 2018 drivers met in a hotel parking lot for the Raptor Offroad Community Destination Mint 400 run. The goal for this day was to run the infamous Power Line Road from Barstow, CA to Las Vegas, NV for the 50th Mint 400.
For this run 18 Raptor’s came from both Southern California and Northern California. After a short drivers meeting at 7AM all Raptor’s took off for the staging point where tires were aired down and final preps were made for the drive across a section of the Mojave Desert.
ROC Staff member Patrick (trick.raptor) led the group which took off on Power Line Road at 8:15AM. Power Line Road is mostly a high-speed straightaway and on this windy day, the group made good time with little cautions to worry about.
Shortly before a re-group point we had a flat tire and a loose exhaust pipe that had the group re-stage about half way into the run. Once everyone was all caught up, Patrick and ROC videographer Marcus set up for a photoshoot on a fast S-Turn that was found shortly after regroup.
With lots of action and dust from the Raptor’s being tossed around the S-Turns there was another re-group at Death Valley Road. About 1 mile in the 2nd half of the run a nice little high-speed jump was there for those who want to jump and pretty much all the Raptors saw some air time!
About 30 miles in to the 2nd half we had two Raptors that had issues and slowed the pace down while Paul and Matt from Forged Offroad helped get the Raptor’s back on the trail. With the morning turning in to the afternoon trail lead Patrick made the call to send all the Raptor’s on to Vegas so ROC members could follow Matt and Brian in to Vegas and see the Mint 400 Contingency down on Freemont St.
ROC members found themselves on Freemont Street for contingency and collected the free swag being given away by the vendors, race teams and manufactures. Several stayed on Freemont Street on Friday night enjoying the shows and having a few drinks.
Day 2 for the Destination Mint 400 run was watching the Mint 400 race from the Spectator Area 1 with 15+ Raptors from the Southern Nevada Raptor Group. The Raptors from SNRG and ROC took up a large section of the race viewing area and it a sight to all the Raptors together.
ROC members enjoyed good times watching the race, eating some great steak made by ROC members Gina and Justin and meeting fellow Raptor owners from SNRG. With the race winding down around 6PM and the rain moving in it was back to the hotel for dinner while some others went out on a little desert excursion to the Rogue test-track with Doug from Evil Manufacturing.
Day 3 was not a formal run day but a scouting run to see some trails for future runs. It had rained all night and we were seeing some drizzle in Goldsprings so there was a chance of no scouting as the trails would be to muddy. The good part was there was no dust so the group was able to move together. The bad was one area with slick mud on a side trail the group explored leading to got everyone nice and muddy.
Back on one of the many Power Line Roads the group made a stop at the unknown Mine and explored the area. From there it was another high-speed run back down the another power line where the group spent time at a fun jump we found. Plenty of pictures and videos were taken of Matt, Connor, Justin, Walter and Doug catching air. When the group was finished with the jumps they made their way for lunch at the Mad Greek.
After lunch the group made good time on until about 20 miles out of Barstow when a Raptor lost all power. With the late afternoon turning in to the evening and all attempts to revive the Raptor not working Matt and then Patrick towed the Raptor in to Yermo, CA. While the Raptor was able to start once in Yermo there was transmission issues so the owner elected to have the Raptor towed. The ROC members said their goodbye’s and each went their own way back to their homes.
