Just a friendly reminder: the 2019 off-road race is running outside of Las Vegas this weekend and the production value of the livestream that’s running right now is legit. Check it out!

As Hunter S. Thompson famously wrote: “In some circles, the ‘Mint 400’ is a far, far better thing than the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby and the Lower Oakland Roller Derby Finals all rolled into one.”

But desert racing is a logistically challenging sport to bring to the masses, since it’s hard to cover an event where action is simultaneously happening in a whole bunch of places over a huge swath of square mileage, and at the same time there are long bouts of nothing going on.

That means good commentary is critical. I’ve only watched a few minutes of the 2019 BF Goodrich Mint 400 powered by Monster Energy so far, but it sounds like Ricky Johnson is doing a good job explaining what’s going on and what the deal is with different vehicles while Bob Bower is adding some color:

“Once you get into a Mint 400, and you run as hard as you can, nothing else matters. Your focus is right there. But when it’s over, you look back on it and your mouth goes like a little duck’s butt.”

That made me, and Johnson, laugh, and he elaborated for the viewer’s benefit: “that’s pretty tight because it’s water-tight.”

I like these guys! They’ll be joined by other off-road folks over the course of the day when there are not a lot of cars in front of the cameras.