St. Petersburg, Fla. – Jimmie Johnson is looking forward to fans being able to see him race in his next adventure.
Johnson is going back to his roots to race around, well, roots and all, in the Mint 400, a 400-mile off-road race March 6-7 in Nevada outside Las Vegas. The race weekend was once immortalized as being the backdrop for Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 1971.
The seven-time Cup champion and former INDYCAR driver will race for the Herbst family, which has a long, storied history in off-road racing and for whom Johnson drove for in his early years in racing. It’s common to see Terrible Herbst gas stations all over Nevada.
“It’s just eye candy with what the vehicles do,” Johnson told a small group on Saturday. “The truck makes it look so smooth and easy, but we have a helicopter that follows the vehicle with a camera on the front, and the crew that’s filming and the infrastructure that Troy Herbst has put together. I honestly think that this experience will help the platform, production, TV world, understand that the technology is there, and we can finally capture off-road racing.”
The hope is to expose the sport to those who have an interest but have never had an opportunity to watch, with the race live-streaming on FOX’s “SPEED With Harvick And Burton” YouTube page, as well as an in-car camera of Johnson during the race that can be seen on “SPEED on FOX” social channels.
“It’s an unfortunate secret on how incredibly technically demanding vehicles [these are] and what they’re capable of, but nobody can watch it — even as a spectator, you stand there for hours, and they go by, and they’re gone, and you’re in the dust,” Johnson said.
[Jimmie Johnson: “I’m One Of Those Idiots Who Keeps Going”]
“It’s not a great way to experience it. But what the Herbsts have done for their own personal viewing, and now it’s going to be turned on at FOX, it’s going to really show people a different side of the sport.”
Johnson said he believes people will be able to listen to his in-car radio.
“From dumb stories and making mistakes or yelling at myself, whatever it might be, [you’ll hear it],” Johnson said.
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.