Kit Palmer | May 5, 2024
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
Putting It To The Desert Rats
Besides the Baja 1000, perhaps no desert race is as iconic as The Mint 400. Everyone has heard of The Mint 400!
The race, originally known as “The Mint 400 Del Webb Desert Rally,” was born to showcase The Mint Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, and the racecourse covered 400 miles (or thereabouts) of the Nevada desert. The inaugural Mint 400 took place in 1968, marking the beginning of one of the sport’s most legendary races.
Rolf Tibblin (pictured) split the $12,000 purse with Bob Grossi for winning the Mint 400 in 1972.
The Mint 400 catered to four-wheelers, but motorcycles quickly became a major part of the race. All the top desert racers took part, like Malcolm Smith, J.N. Roberts, Max Switzer and Mitch Mayes. The Roberts and Switzer team won the race in 1971, covering the “400” miles in nine hours, 54 minutes, and five seconds.
One of the race’s big attractions was its purse. In 1972, the total purse was $56,000! That was a giant sum of money back then, equivalent to more than $400,000 in today’s money. The top motorcycle team would take home $12,000. Not bad at all. Once the word got out, not just desert racers but also a few motocrossers like Rolf Tibblin, Bob Grossi, Rich Thorwaldson, Mark Blackwell, and John DeSoto all wanted a slice of the Mint pie.
Roberts and Switzer were back to win it again in 1972, facing a deep field of talented motorcycle racers. Roberts started for the duo, and it wasn’t long before he had the motorcycle lead. Thorwaldson was right there after the first lap, but the quickest of all was Terry Clark. However, on the second lap, Clark’s teammate Mitch Mayes came to a rolling halt with a broken bike. Their race was over way too soon.
Max Switzer (pictured) and his teammate J.N. Roberts had the race won until losing a rear axle nut on the last lap.
Switzer, on their team’s Husqvarna 400, maintained the physical lead over the pursuing Suzuki of Thorwaldson and DeSoto, but it was close. By the end of the fourth lap, the teams were tied with an elapsed time of four hours, 55 minutes, according to CN’s report of the race.
The Suzuki pits were excited with the prospect of their boys winning such a prestigious race, but their excitement turned to disappointment when the Suzuki’s rear tire shredded with Thorwaldson and the controls. He got the TM400 back to the pits and made some hasty repairs to get it rolling again and to the finish line but neglected to fill up the Suzuki’s fuel tank, and the bike eventually coasted to a stop. DeSoto bummed some gas from a dune buggy out on the course and eventually got the bike to the finish line—in fifth place.
Switzer and company looked like a shoo-in for the win until the last lap, when Max lost a rear axle nut, causing the chain to derail several times. Tibblin passed Switzer, who was stopped on the side of the trail putting his bike back together, as did Bill Silverthorne. Switzer got Silverthorne back until Switzer’s Husky’s chain came off again.
The Tibblin/Grossi team went on to win the race in seven hours, 16 minutes, and 26 seconds. More than 15 minutes later, the Silverthorne and Gene Fetty Husky team came in, followed by Switzer and Roberts, nearly 45 minutes behind the winning Tibblin and Grossi duo.
The Malcolm Smith/Mark Blackwell team make a quick gas stop en route to winning the 250cc class.
The Malcolm Smith and Mark Blackwell team ran fourth overall and were gunning for the 250cc-class win, but, according to our report, there was tension between Mark, who had crashed and bent up the bike on the first lap, and Malcolm. After the fifth lap, Blackwell’s last, Malcolm mentioned to him that the Mickey Quade and Mike Harper Yamaha team had made up some ground on Blackwell. Malcolm told Blackwell: “You had kind of a slow lap.” Ouch. Our report said it was true and that Mark looked hurt. But, according to our report, Malcolm salvaged the class win, and “everything was hunky-dory afterward.”
Danny Davis and Bobby Davidson won the 125cc class riding a Penton and pocketed $1000 plus another $150 for being 10th overall, while Larry Roeseler and his dad, Earl, took second in the 125cc class riding a new Beejay motorcycle. The Roeselers took the checkered flag just 17 seconds behind the Penton. “One mustn’t dally during those pit stops,” we said.CN
