Kyle Jergensen Wins 2026 BFGoodrich Tires Mint 400 Unlimited Race
For the first time in four years, Kyle Jergensen is an overall champion of the BFGoodrich Tires Mint 400, completing four laps of this year’s grueling course in a rapid 6:47:23.597. After taking the lead from two-time defending race winner Adam Householder on the final lap, Jergensen and the #222 The Beast/Camburg/Magnaflow team put their Unlimited Truck SPEC entry on top of the box, giving their class an upset overall win while competing against other teams with twice the horsepower.
“Our gameplan was to let them make mistakes, and they all made mistakes,” said Jergensen. “We made no mistakes—no flats, no nothing, the truck was perfect, the team was perfect. That’s what won us the Mint today, no mistakes. We actually had a surprising amount of dust behind Arciero for a couple laps. Arciero is fast enough that we can’t pass him. We have half the horsepower and half the top speed, so we’d do what we could in the tight stuff.”
Brett Sourapas, Tracy Graf, and Householder were the first three trucks off the line after qualifying up front on Friday, and they held the top three overall spots through the first lap. As the field hit the first timing loop on Lap 2, Graf and Householder were scored ahead of Sourapas, although the trio were still separated by under a minute. Householder would take the overall lead through the second loop as Arciero and Jergensen jumped past the 4WD trucks for second and third, even though Sourapas and Graf would still hold physical second and third at halfway.
But Jergensen would pick up the charge on the third lap to become the biggest challenger to Householder’s winning streak. He’d slice three minutes off the gap to get it down to 46 seconds at the first pit on Lap 3, and shave it further to just eight seconds at the second loop. After a slightly longer pit stop for Jergensen at the end of the lap, the 2022 overall winner would trail the 2024 and 2025 winner by just over a minute going into the final circuit.
It wouldn’t take much longer for the door to open for Jergensen, as Householder needed to make a tire change just a few miles into Lap 4. 20 minutes later came the break that changed the race, as Householder’s lower A-arm failed. Joining him on the sidelines on the “heartbreak lap” were SPEC truck standouts Stephen Beal, who has been in contention for the overall podium, Dustin Grabowski, and defending SPEC class winner Conner McMullen.
As Jergensen had already put himself in the lead both physically and on time, he hung on to secure the victory by more than four minutes apiece over Sourapas and Arciero. By the end of the race, the front-runners were managing not only their equipment, but also an unforgiving course that only got rougher as the day went on.
“I feel like every single year we race here we say it was rougher than the previous year, but this was no joke,” said Sourapas, the top finisher in Unlimited Truck 4WD. “Lap 4, you can’t even get on top of anything. When we finished the opening ceremony, my paddle shifter wasn’t working, I could only downshift. My right-hand man Evan (Weller, co-driver) was shifting up for me the entire race, so he had his hands full. We got four well-deserved flats, it was super rocky out there, but all in all we’re happy to be here.”
For Arciero, whose heart has been broken many times by the Mint in recent years, today served as partial redemption. While he didn’t win the race overall, he was the top driver in the Unlimited 2WD class—and he admits that he at least considers winning his class at the Mint a “box half-checked.”
“Today went fairly good,” he said. “I lost third gear, our high gear, so the third and fourth lap, the fastest I could go was like 90, 95 miles an hour. We had no top speed and we were just hoping for attrition at that point. I know the Mint has it, and when we saw Adam pulled over on the side of the road, I knew we had it. But I knew we had to catch and pass Kyle since we started side by side, and that was going to be a tall feat.”
Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson made his return to the desert for the first time in more than 30 years, teaming up with Troy Herbst as part of a multi-truck effort for Terrible Herbst Motorsports. While Johnson started near the rear due to a rollover in Friday’s qualifying, he finished the first two laps of the race without major incident before handing the truck over to Troy Herbst, who brought it home sixth in class and 12th overall with a 7:31:34.479.
Top finishers from the 2026 BFGoodrich Tires Mint 400 Unlimited Race were as follows:
- #222 Kyle Jergensen, Unlimited Truck SPEC, 6:47:23.597
- #88 Brett Sourapas, Unlimited Truck 4WD, 6:51:09.561
- #32 Ryan Arciero, Unlimited Truck 2WD, 6:53:23.447
- #18 Nic Whetstone, Unlimited Truck 2WD, 6:58:07.935
- #282 Brent Fox, Unlimited Truck SPEC, 6:59:28.145
- #19 Tim Herbst, Unlimited Truck 2WD, 7:02:27.027
- #279 Cole Hardin, Unlimited Truck SPEC, 7:03:59.995
- #58 Tracy Graf, Unlimited Truck 4WD, 7:10:24.259
- #85 Mikey Lawrence, Unlimited Truck 2WD, 7:12:31.189
- #L15 David Ziegler, Unlimited Truck Legends, 7:27:51.934
For full results from the 2026 BFGoodrich Tires Mint 400, visit www.themint400.com/live.
The Mint 400 has carried the reputation as the toughest, most spectacular off-road race in North America since 1968, when it first roared to life in the Nevada desert. What began as a clever public relations stunt to promote the Mint Hotel’s annual deer hunt quickly evolved into something far bigger. A legitimate desert race forged in dust, horsepower, and bravado. By the 1970s, the Mint wasn’t just a race. It was a cultural moment. Immortalized by Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, it became a symbol of American excess, grit, and wide-open desert freedom.
After decades of dormancy, the event was revived in 2008 by brothers Matthew and Joshua Martelli, who rebuilt it from the ground up with a singular mission. To restore its mythic status while elevating the professionalism, safety, and prestige of modern desert racing. Since that revival, “The Great American Off-Road Race” has only grown larger, deeper, and more competitive. The fields get stronger every year. The stakes get higher. And winning The Mint 400 remains one of the hardest achievements in off-road racing.
This year’s Mint 400 will take place from March 4th - 8th in Las Vegas. More information on the event for racers and spectators is available at TheMint400.com, or follow the event on Facebook and Instagram.
Details regarding racer registration, sponsorship packages, exhibitor vending, spectator tickets, camping, and parking passes for the American Off-Road Racing Championship are live on americanoffroadracingchampionship.com
About American Off-Road Racing Championship
About the American Off-Road Racing Championship:
The American Off-Road Racing Championship (AORC) is the premier desert off-road racing league in North America, created through the unification of Best in the Desert (BITD) and Unlimited Off-Road Racing (UNLTD).
Best in the Desert, founded in 1984 by legendary racer Casey Folks, is the longest-running and most respected off-road racing series in the U.S., with a legacy that includes iconic events like Vegas to Reno, the Silver State 300, the Parker 425, and the Laughlin Desert Classic.
Unlimited Off-Road Racing, established by the Martelli Brothers in 2023, produces world-class events such as The Mint 400, The California 300, and The Parker 400. UNLTD is recognized for its focus on innovation, storytelling, and large-scale racer participation, with events known for high car counts, challenging courses, pre-running, and family-friendly fan experiences near major markets.
Together under the AORC banner, BITD and UNLTD preserve the heritage of desert racing while building its future—offering racers, sponsors, and fans a unified championship built on clarity, consistency, and world-class competition.