Gallery: Tour the Menzies Motorsports Garage as the Team Preps for the Mint 400

Stephen Elmer / March 9, 2018

Update: A day after our tour, Bryce Menzies went out and won the 2018 Mint 400, beating out Carlos ‘Apdaly’ Lopez by just 28 seconds. Congrats to Bryce and the entire Menzies Motorsports team!

The off-road garage of Menzies Motorsports buzzes with excitement as the team prepares to send Bryce Menzies out into the desert with a 900-horsepower Trick Truck to run 400 miles of brutal terrain in the Mint 400.

While the big Trick Truck is certainly the belle of the ball the day before the Mint 400, the garage is packed with race trucks from all the different disciplines that Menzies’ races, including short course trucks that run in the TORC and LOORRS series and the truck that won the 2015 Red Bull Frozen Rush championship.

Menzies’ off-road racing accomplishments include:

2015 LOORRS Pro2 Championship – 2nd Overall
2015 LOORRS Pro4 Championship – 3rd Overall
2015 Red Bull Frozen Rush Champion
2011, 13, 14 3-Time Baja 500 Champion
2011-13 3-Time Pro2 TORC Champion
2013 BITD MINT 400 Champion
2011 SCORE Series Champion + Rookie of the Year

Menzies’ pre-runner, which takes the majority of the abuse during a desert race, was being completely rebuilt, so we got a close look at the truck when it was entirely stripped down. For some scope on how much beating a pre-runner takes, over the course of last year’s Baja 1000, about 10,000 miles were racked up on Bryce’s machine.

BFGoodrich tires are seen on everything with wheels in the garage, even on the Ford support trucks that follow Bryce to each race. Easily the neatest pieces of history in the garage is Bryce’s very first buggy that he competed with in off-road racing, which is hanging from the roof for all to see.

Menzies qualified seventh for the 50th anniversary of the Mint 400 with a run time of 00:04:40.355. Speaking with Bryce at his shop, he said that his qualifying run was going great until one of the last corners where he caught a bump wrong, causing the front end of the truck to pop up, pushing him wide.

Scroll down to see the inside of the Menzies Motorsports garage.