After racing over 400 miles for over eight hours, BJ Baldwin earned the victory at the 2011 SNORE Mint 400, bringing General Tire its first win at the event that it helped resurrect a few years back. Not only did General Tire get the win – it also got the podium sweep.

Check out the SNORE Mint 400 Photo Gallery

But the most dramatic moments of the race came in the final minutes before BJ crossed the finish line. With a crowd gathering around the podium awaiting BJ’s arrival, a race radio was picked up so everyone could hear BJ as he came in. After hearing a few comments from BJ, the radio went silent and calls for assistance at BJ’s father Bobby Baldwin’s pit starting coming through. After a few tense minutes, BJ came driving across the finish line to earn the win. He held off on speaking about the issues in the pits until a few minutes into his podium interview.

“Did I cuss in front of everyone here? My apologies for those of you who have virgin ears,” BJ said on the podium, able to laugh off what was almost a tragic loss of the day’s work. “Alright, the secret’s out: I was going to pretend like I’m not a jackass but I am. So, I’m winning the Mint 400, and my dad is giving me the splits of operating in my pits, I stopped just for a second to say thanks. I know I had 14 minutes on everyone else.”

And that’s when it went wrong. Electrical issues killed his car in the puts, and it appeared BJ’s win was dashed by good intentions.

“This is like 100 yards out [from the finish line],” he said. “So I’ve got, like, grey hairs now. Larry Ragland he comes up to me and is like, ‘How stupid do you feel right now? You’re an idiot.’ I think I chipped a couple of my teeth just gnashing my teeth, but, you know, we’re here now and that’s what counts.”

BJ was thankful of the work his crew did at the race, noting that he just goes out there and tries to break things but they are the ones keeping everything together. “It’s a team effort, and I couldn’t do it without everybody, including the guys that pulled over for me.”

Finishing in second place overall was father Bobby Baldwin, who was the driver of record for the truck, though he let Chad Ragland do all the driving. He simply hopped in truck at the pits and drove it across the finish line, but Ragland did all the heavy lifting on the course.

“He’s the best,” Ragland said of Bobby after the race. “I’m just a lucky guy. I’ve said that all along and I certainly am. Bobby had I guess enough faith in me and I just do my best. To get 1-2 behind BJ is an honor for me so I’m stoked. I’m really really excited for the team. Everyone’s team works really hard here all the way around, I know, but the guys at Baldwin are unbelievable. Steve, my co-rider, is the hardest working dude. He prepped it, he makes sure it runs right, and he called out every single note all day out there.

Finishing in third place overall and first in Class 1 was Mikey Childress, who put together a great race by staying in the hunt and taking advantage of an issue the lead car of Terry Householder had down the stretch.

“The tires today were just amazing,” Childress said of his Generals. “Believe it or not, this is a DOT tire. You can go and buy this off the shelf and go race with it. It’s an amazing tire, we just had an amazing day, the prep was amazing.”

Childress was also pressed about his change from racing dirt bike to cars, and he had a response for the skeptics that said he could not compete at this level. “I definitely got something for the haters to kiss – it’s red, it’s black and it says DC Shoes on it.”

Terry Householder ran a solid race all day, but issues on the last lap forced the team to crawl the open-wheel buggy across the finish line.

“The first 360 miles were awesome,” he said “The last 40, my co-driver, Chris, lost the power steering, so he drove the last 30 miles with no rack and pinion. Other than that, the BFGs performaned well – we had no flats all day.”

Householder also praised the rough course, saying it really challenged them all race long.

“The course is awesome,” he said. “It’s rough. If people want to come off-road racing this is where they want to come.”

2011 SNORE Mint 400 Results

Unlimited Truck
1. BJ Baldwin
2. Bobby Baldwin
3. Roger Norman
4. Edward Stout
5. Steve Croll
6. Marc Ewing
7. Scott Foster
8. Cameron Steele
9. Jerry Zaiden
10. Michael Voudouris

Class 1 Unlimited
1. Mike Childress
2. Terry Householder
3. Richard Boyle
4. Kyle Conlon
5. Pat Dean

Class 10
1. Karl Scanlan
2. Kevin Ellis
3. Tim Scott
4. Chad Dohrman
5. Blake Slater

Class 12
1. Dwayne Reinert
2. Cody Reid
3. Vic Bruckman
4. Greg Kudrna
5. Bill Young

Class 13
1. Steve Shimp
2. Steve Carbone

Class 1450
1. Gregg Zumwalt
2. Ryan Dunn
3. Jesus Galvan
4. Yuki Miyama
5. Kevin McKeown

Class 15
1.Tony Scott

Class 1600
1. Blaine Conrad
2. Ken Freeman
3. Andrew Neal
4. Corey Goin
5. Jason Coleman

Class 1800
1. Daniel Maurer
2. Ralph Chadwick
3. Mark Bass
4. Anthony Perrucci

Class 4
1. Mike McCarthy

Class 5
1. Steve Alexander
2. Michael Benedict
 
Class 5/1600
1. Mike Boone
2. John Berry
3. Serena Pruett
4. John Witchel

Class 7
1. Bryce Yarbrough
2. Brian Simmer
3. Robert Woolworth

Class 8
1. Macrae Glass
2. Rick Harrah
3. Cole Fielding
4. Garrett Evans

Class 9
1. Daniel Lutz

JeepSpeed
1. Perry Coan
2. Eric Helgeson
3. Jeff Coan
4. Cliff Cook
5. Bruno Zvirzin

JeepSpeed Cup
1. Tom Barnett

NAPA Chassis 7s
1. Robbie Cockrell
2. Vince DeMaio
3. Joshua Starr

Stock Bug
1. Robert Johnson
2. Dave Cote

Stock Full
1. Randy Merritt

TrophyLite Class
1. Troy Messer
2. Steve Hengeveld
3. Ben Abatti III
4. Ramsey Elwardani
5. Brandon Hollander

VORE
1. David Ecker
2. Arturo Benavides

For more on the Southern Nevada Off-Road Enthusiasts race series, visit SNOREracing.net.