Mic check, one, two…

Hello there! My name is Justin Nguyen, and I’m the editor-in-chief and, well, only person here at 131 Off-Road. I have been writing since I was a middle schooler doing football articles on Wikipedia in the early 2010s, which eventually snowballed into a career as a racing journalist.

For the past six years, I was employed by The Checkered Flag where I covered a variety of topics with focus on NASCAR and off-road racing. After moving my NASCAR coverage to Total Motorsport, I remained with TCF for off-road before the site shuttered at the end of October.

While I got to relax for November and early December (not really; I’m a college student so I just invested my effort into that), I really wanted to get back in the off-road game before the start of 2025. However, finding a site willing to take on someone writing about a fairly niche discipline was not an easy topic. As such, I decided, “Yeah, well, I’m gonna build my own news site! With blackjack and hookers!”

And thus, 131 Off-Road was born. Pardon the dust as the site is still new, so don’t be surprised if things are acting funky right out of the gate.

What do you cover?

In a perfect world, this site would become one of the top hubs for news on off-road racing of all kinds. Whether it be the circuits of Crandon and ERX or the sweeping deserts of Baja California and Saudi Arabia, we’ve got it all here.

Most of my stories will be about rally raid/cross-country rally as that was my primary focus at TCF for the past few years and the discipline I love working on the most. Ergo, expect a lot of stories following the World Rally-Raid Championship, Dakar Rally, FIA and FIM Bajas, and even something on the national level from places like Russia and Southeast Asia.

Desert racing in my native North America will feature prominently as well, particularly SCORE International and the Baja 1000 along with U.S.-based series such as Best In The Desert. This also includes Mint 400, King of the Hammers (technically rock crawling, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there), and whatnot.

Outside of the occasional NASCAR story at Wikinews, I broke into journalism by covering the Stadium Super Trucks, which is technically a short course off-road series. I’ve been a fan of the series and close with those involved since I was in high school, and don’t expect that to change even at this new home. Championship Off-Road will also star once its new season begins this summer.

While those are the three main disciplines under 131’s scope, I’ll occasionally have an itch to scratch in other fields. This will entail other off-road motorsports like rally, rallycross, and Extreme H, but also possibly the occasional pavement-based series if I wish. Since I’m a history nerd, historic racing might get the spotlight from time to time as well.

Even things that aren’t related to racing will show up too. Most of the time, this will mean stories about manufacturers unveiling new UTVs or off-road products, but I’ll also dip my feet into wildly different and tangential topics like military vehicles. The “In society” category is for linking between motorsports and social issues, such as how a racing body responds to political events.

I am not a statistician, so don’t expect deep analytics about a driver’s performance or anything of that sort. However, there will be certain “articles” that aren’t stories like entry lists, race results, and transcripts of interviews that I did.

Why 131?

131 is not a lucky or favorite number of mine. Rather, it was a number that I liked repeating to my parents as a child whenever they asked me to quantify something (“How much do you love us?” “131 percent!”). I don’t know why this number in particular resonated with me—maybe because it’s bigger than 100 and a palindrome?

In any case, the number weirdly stuck with me in the years since. Whenever I can use a triple-digit number in a game, that’s my go-to, while my teams in racing games are often called Team 131 Racing.

Not exactly a clever reason, but it’s nice to have a sentimental one, is it not?

Are you hiring?

No. Well, not now.

Ever since I started my journalism career, I’ve always been an unpaid writer. Sure, being ‘paid in exposure’ does help me hone my writing skills and network with those within the industry, but busting my butt with long nights for not a single cent in my wallet isn’t a healthy way of working.

This site was founded solely out of my own pocket, so I barely have enough money for myself. Thus, unless I somehow manage to turn this into a profit-making machine (a gazillion advertisements, etc.), I won’t be able to pay any writers should they want to come on.

Maybe this changes in the future, but this is only the first day.

Where else can I find 131 Off-Road?

Barring me getting banned off every platform, 131 has a Facebook page, an Instagram profile, and a Twitter/X account. Each of these can also be accessed at the header and footer of the site.

I can be reached through my accounts on those sites (username “ZappaOMatic” for all of them) or at my swanky new email: justin@131offroad.com. If that doesn’t work, there’s my personal email: justinh_nguyen@yahoo.com.