SPEC trucks are obviously not as fast or powerful as full-fledged Trophy Trucks. Kyle Jergensen was well aware of this during Saturday’s Mint 400 as he watched the likes of Adam Householder, Ryan Arciero, and Brett Sourapas blow by him during the wide open sections.

Fortunately, desert racing doesn’t require you to be in the fastest car to win. Instead, Jergensen and co-driver Shawn Shanks just had to be smart and watch as their rivals fell.

Sourapas was the fastest qualifier on Friday but spent much of the day alternating between changing his tire and chasing Jergensen because of four punctures. It wasn’t the only snag that Sourapas encountered on Saturday as he couldn’t upshift on his paddle shifter, so navigator Evan Weller had to do so for him.

Householder led early on in his quest for an unprecedented Unlimited Race three-peat, only to be taken out by a broken lower A-arm on Lap 3. Jergensen inherited the lead and never let go despite Sourapas and Arciero trying to chase him down.

“Arciero’s fast enough that we can’t pass him. We have half the horsepower and half the top speed. We would do what we could in the tight stuff and then they just leave us in the dust,” said Jergensen. The win is his second overall at the Mint after 2022, while he also won the SPEC class in the 2024 edition when he finished second to Householder.

“Our game plan was to let them make mistakes and they all made mistakes, and we made no mistakes. No flats, no nothing. The truck was perfect. The team was perfect and that is what won us the Mint today. No mistakes.

“This Camburg team with Shawn and I, we’re going to look back at these times and go, ‘We were fuckin’ on our shit’.”

Of course, luck does come into play too. While his adversaries had tires go down, Jergensen was surprised his held up immaculately against such a difficult course.

“We should’ve got flats today, but our tires are tough. The course is the worst I’ve ever seen, holy shit. I’ve done a lot of Mints and they’ve been rough, but this was a new animal.”

While Sourapas pointed out that “every single year we race here, we say that was rougher than the previous year,” he agreed with Jergensen on 2026’s being especially tough. By the fourth and final lap, Sourapas noted he was struggling to “even get on top of anything.” Still, he’ll gladly take second in his first Mint as a driver of record since 2019.

The Hardins would certainly concur on the course being rough as well. After Eric Hardin flipped in qualifying on Friday, his nephew Cole rolled just moments after the start. Fortunately, the younger Hardin was able to continue after and even finished top ten with a seventh overall and third in SPEC.

Nick Isenhouer also tumbled after hitting a ditch at speed.

After two flats and losing third gear before the final lap, Arciero rounded out the overall podium in third. While it continues his overall drought at the Mint, he’s glad to make it home. With Jergensen and Sourapas respectively in SPEC and 4WD and Arciero in a 2WD, every step of the podium is a different category.

“We went into survival mode. You have to at the Mint 400,” Arciero proclaimed.

Arciero beat Nic Whetstone by seven minutes for the 2WD win, the latter having had to work his way out of an early hole after a tire went down just minutes into the race.

Plenty of trouble also hit Troy Herbst and Jimmie Johnson’s #84. The latter, a Mint newcomer, had two flats during his stint. The steering pump and brake line also failed, prompting their team to rip the skin off the #84 to ensure easier access to the underbody and so the body paneling wouldn’t flail about. After starting at the back because of Johnson’s qualifying rollover, they fought their way up to finish 12th overall and sixth for 2WD.

Brent Veenstra and Dustin Grabowski were eliminated by a hydraulic jack issue and electronic failure, respectively. The latter had been running fourth overall and second for SPEC trucks on the final lap when the problem struck, relegating him to 19th in class.

Amid what he called a “sea of Trophy Trucks”, Vaughn Gittin Jr. won in Class 1 Unlimited. He was the only Class 1 of any kind to reach the finish as Kyle McMullen, the only other driver to take the start, retired after one lap.

“It was nuts. It’s the longest race I’ve ever done by myself,” Gittin stated. “Lap 1, it was smooth and beautiful and just flowing, and then the course starts to get eaten up because it’s multi-lap on the same course as the Trophy Trucks, so everything gets square edges.

“Lap 1’s good. Lap 2, I’m like, ‘Save the truck,’ because I knew I was leading. And then Lap 3, I can’t even drive any faster right now because this hurts so bad because all the edges were square. Lap 4, I put the FOX Live Valve on 5, which is its stiffest setting, and I was like, ‘Either we’re breaking the truck or we’re going to have a very fast lap because I need to get out of this thing.’ Every hit hurt. My body feels like I was in a freaking ten-hour car crash.”

Results

Unlimited Truck 4WD

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver of Record	Total Time	Laps
1	2	88	Brett Sourapas	6:51:09.561	4
2	8	58	Tracy Graf	7:10:24.259	4
3	16	3	Michael Scafuto	7:58:21.595	4
4	23	5	Robby Gordon	8:17:04.907	4

Unlimited Truck 2WD

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver of Record	Total Time	Laps
1	3	32	Ryan Arciero	6:53:23.447	4
2	4	18	Nic Whetstone	6:58:07.935	4
3	6	19	Tim Herbst	7:02:27.027	4
4	9	85	Mikey Lawrence	7:12:31.189	4
5	11	78	Tracy Poole	7:29:50.433	4
6	12	84	Troy Herbst	7:31:34.479	4
7	21	8	Todd Wyllie	8:15:17.864	4
8	29	43	Eric Conner	9:03:49.713	4
9	30	67	Paul Kraus	9:28:07.380	4
10	35	50	Joseph Herling	10:26:59.962	4
11	36	44	Bill Apgood	10:39:41.467	4
12	38	100	Dale Dondel	6:10:39.950*	3
13	42	24	Adam Householder	5:00:48.046*	3
14	47	27T	Steve Olliges	3:29:04.915*	2
15	49	13	Michael Frye	4:09:36.666*	2
16	50	4	Brent Veenstra	4:18:12.706*	2
17	54	74	Shane Lewis	7:29:07.943*	2
18	58	66	Chris Hertsch	1:42:23.505*	1
19	59	60	Jerry Herling	1:50:27.957*	1
20	60	91	Alexander Wacker	2:09:45.818*	1
21	61	96	Vince Klos	2:15:38.872*	1
22	63	88T	Andre Laurin	30.000*	0
23	65	72	Aaron Celiceo	0*	0
24	67	79	Eric Hardin	DNS	DNS
25	69	42	Ryan Prosser	DNS	DNS

Unlimited Truck SPEC

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver of Record	Total Time	Laps
1	1	222	Kyle Jergensen	6:47:23.597	4
2	5	282	Brent Fox	6:59:28.145	4
3	7	279	Cole Hardin	7:03:59.995	4
4	13	229	Stony Kujala	7:47:00.795	4
5	14	249	Sam Berri	7:48:21.909	4
6	15	263	E.J. Herbst	7:55:34.891	4
7	17	254	Josh Brain	8:04:01.627	4
8	18	205	Neal Drickey	8:08:49.823	4
9	19	260	Cory Finley	8:09:39.148	4
10	20	280	R.J. Stidham	8:13:42.396	4
11	22	214	Donald Cerrone	8:16:07.996	4
12	24	251	Dane Miller	8:17:38.689	4
13	25	223	Chad Ingram	8:37:37.309	4
14	26	288	Austin Kimbrell	8:45:25.995	4
15	27	255	Kirk Harkey	8:52:21.987	4
16	28	242	Justin Sims	9:02:12.555	4
17	31	221	Sergio Rangel	9:52:14.895	4
18	32	241	Stephen Beal	10:06:39.958	4
19	34	235	Colby Anderson	10:20:09.712	4
20	39	272	Dustin Grabowski	5:10:25.291*	3
21	40	240	Conner McMullen	5:46:19.208*	3
22	43	219	Pierce Herbst	5:15:58.787*	3
23	44	224	Terry Householder	5:39:07.197*	3
24	45	299	Andrew Herdman	6:33:48.204*	3
25	46	230	Chad Hall	5:25:51.338*	2
26	48	238	Kolton Hustead	4:01:48.799*	2
27	51	273	Troy Grabowski	4:49:38.024*	2
28	52	247	Kit Stokes	3:39:37.371*	2
29	53	277	Travis Williams	4:05:03.790	2
30	56	276	C. J. Hutchins	1:50:09.444*	1
31	57	250	Nick Isenhouer	1:40:23.539*	1
32	64	207	Nick May	0*	0
33	70	262	Lincoln Day	DNS	DNS
34	71	237	Kevin Bettencourt	DNS	DNS

Unlimited Truck Legends

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver of Record	Total Time	Laps
1	10	L15	David Ziegler	7:27:51.934	4
2	37	L92	Kelly McNeil	10:56:12.533	4
3	41	L23	Luis Saenz	7:44:46.293*	3
4	68	L22	Robert Malone	DNS	DNS

Class 1 Unlimited

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver of Record	Total Time	Laps
1	33	U125	Vaughn Gittin Jr.	10:13:31.956	4
2	66	100U	Michael Mamelli Jr.	DNS	DNS

Class 1

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver of Record	Total Time	Laps
1	62	164	Kyle McMullen	4:06:12.660*	1

Featured image credit: Camburg Engineering