#Dirt rally legend edition full
Sign my attorney up as the driver, then send him out to the starting line with a head full of ether and acid. No Hogs in this league, that would be like entering our Great Red Shark in the dune buggy competition. Many 405 Husquavarnas, high-tuned Swedish fireballs, also many Yamahas, Kawasakis, a few 500 Triumphs, Maicos, here and there a CZ, a Pursang. ‘I bought a beer and watched the bikes checking in. ‘Here were about a hundred bikers, mechanics and assorted motorsport types milling around in the pit area, signing in for tomorrow’s race, idly sipping beers and appraising each other’s machinery. Thompson and his attorney were high through most of the assignment but somehow managed to go about their business, arriving at the Mint 400 starting line, just north of Vegas. The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab…’ ‘The sporting editors had given me $300 in cash, most of which was already spent on extremely dangerous drugs. Mint 400 riders on Husqvarna two-strokes, the riders that Thompson had come to write about, until other temptations got in the way They gave him and his attorney (yes, his attorney) a soundproofed suite in the Mint hotel, owned by the race promoter, and a huge, bright-red Chevrolet rent-a-car. Sports Illustrated ensured Thompson had everything he needed to cover the event to the highest standards. These were the days when journalists were looked after properly. ‘We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.’Īnd the book continues in that vein for several hundred pages.
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Thompson starts Fear and Loathing, during the drive from Los Angeles to Vegas, with these immortal words… Even Steve McQueen had a go at the Mint, usually riding under the pseudonym Harvey Mushman. When Thompson covered the race the hottest tools for the event, which took riders through the Nevada desert, skirting Death Valley along the way, were Husky and Yamaha two-strokes.
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Last year’s was won by Dalton Shirey on a Husqvarna FC450 four-stroke enduro bike. The Mint 400 is still going today, indeed the 2021 race takes place this Saturday. This is one of many reasons I feel a certain affinity for Thompson, although I would never dare suggest I’m good enough to deserve even a sniff of his Tippex bottle. Thompson’s job that weekend was essentially the same as my job now: visit race venue, watch motorcycles hurtling this way and that, talk to some riders and mechanics, eat, drink and make merry, dream up a story, hammer out some words and sell them to the highest bidder. Sign-up now for access to a limited number of articles.