By RACER Staff - Mar 8, 2026, 10:49 AM ET

Heger scores second straight Mint 400 Limited Race win

For the second year in a row, Brock Heger bested a deep field of more than 240 desert racers in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Limited Race at the 2026 BFGoodrich Tires Mint 400. The UTV Pro and overall race winner didn’t just double up on his win, though – he also became the first UTV racer to complete the race in under seven hours, crossing the finish line in an unofficial 6h57m:56.4s.

“Overall, we had a lot of fun,” Heger said. “We just did what we needed to do and wanted to do. The pace we ran was what we wanted, and we were just going to see where we ended up at the end of it. It was a little bumpy at the beginning – we had a few little issues that we got addressed – and then me and Justin (Wilson, co-driver) put our heads down and we just charged.”

Those “little issues” at the beginning came within the race’s first mile. Heger would leave the start line first after qualifying fastest yesterday, but just moments into his run, his spare tire came loose and flew off the rear of the car. With so many variables ahead, and so many competitive UTV Pro teams, it looked like the kind of moment that could either make or break a race.

Not so. Third-place qualifier Corbin Leaverton took the lead in the pits as Heger’s crew worked to secure a new spare on the car, but Heger clawed back the time lost and make a thrilling on-track pass.

That wouldn’t be it for the challenges up front early on. Cody Bradbury would tear his way through the field to grab the lead on corrected time through the first checkpoint on lap two, and the top 15 would be separated by just five minutes at that point. It was only then that some of the front-runners began falling off. Bradbury, Leaverton, second-place qualifier Kyle Chaney, and Branden Sims all fell out on the second lap, while Michael McFayden’s top-five pace would come to an end just after halfway.

But even as Heger settled into the lead and built up a gap with a solid, consistent pace, the fight for the remaining podium spots was far from done. Mitch Guthrie and Joe Terrana, two former Mint 400 Limited Race winners, settled into second and third late, but Terrana would suffer a heartbreaking issue just a few miles from the finish. That opened the spot up for Phil Blurton, who won the Parker 400 just two months ago to kick off the American Off-Road Racing Championship season.

The fight to the finish wasn’t reserved just for the UTV Pro racers, though. Class 10 drivers Brody Atkins and Eliott Watson started second and third in class and almost crossed the line together. In the end, Watson would take the victory by an unofficial margin of just two seconds, as the duo finished the race fifth and sixth overall. Additional four-lap class winners included Major Deitch in UTV Pro Turbo, Brad Wilson in Class 12, and Sara Price in UTV Pro Stock Modified.

“The field was stacked, everybody was so tight in qualifying,” said Watson. “We put our heads down and realized it’s a long race, there are a lot of rocks and a lot of reasons to take you out early. Edgar (Sotelo, co-driver) and I just played it patient out front. We had an issue in the pits that put us nearly 10 minutes back, but we hammered down the last little bit of the race and we made up a lot of ground. This car has probably never been driven that hard, and it probably will never want to be again!”

Top finishers in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Limited Race at the 2026 BFGoodrich Tires Mint 400 were as follows:

UTV Pro