The way we see it, an off-road race is nothing if not fun and diverse. People from all means, backgrounds, locations, and so on have the ability to race something as fantastic as the Mint 400, and it does require a lot of those who want to make their dreams into reality. That’s why we love watching superstars like BJ Baldwin participate, and why we have a tremendous amount of respect for little guys like Josh McGuckin and his team, Project Baja.

The Beetle is estimated at 2,500-3,000 pounds when fully loaded, and runs on a Type 1 VW engine with aftermarket ignition, heavy-duty valves, and a more aggressive camshaft.

We talked a little bit about McGuckin in our Contingency recap last week, but so interesting was his story that we decided to do a full-blown Minterview on the guy and his team. By looking at the Bug and talking to the Project Baja guys, we could only conclude that this feat was possible from the contributions of all into one – like Captain Planet meets off-road.

By trade, McGuckin is a photographer, but he found a kinship with his friends Matt Fisher, Matt Wilson, and Evan Chute in that they all like challenges. “We like to think that we can find ways to make some very limited car go through a whole race, and that was the goal behind Project Baja,” he said. “We’re all kind of makers in our spare time.”

In the span of three and a half years, the Project Baja team had built the car to the meet the standards for Class 11 (aka Class 4000 for stock Beetles in terms of BITD rules). It was first completed in 2014, and has since been tweaked and re-tweaked to suit the particular races and terrain types as they come up. “We just recently re-did a lot of the electrical in the dash,” explained McGuckin. “We’ve also changed some tuning on the suspension and things like that, but basically it’s still the same car underneath.”

The hardest part about building the car, according to McGuckin, wasn’t so much the work involved, but more the wayward rules that dictate what is permissible. “This is a very specific class, and it’s very limited,” he said. “There are a lot of things where you have to figure out what the interpretation is of what they’re trying to say.”

Despite little experience, Project Baja’s team was inspired to try out off-road racing after seeing the documentary, Dust to Glory.

But with all of the challenges thrown in Project Baja’s way, the end result was worth it. “All of the little successes give us joy,” said McGuckin. “It’s always surprising, all the little things that you can make it through in this vehicle. It’s really kind of fun. It’s really hard to finish a race, but seeing all of the obstacles the car can overcome, that’s what I find the most rewarding about the Bug.”

We were unfortunately unable to reach McGuckin for comments at the time of this writing, but we hope he and his crew had a blast out there in the Mojave Desert. Stay tuned here on Off Road Xtreme for more Mint 400 coverage, and follow us on Instagram too.