Mini Launches Facebook Sweepstakes Linked to Red Bull Crashed Ice Competition

Just the Facts:

• Mini has launched a $3,500 Facebook sweepstakes tied to the Red Bull Crashed Ice Competition.
• Crashed Ice is one of the "new extreme" sports described as a cross between speed skating, luge and roller derby.
• Winner of the Mini contest will get a trip to the 2012 championship in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 14.

WOODCLIFF LAKE, New Jersey — Mini has launched a $3,500 Facebook sweepstakes tied to the Red Bull Crashed Ice Competition.

Winner of the Mini contest will get a trip to the 2012 championship in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 14. The winner will be selected at random, with no purchase necessary.

Contest rules are fairly brutal. If you don't pick up the phone the first time you are called, Mini will move on to another contestant. The sweepstakes closes at 4 p.m. EST on January 3. It can be entered at Mini's Facebook page.

Mini is the official partner of the Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship 2012.

Crashed Ice — basically a cutthroat skating competition — is one of the "new extreme" sports described as a cross between speed skating, luge and roller derby. It takes place on a slick, 1,000-foot course with skaters speeding downhill at about 45 mph and then racing back uphill.

Sports Illustrated describes it as a "staged" spectacle by Red Bull, the maker of the popular energy drink, "in its struggle to 'revolutionize' the increasingly corporate and TV-centric realm of extreme sports."

Mini said in a statement that this will be the first U.S.-based event in the world series for Ice Cross Downhill.

The winner gets two round-trip plane tickets, hotel accommodation, meals and VIP access to the Red Bull Energy Station and Red Bull After Party.

Inside Line says: If St. Paul in the middle of winter is your idea of a good time, here's a contest for you.