He's pushed the boundaries of Moto X racing past its limits. He was the first to pull off a double backflip on a dirt bike in competition.
He's become a master at rally car, setting a world record ramp-to-ramp jump of over 300 feet in his Subaru on New Year's Day 2010. Two weekends ago, he took the reins of his own 10,000-pound monster truck to face off against the likes of Grave Digger and Maximum Destruction.
Now, he's set to take on the NASCAR Nationwide Series.
Extreme sports icon Travis Pastrana is set to make his official NASCAR debut next weekend at the Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis. At the beginning of the year, he signed on for a partial schedule to race the No. 99 Toyota from Michael Waltrip Racing, and Boost Mobile has signed on as his sponsor.
At yesterday's teleconference, Pastrana noted the reason he wanted to come to NASCAR was it's a new challenge for him.
"For me, it's always about a new challenge, and just really trying to find the most competition," Pastrana said. "I had no idea how much fun racing ovals really well, and from that point on I was just like, all right, we need to find a team we can have a lot of fun with, we have to find some sponsors that are supporing myself to do the fun, out of the NASCAR stuff and the fun stuff in the car and also be competitive."
Pastrana competed in the K&N Series at New Hampshire last weekend, finishing 22nd.
He admits that stock cars are a different avenue for him, however he credits working with Waltrip and other drivers like Matt Crafton in both terminology and communication.
"I have motorcycle lingo, I have Rally car lingo, and now I have NASCAR lingo that's completely different," Pastrana said. "I don't know a lot of about the types of adjustments the cars really do.
"So when I was coming in, like two races ago at Richmond, I said 'Hey, guys I'm really tight in the middle of the corner.'
"And Matt Crafton came over the radio and said, 'It looked like you were pretty loose coming into the corner,' I said, 'Yeah, I'm loose coming into the corner but I can deal with that. I'm tight in the middle,'
"He said, 'Look, we fix the beginning the of the corner first. If you're loose on the entrance, you're probably going to be tight in the middle.' So, all they did was fixed the entrance and all of the sudden, and the middle roll speed was great and the exit was perfect. Because a lof of the stuff that I would change about a certain part of the car that feels the worst is really caused by something completely different."
With Pastrana's popularity in other sports, combined with drivers that have come over from other genres of racing such as Danica Patrick and Ricky Carmichael, it is anticipated that new fans will come to NASCAR.
"I think NASCAR is awesome. It's got the biggest fan base out of any of the other people that are coming in, like Danica and Ricky and myself," Pastrana said. "But at the same time, I think it's going to help get a different audience.
"There's not a lot of the action sports audience that was really into NASCAR and probably not a lot of NASCAR was realy into action sports, until you start getting some cross over and there's some interest. There's a reason a kid can sit down with his dad and watch NASCAR and a reason that the dad is going to sit down with his kids and watch the action sports. Hopefully it all works."
Pastrana's NASCAR Nationwide Series debut comes next Saturday night at the Lucas Oil Raceway in the Kroger 200.
UPDATE: Pastrana has possibly broken his right tibia and fibula at the X-Games in Los Angeles. He was attempting the first 720-degree spin on a dirt bike in the Moto X Best Trick competition.
Because of this, Pastrana has pulled out of Saturday's Nationwide race at Lucas Oil Raceway. It is unclear when he will make his debut in NASCAR at this time.
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