In the cool guy sport of freestyle motocross where most of the top dogs boast strippers for girlfriends and more ink than a skid row thug, 22-year-old Travis Pastrana, is an anomaly. Clean cut as the day he made his debut on the scene when he was 15-years-old and won his first X Games gold, Pastrana is the unapologetic good boy in a sport filled with bad ass partiers who make a living off of selling the white trash image of moto. But Pastrana could care less about all of that.
The only hype he wants to push is progression of freestyle motocross and he proves it with his willingness to hurl and contort his body while gripping 230-pounds of hot whirling steel. “I’ve never met an athlete who’s more of a fan of his own sport than Travis,” says Steve Astephen, Pastrana’s long time agent and Pastrana’s biggest supporter thanks to the bank his client brings in with video games made in his likeness, a TV show on the Country Music Network called “Travis TV,” bobble head action figures and his own video series called Nitro Circus. For the most part Pastrana’s riding on top of the world and only touches down for a hard smack of reality when he gets injured--which is often – but not when you consider how many crashes he takes a week. His list of injuries could rival a pro football player. He’s been in a coma twice, has busted wrists, ankles, ribs and his back, all in the name of progression. “I am on a first name basis with doctors all around the country,” he says with a chuckle.
The Holy Grail
A double backflip was thought to be impossible to pull off until October 2005 on a crisp fall morning in Washington State when Pastrana gunned his Suzuki RM 250 off a 20-foot high dirt ramp and spun two full backflip rotations through the air. “It was more of a relief than anything to do it. It was one of those things that was hanging over my head because I knew it was possible, I just didn’t know if I could do it.” The victorious flip came two weeks after an unsuccessful go at the 20-foot high uphill dirt mound where he landed hard on his ankle and thought he broke it. He went home to Maryland to recuperate and two weeks later returned to Washington to tame the beast once and for all and nail the ever-elusive trick. “I am glad I got that out of the way and no, I won’t be doing it again any time soon.”
Injuries
"My strengths and weaknesses are the same: I've got the willingness and stupidity to try anything. If I think it's even remotely possible, I'll do it." This fearlessness has led to some pretty gnarly accidents for Pastrana. In 1998 at a Triple Crown event in Lake Havasu when he was 14-years-old he jumped a 120-foot ramp and came up short. In the process of the crash he rag dolled and separated his spine from his pelvis, which put him in the medical books and left him in a coma for two weeks and in a wheel chair for three months. “I was in and out of consciousness for about three days and had six blood transfusions,” says Pastrana. He also adds that according to doctors only three people in the U.S. have ever lived after this kind of injury. “I don’t remember most of the injuries there have been so many.” His laundry list includes: the dislocated spine, in his left knee he’s torn his ACL, PCL, LCL, MCL, his bucket handle meniscus, broken his tibia and fibia, he’s had surgery on his left wrist twice, left thumb once, two surgeries on his back, one on his right elbow, nine on his left knee, six on the right knee, one shoulder surgery which left him with the only piece of metal he has in his body. “I worry every minute he’s not sleeping period,” says Pastrana’s agent Steve Astephen about his clients charging attitude. “He’s always pushing the envelope. You tell him no and he goes for it even more.” Going for it obviously runs in the family though. Pastrana’s whole family rides bikes including his mother who broke her back about a year ago trying to pull a backflip.
Pastrana’s Playground
In Pastrana’s backyard he has a 20-acre track. “It’s a weird frenzy at his house,” says Pastrana’s friend and fellow competitor Kenny Bartram. “For a normal person to go out and do a backflip into a foam pit it’s the high point of their life. At Travis’ house six-year-old kids are doing them. It’s not that it’s never good enough, there’s just no satisfaction. There are so many people around him pushing themselves, that you do crazy stuff when you go to Travis’ house.” Pastrana says of his devilish backyard playground, “Everyone's back yard tracks are a never ending process. It costs about 15,000 dollars a year if we pay someone to build and maintain a supercross track. Five thousand per ramp and I have six ramps. It’s about 120 thousand dollars for the foam pit and crane and roof of the pit. Everything else... BMX, pit bike, freestyle, motocross and rally car track I build and maintain myself. We had to pay about 300 thousand dollars to the tree huggers for chopping down trees and grading in an area that they zone as wetlands. And about 15 thousand a year to make sure that we don't have any erosion or harm any environmental bullshit.” Grand total over five years: $600,000.
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