| ARMED WITH GLOVES, A CHEST-PROTECTOR, steel-toe boots, and a helmet, Travis Pastrana straddles his motorcycle, gripping the handlebars as he contemplates a hard dirt track that spans 65 feet from takeoff to landing. On the infinitely clear day in August 2002, more than 42,000 fan have gathered at the Gravity Games in Cleveland to watch the 18-year-old motocross star attempt a trick never before completed in a freestyle competition. Some of them will be just as satisfied if he doesn't pull it off. At the cameraman's signal, Pastrana cranks on his throttle, racing up the ramp at more than 50 MPH as his bike coughs out plumes of exhaust and launches into the air. Moments after takeoff, he clenches the bike with his hands and knees and forces the 200-pound Suzuki into a full back flip. With its mud-caked as he's suspended more than 40 feet in the air, he's straightens out the bike's front end and catches his balance just as the wheels touch the dirt. A perfect landing. "I'm a little bit crazy and stupid," Pastrana said afterwards. "When someone says it can't be done, I really enjoy proving them wrong." Now all of 19, Pastrana dominates the sport of motocross, a combination of racing and stunt riding performed with off-road motorcycles. A five-time amateur champion before he turned pro (at age 16), he has since won every freestyle motocross contest at the X-Games each year he has competed. "There are people encouraging you to go bigger, go higher, go faster--to fly," Pastrana says, "In this sport, you can be as safe or as daring as you want to be. To get to the top, you have to take risks." On Christmas morning, 1987, Robert Pastrana, a former marine, and his wife, Debby, gave their four-year-old son a red, one-gear Honda Z-50. Three months later, Pastrana clinched a third-place trophy in his first race. By age seven, he had his first sponsor, the Drug-Free All-Stars team, and over the next 12 years, his acrobatics would attract dozens more, including Suzuki, Michelin, Puma, and No Fear. More than the $21,000 top prize at the X-Games, it's the endorsements and the merchandising deals for Travis Pastrana toys, video-games, and pajamas that have made him a teenage tycoon--one who reportedly pulled in more than $2 million in 2001. "It's really cool," says Pastrana, who lives in a 20-acre compound in Davidsonville, Maryland, with its own skate park, "but all I ever wanted to do was ride a motorcycle." In a sport teeming with multi-pierced toughs, the 6'2", 170-pound Pastrana is a rare gentle giant. He thinks bike tricks are "neat" and never uses expletives more severe than "Ah, heck!" His intense training and competition schedules leave him no time for a girlfriend; he has never smoked or sampled a drop of alcohol. The wholesomeness provides him with an obvious commercial appeal. "Any company selling any product would like its spokespersons to be honest, good in front of the camera, and mature enough to fake it when they have to," says Chris Stiepock, general manager of the X-Games. "Travis is all that. He doesn't have the tattoos or the rebelliousness. He's a very intelligent, well-spoken kid." Freestyle motocross wasn't even on the lineup at the first X-Games, in 1995, but now the sport plays a pivotal role in delivering extreme athletics to a mass audience. "Currently, motocross is the fastest-growing motor sport worldwide," says Barney Waters, director of marketing at Puma. "Freestyle riders are the heroes of today." Indeed, this August, more than 220,000 fans will pack the Coliseum and Staples Center in Los Angeles for X-Games IX--an event that now boasts such Fortune 500 sponsors as General Motors and AT&T. Organizers are counting on another 63 million viewers to tune in to ABC and ESPN's coverage, and the faces of these newly minted celebrities, as much as their death-defying stunts, are going to deliver the numbers." As a brand, we align ourselves with emerging athletes," says Waters. "Travis is the best. Period. He's that all-American boy next-door in the body of a daredevil." Pastrana understands his role in all this. "It’s not just about your performance--it's about being able to promote better." he says. "My job is to sell motorcycles and products as much as it is the racing." But financial rewards come at a punishing cost. The slightest lapse in execution--losing your grip on the bike or landing just a few seconds too soon--can mean hospitalization and hours under a surgeon's scalpel. "When I weigh something out," says Pastrana, "I usually weigh in favor of 'Well, if I make this, it will be really cool.'" In the service of cool, Pastrana suffered 12 concussions, torn his rotator cuff, separated his shoulder, and broken nearly 30 bones (including both arms, wrists, legs, and his tailbone). He has floating bones and chips in his ankles and has undergone 12 major surgeries. At 14, while practicing for a competition in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, Pastrana misjudged a 120-foot jump, crashed, and separated his spinal column from his pelvis. Pins were used to reattach his torso to his hips, screwing the broken pieces of his body back together. ("To me, they looked like the kind of bolts you'd use to put together a motorcycle," Pastrana recalls.) Doctors predicted that he would be paralyzed for the rest of his life. Six months after the accident, he was back riding on the dirt track. Next month, at X-Games IX, Pastrana plans to debut a never-before-seen horizontal back-flip 360 in an attempt to regain the title he defaulted in 2002, when torn ligaments in his right knee prevented him from competing. The challenge became exponentially greater when he sustained another knee injury inn early May, one that threatened to knock him out of competition for the entire year. "Travis is fearless," says his father, Robert. "I would like to see him do something that's safer, but he calls the shots. I'd say that I’ll probably outlive him." In a field where longevity is not an option, Pastrana is at least tentatively thinking about what comes next. "A 30-year-old motocrosser is pretty old," he says, "so there is a point in your life when you're like, 'I don't want to put myself through this anymore.' But personally, I would die at a nine-to-five desk job. I would shoot myself. I could not do it." |
| SPIN Magazine (August 2003) Spin Action Sports 2003 |
| From rising stars to fallen idols, and all the gear you'll need to get into the game. |
| Driven to Extremes |
| With wheels of steel and almost 30 broken bones, 19-year-old motocross athlete Travis Pastrana wants to be the biggest name in extreme sports, even if it kills him. And it just might. By: Joshua Lipton and Lisa Sweetingham. |