Travis Pastrana
T
ravis, do you remember your
first race?
Honestly it’s probably one of my first
memories. I don’t remember any
memories earlier than that. And I
crashed. I crashed and I crashed, just
trying to get around the track. I had a
Honda Z-50. Actually, it was my first
time there; we did practise, and then
went home. Practised a bit and came
back. And then my first actual race that
I did, I ended up third. I liked it more
after that.
That’s not a bad start man! I was
re-watching the Terra Firma series
recently, and there’s an awesome
interview clip of you, Bubba and
Ricky Carmichael. Did you race
those guys that much through your
career?
It’s funny because James is only
two years younger than I was, and
Ricky was four years older. But I
was super tall, so I raced Ricky a lot
more. At nine, I was in the 913 class
SuperMinis. It was always Ricky, and
then the rest of us.
There was Nick Way, Shae Bentley,
that was kinda the main... Robby
Gordon, Charley Bogard. But Ricky
was definitely the guy that we always
gunned after. And granted, four years
is a lot when you’re nine years old, but
he was the same height, so it didn’t
feel like it.
Do you speak to those guys much?
Honestly, I never really talked to James
that much. He was always really nice.
As funny as it was - he’s kind of a quiet
guy. He was really humble, which was
the opposite of his kind of persona.
But Carmichael absolutely hated me.
Wouldn’t talk to me.
I wasn’t even allowed on the test track
when he was on it, and he’d do like
60-70 laps, so I was waiting for a long
time. The track was worn out before I
got there. I was like ‘this sucks’. I’d go
ride with Chad Reed on the Yamaha
track, like f**k off.
Then when Carmichael got into cars,
we actually became pretty good
friends. I get his texts every now and
then, just random texts. We joke about
high jump (step up) and how horrible
of a sport that is. It’s a great sport to
watch, horrible sport to do.
What are the chances of getting
you, James and Ricky together to
do another interview with the same
questions 25 years later?
I think it’ll probably happen eventually.
I think - like I said, we’re not extremely
close - but since the car racing is
good, and even guys like Grant
Langston, who I absolutely hated as a
racer, is now actually a good friend, so
it’s funny. We always had respect for
each other, just didn’t like each other.
I was watching the Loretta Lynn’s
footage and you were racing number
36. When did you change to 199 and
where did 199 come from?
Well... Robbie Reynard was my hero
growing up, and he turned pro the fifth
month in 1993, so he was 593 his first
year pro.
At that point I went up to world Mini
O’s, and they were like “you need
a three-digit number”, so I was like
“alright 1099”, or cut down to three
digits, 199. But at Loretta Lynn’s, you
always had to have a two-digit... you
couldn’t do three. I was usually 99, but
someone had 99 already so I was like
“ah whatever”.
36 will do?
Yeah I think it was 36, something like
that. Completely irrelevant. Random
number.
I’m a big Motocross of Nations fan.
What was it like riding in 2002?
I’m a huge, Tenacious fan. I’m a huge
fan of David Bailey, Rick Johnson, and
Johnny O’Mara - and you know just
watching. When I was growing up, the
U.S. was very dominant in The Nations.
Two guys that hated each other were
battling each other all year, hands in
the air, fists together going across
the finish line. Stuff like that’s pretty
amazing.
And whatever country you’re from,
to represent your country is quite an
honour. For me it was France in 2000,
we were at Saint Jean d’Angely...
That’s a gnarly track..
The French team, with Tortelli and
Rancada, were expected to dominate.
We had me, I’m a rookie. Carmichael
was obviously pretty dominant at the
time, but you had a guy with Ryan u
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