FreestyleXtreme Magazine Issue 22 | Page 60

£ Watching Travis land the first Double Backflip still gives us goose bumps and has to be one of our favourite pieces of FMX history. That must have been pretty amazing. And they invited me to California. My mom didn’t know. And the rest is history. I was looking back at footage from the Race of Champions and you managed to beat Vettel straight up in 2010 and then you did it in 2017 as well. What was that like? Pretty rad. I’ve gone against Vettel four times and beaten him three. And the only one that he beat me in was a WRC car, which was so disappointing. Cause I was like, “S**t!” Got him in a Porsche touring car and the last was a lights car so that was kinda cheating on my part. It was freaking rad. So on live TV, I beat Sebastian Vettel. Everyone’s just booing. Like I’m about to get thrown out. Vettel’s out in the first round, first everything. I come back, I’m all excited and they showed it on live TV but my wife was asleep on the couch. She’s like, “Well I thought I’d just watch the finals.” I’m like, “U.S. never makes it to the finals!” Was Vettel sore with you afterwards? Oh no, Vettel’s awesome. What’s cool about some of the younger guys coming up is - I say younger guys, pretty much everyone that’s on top of their sports now - they grew up watching X Games and action sports and stuff. Vettel was... I’m not saying a fan, but at least knew who I was and had respect for what I did before then. He actually... the only reason I beat him the first time, was because he took me for a ride in that same car earlier and I knew exactly how fast he went in that car. So I was like, “Thanks for the help.” Are you much of an F1 fan? I’m a big fan of racing of any kind. But honestly, this past year I haven’t been following as much as I should for sure. Räikkönen’s one of my favourites so it’s been good to see him back. u The most interesting part about that: my wife didn’t - she does now - but she didn’t know anything about cars. Vettel wins the F1 championship, youngest to ever win the F1 championship. We go to Germany for Race of Champions. It’s the first round. U.S. gets paired against Germany. So I go up against Schumacher and Vettel. And I’m like... in Germany. This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened. We just flew in that morning and my wife went to sleep on the couch.