Nothing surprises me anymore. Add ‘Travis Pastrana to NASCAR’ to that list.
While we don’t have an official announcement, signs are pointing to his making the leap to stock car racing, in one series or another, in the not too distant future.
Pastrana, if you’re not familiar, is a former motocross and now rally star, X Games medalist, and all around mad man. He holds the record for longest ramp-to-ramp jump in a car and he was the host (or head hooligan) of the stunt show Nitro Circus on MTV.
Pastrana has been pretty successful in everything he’s tried. He has two motocross championships to his credit and 14 X-Games medals in various events. And he’s about as fearless as they come. Still, does he have the skills to be successful in NASCAR?
That is something I’m not so sure about. We’ve seen multiple, very successful race car drivers try to transition to NASCAR. It’s either taken them years to find even minimal success, or they haven’t lasted.
Take Ricky Carmichael – a guy who is often referred to as the ‘Greatest of All Time’ for his unrivaled success in motocross. He started running late model races in 2007 under the tutelage of Mark Martin and other very talented drivers. He ran a full K&N Pro Series East season in 2008 and then scattered ARCA and Truck Series races in 2009 before going full time in the Truck Series this season.
Despite his success elsewhere, Carmichael is still a driver very much in development in NASCAR – even after three years. The good news is he’s running better and better every week.
With Pastrana, my hope is that Michael Waltrip Racing (or Diamond Waltrip Racing) doesn’t try to throw him directly into a Nationwide car. We’ve seen how drivers attempting the transition from another racing series have struggled in the cars and the series. As has been apparent with Danica Patrick, Dario Franchitti, Jacques Villeneuve and many others just because you can drive one thing with four wheels well, doesn’t mean you can drive all things with four wheels well.
The above said, I think if anyone is going to barrel into this successfully I think Travis Pastrana could reasonably be the guy to do it. He’s only 27 and has a lot of time to build the necessary skills and still be young. And, I said it once already, but I’ll say it again, the guy is fearless. If you ever watched his show on MTV, you probably saw him do some pretty ridiculous stuff.
I’ll admit this is a bit gimmicky, but it’s so crazy (or maybe Pastrana’s so crazy) it just might work. And as Marty Smith pointed out a few days ago, Pastrana would bring some very welcome personality and energy to the sport. I don’t think we should be pinning the sport’s hope on this however.
At the very least it’ll be interesting to watch. On a side note, I’m glad I’m not paying for the race cars.
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