Travis Pastrana:

Die Another Day

21 years ago Travis Pastrana separated his spine from his pelvis after a dirt bike jump went wrong. He was only the fourth person known to have survived such an injury.  But while the other three just felt lucky to be alive, Travis went on to become the world’s most extreme motorcycle rider and daredevil and Evel Knievel’s natural successor. And it was all down to the mentality he adopted after that hideous accident: ‘There's nothing more to fear because I've already experienced more pain than the human body can possibly take.'

Words: Stuart Barker

Pictures courtesy of Nitro Circus

  

Travis Pastrana is arguably the most extreme motorcycle rider on earth. From a background in motocross and supercross – where he won many titles in his native America - he was crowned world freestyle champion at just 14 years of age. Since then Pastrana has gone on to become a true freestyle legend, taking 11 gold medals in the X Games and five golds from the Gravity Games. In 2006 he became the first rider ever to pull off a double back flip and in 2018 successfully completed not one, but three, of Evel Knievel's most famous jumps – in one night – and he fills stadiums all over the world with his Nitro Circus freestyle show (which has also spawned two hugely successful Nitro Circus movies).

            But Pastrana's feats are not limited to two wheels. He also holds the world record for the longest ramp-to-ramp car jump (269 feet), has raced in NASCAR and the Word Truck Series, and used to regularly beat rallying legend Colin McRae at his own game. But it's his individual stunts that have earned his reputation as a true Action Sports icon. He has jumped out of an aeroplane without a parachute, swam in baited, shark-infested waters, and back-flipped into the Grand Canyon before letting go of his bike and parachuting to the bottom.

            The timing of Patsrana's career has been perfect. In the digital age of GoPro video cameras, Youtube and Social Media, every one of his stunts has been watched by millions around the world, making him the most famous daredevil since his hero, Evel Knievel.

            Ironically, none of this would have happened had it not been for the horrific injuries Pastrana suffered on his 15^th birthday when he landed a motocross bike so hard that he tore his spine from his pelvis. He should have died – after all, only three people have been known to survive such a brutal injury. Instead, the young Pastrana learned a lesson from the experience that would guide him through the rest of his incredible career. 'Most people bleed out and die from that injury' he says matter-of-factly. 'The bottom of my spine shattered but I didn't sever the spinal cord. I woke up two weeks later in intensive care – in a different State! I crashed in Arizona and woke up in LA and was like "How the hell did I get here?" But I learned something that day – you can only take a certain amount of pain before you pass out. So really there's nothing more to fear because I've already experienced more pain than the body can possibly take.'

            He may seem crazy but Travis Pastrana has always been a very intelligent operator – and he proved it following his big crash. When he was laid up in hospital for months, he decided to use the time to complete his schooling early so that he could concentrate on riding, rather than school, when he got better. ‘My parents said I couldn't become a professional racer until I graduated high school, I found I could do a full day of school in about two-and-a-half hours so if I was hurt I could do three days of school in one day. So after that crash I spent all my time studying and finished a year's worth of school work in two-and-a-half months from my hospital bed.’

            In the years since, Pastrana has had plenty of injury time to contend with. While his hero Knievel was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for breaking more bones than any other human being, Pastrana has actually lost count of how many he's shattered. 'It gets really confusing because, for instance, I shattered my pelvis into many pieces so does that count as one break or many? I had seven broken bones in my ankle one time but they were broken in about 40 places, so I don't know. You could just count that as one broken ankle or as 40 broken bones so eventually I lost track.'

          Born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1983, Pastrana was an early starter on two wheels and right from the outset he displayed a penchant for the extreme. 'Motorcycles were what my family did for fun' he explains. ‘From the earliest time I can remember riding dirt bikes around the construction yard with my uncles. We always had mounds of earth and piles of stuff and equipment and we had jeeps and cars and trucks – usually just piles of junk that we could barely get started but it was a blast!

          'It was interesting because most people go to a proper motocross track where the focus is always on going faster and learning the track that little bit better but every day my track changed so it was kinda like the beginning of freestyle riding. We were always working with different piles and trying to build different ramps. By the time I could use a hammer I was working on building ramps and stuff so not much has changed in my life, right up to today – except that the ramps have gotten bigger!'

            Despite enjoying success in motocross and supercross, the repetition of racing didn’t sit entirely comfortably with Pastrana. ‘Racing is not boring but what I enjoy the most is the freedom of trying to do something that hasn't been done before’ he says. ‘Racing is very much about who can do the exact same lap time every single time around – you have to be within half a tenth of a second every lap to be consistently good. I was that kid that would go the longer way around a motocross track just to get a bigger jump! People would say to me "What are you doing? You could have won that!" but I was like "Yeah, yeah, but did you see the jump I did?”’

          And boy, have those jumps gotten bigger. In 2010 Pastrana set a new world record by jumping a Subaru rally car 269 feet and in 2018 jumped farther than Evel Knievel ever did – and on a similar motorcycle too – when he cleared 16 Greyhound buses and a distance of 192 feet compared to Knievel's best of 133 feet.

            That jump was only one of three that Pastrana completed during a live, five-hour, international television broadcast as a tribute to his daredevil hero. Using a heavy, 340lb Indian Scout FTR750 - very similar to the Harley-Davidson XR750 favoured by Knievel – Pastrana also had to contend with very limited suspension travel, just like Evel, And also just like Knievel, Pastrana relies more on feel than science to calculate his jumps. 'For me, it's mostly about feel, experience, and gut instinct' he explains. 'After so many years of doing this my gut instinct is more accurate than the numbers and the math. Or maybe that's just because I'm not as good at math as I am on the bike! When I did the Knievel tribute jumps I had the same take-off angles as him but I was going 2mph slower and 50 feet farther. So there's a 50-foot range in what you do with your body when you're on the bike. The rider can make a huge difference with his body position and how much you pull up on the handlebars when you're in the air.'

            Surprisingly, Pastrana was impressed with how good the Indian felt to jump but landing such a heavy bike with limited suspension ultimately comes down to rider skill. 'The power of the bike was greater than anything I've ever ridden – and certainly anything I've ever jumped. It was amazing. But it was like jumping a car, except you've got way more suspension travel in a car! At the end of the day I had to land very, very well or I'd do what Evel did at Caesar's and wipe out. Evel broke his bike almost every time he did a big jump because those bikes just weren't meant to fly and to take that kind of impact. But the weight and the balance of the Indian was very good. It flew okay but, as I said, the landing had to be spot on.'

            Knievel has been Pastrana's hero since he was a kid so the chance to emulate his hero was a dream come true. Not only did he get to replicate his hero's jumps on a similar bike, he also got to dress up like him. 'For me, it was the chance to live for a day in Evel’s boots – and they were high-heeled dress boots!' Pastrana laughs. 'I mean, the boots, the leathers, the gloves… and I could barely see out of the helmet. I quite liked the cape though! Just to live a day in his boots was awesome.'

            Having faced the same dangers as Knievel, Pastrana can offer a unique insight into the man's psyche, his philosophy, and his riding skills. 'He was a better showman than he was motorcycle rider but he did show people you could fly a motorcycle and that set the precedent for what now is action sports. Evel wasn't amazing because of his riding ability, he was amazing for a couple of other things. Firstly, the world loved someone who, if they said they were going to do something, would actually do it. At Wembley he realised the buses were bigger than he'd expected and he realised he'd got the math wrong and didn't have the right gearing so the bike wasn't fast enough. He knew he wasn't going to make the jump but he was like "Well, you guys paid for tickets so I'm gonna do it."

‘From a spectator's point of view, if you know everything's calculated and everything's always going to work then it's not a show. Evel was a showman and a salesman but the best part was that he had the guts to back up what he said he was gonna do and if you combine all that then you've got one helluva package. I live my life by one of Evel’s most famous quotes “You’re not a failure until you fail to get back up.” I’d rather try and fail than fail to try.'

            It’s easy to watch Pastrana’s madcap stunts and think the man simply has no fear, but he’s human like the rest of us. So how does he control that fear? ‘I think I have a relatively rational grasp of fear’ he says. ‘Like, I was in the middle of the ocean once with lots of sharks and my buddies put a lot of bait in the water. This There were some really big sharks - like ten-foot Tiger sharks -and my buddies baited the water then pushed me in and took off in the boat so I was swimming behind the boat, screaming like a little girl – but I feel that was a pretty rational fear! So yeah, I don't particularly like snakes or sharks or being in places where they are but at the same time, I'm alright with it.'

            When asked about the last time he was genuinely afraid, Pastrana’s answer has nothing to do with his own stunts. ‘I’m afraid all the time now that I have kids!’ he laughs. ‘I've been through so much that I feel I have a pretty good gauge of what's gonna go wrong and when it is. Kids aren't fearless but they're pretty naïve about a lot of things so I'm like "Whoaaaah! You have no idea how close you are to dying right now!" My kids are around a lot of people that go very fast and do really crazy stuff so it's just natural to them and I really have to watch out for them.’

            Pastrana’s kids are being brought up in a world that’s much more risk-averse than it was just a few decades ago. And perhaps it’s precisely because there’s such an obsession with health and safety nowadays that Pastrana and his kind are held in such awe by millions of kids around the world. Perhaps that’s why we need people like him – people to take the risks for us while we stand by in safety and watch. ‘Well, in a world where everyone wins and a “life-and-death” situation is more of a metaphor than a reality, it’s pretty awesome to be part of what might be the last generation of stuntmen’ he says. ‘We’re not as crazy as the stuntmen of the 80’s and we’re not pioneers like Evel was but, at the end of the day, we still make a living by pushing the human spirit.’

Pastrana's Five Craziest Stunts

Jumping out of an aeroplane without a parachute. Travis was followed by two other sky-divers who caught up with him and strapped a parachute on. His sky-diving licence was immediately revoked by the authorities!

Being Shark bait. Not content with the already obvious dangers of swimming in shark-infested waters, Pastrana had the water baited to encourage the sharks into a feeding frenzy as he swam with them.

Back-flipping into the Grand Canyon. Looking for space to practice a 360-degree backflip, Pastrana launched his bike into the Grand Canyon, performed a backflip, then let go and parachuted to the bottom.

Landing Caesar’s Palace. Achieving what Evel Knievel didn’t, Travis jumped the fountains at Caesar’s Palace then jumped 52 cars and 16 buses in two further Knievel tribute jumps – all in one night.

Double backflip. One of the first to perfect a single 360-degree backflip on a motorcycle, Pastrana later became the first rider to complete a double backflip