Travis Pastrana on… Rallying

Travis Pastrana is a man that’s done everything. He’s raced bikes and cars, leapt through the air on literally anything that’s got wheels – and some things without, and even jumped out of a plane without a parachute.

He is also the ringleader of Nitro Circus Live, a ground-breaking action sports arena show which has been touring the world for almost a decade. Ahead of the show’s recent visit to Manchester, Pastrana and I caught up at his hotel where we sat down to discuss a number of elements of his varied career.

In this part, Pastrana discusses his rallying career, which took off once his place in two-wheeled folklore was firmly secured.

Read more: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4

 

“It was awesome, it was one of the best experiences”

 

Following an outing at the Race of Champions the year before, Pastrana joined the Vermont Sports Car rally squad in 2004. Two years later he was signed by Subaru to lead the factory-backed Subaru Rally Team USA which was again run by VSC.

2006 proved to be a huge year for Pastrana who, as well as joining Subaru, took the inaugural rally car gold medal at X Games and won his first US rally title. He would go on to win four-straight rally America titles with Subaru, before leaving the stages to focus on NASCAR, rallycross, and his Nitro Circus Live touring commitments.

He returned in 2017 for a full season with Subaru in the new American Rally Association championship and won his fifth US crown in dramatic fashion beating team David Higgins in a nail-biting season finale.

“David and I tied on best race, we tied on stages, we were completely tied up three stages from the end,” Pastrana said. “It was awesome, it was one of the best experiences.”

Despite proving he’d lost none of his speed through the forests of North America, Pastrana chose not to defend his title in 2018, instead entering just two events as he shared the second Subaru with former-World Rally drivers Chris Atkinson and Patrik Sandell.

“To be honest I got really lucky in that championship (ARA in 2017) and I thought it would be very, very difficult to defend,” he quipped, “but my main focus has been Nitro and I really wanted to do the best that I could with that.”

“I do have that competitive nature and I felt that if I took the next couple of years off with Nitro I would have a very difficult time getting back into a car and getting sponsorship, so I really focused all out,” he said of his decision to do a full season in 2017. “I did my homework on the notes, did the best that I could, and then went out on an all-out effort last year.”

 

“Preparation going into a race, the notes and everything is as important”

 

Looking forward, while Pastrana has stated his desire to get Nitro Rallycross off the ground as a series in his own right, then move back to driving full time, he’s also eyeing up a WRC return.

Pastrana previously competed in the World Championship in 2007 when he ran events in Mexico, Argentina, and Great Britain in the P-WRC class. He claimed a best finish of fifth in class in Mexico, which was the best result for an American in the WRC for almost 20 years. Now he’s revealed that he’d like to have a crack at Rally Finland, or possibly even New Zealand.

“I’ve been talking to Ken Block – I’d love to do Finland at one point, but it was always the same time as X Games,” he said, “but I’m not doing X Games any more.”

“I’d love to do Finland, I’d love to do New Zealand, and I’d like to do those with the best chance that I have,” he continued. “I’d like to do the preparation – if David [Higgins] has taught me anything it’s that the preparation going into a race, the notes and everything is as important.”

One thing about a possible WRC outing for Pastrana would be the huge cultural difference between US and European rallying, with the discipline being more of a grassroots affair in North America as opposed to Europe’s big-budget factory-backed programmes.

“For a long time US rally was just show up, get your general notes, and go, and it’s not even the same sport to what the guys are doing over here in the world championship so if I went to Finland, I’d want to go back three years in a row to the same route,” he said.

“With my two kids and my wife, I know that I will never be able to put in the time to know if I am good enough, not to say that I’m good enough,” Pastrana admitted. “But if I can take one event that I love and just keep going back and just keep refining the notes and really try to, in three years’ time even if that’s not going for a win, if it’s whatever my best is, I think it would be really cool.

 

“It’s that loaded mentality that it’s not as exciting to watch, but it’s quick”

 

Despite the lower level overall of rallying in America, Pastrana is one of the few US-based drivers that has enjoyed works backing for much of his career. Next season he will be joined at Subaru by former-Formula 1 driver Scott Speed, who has already told this writer that he wants to have a go at stage rallying and Pastrana thinks the four-time US rallycross champion could be a success there, although he might need to adapt his driving style.

“Scott was my team mate for Race of Champions. He was faster than everyone on every corner but one – he refused to handbrake that one turn and he didn’t win a frickin’ heat the whole time and I’m like ‘Scott! Handbrake!’ and he’s like ‘It’s not faster to slide’, and I’m like ‘You can’t get around that corner!’ so that was funny,” Pastrana revealed.

“I think it’s going to be really good for Subaru,” he said.” It might be a learning experience, I don’t necessarily like the driving style – when [NASCAR trucks champion] Matt Crafton went to off-road trucks everyone was laughing at him because it looked like he was just rolling round the inside when everyone else is wide open and he qualified P3 in his first ever truck race. It’s that loaded mentality that it’s not as exciting to watch, but it’s quick.”

“Even if you watch Solberg, he’s so much more sideways than anyone else who’d competitive, and I love watching Petter, he’s awesome, he’s my favourite but it is cool that you still have those differences,” he added, referring to the 2003 WRC champion and double World Rallycross champion.

“Scott is very meticulous. He thinks everything through, even down to the way he dresses and everything, he’s the very opposite of most. He’s very good, I think he’ll do very good.”