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Written by asap
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Thursday, 03 August 2006 |
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 Travis Pastrana is one of the most talented and popular athletes to ever ride a motorcycle, an innovator in freestyle motocross who’s won gold medals five of the seven times it’s been an X Games sport.
But when he talks about the future, it’s not dirt bikes, but rally cars he speaks of.
You see, ever since he was a 10-year-old tearing around the backyard and construction sites with his dad, Pastrana has dreamed about driving rally cars.
And now he gets his chance. The X Games this year added rally car racing, a sport that’s hugely popular overseas and has caught the attention of some of the biggest names in action sports, including Pastrana, BMX rider Dave Mirra and DC Shoes owner Ken Block.
“It was awesome that they added rally cars because it’s kind of what I’m hoping to go into the future,” Pastrana said as he readied himself for this year’s X Games, which start Thursday in Los Angeles. “I’m just trying to make the transition to something -- it’s hard to call rally safer, but it is a little safer than some of the other sports I’ve been in previously.”
But it’s not like Pastrana is giving up on motocross. He’s just adding rally car racing.
Pastrana still plans to compete in freestyle, best trick and supermoto, putting him in four events at this year’s action sports showcase. He’s certainly got a shot at winning both freestyle and best trick, and has already proven himself in rally racing, ranking first in the U.S. Championships so far this season.
Then there’s Supermoto. It’s basically a race over dirt and asphalt that has humps and rollers, but for some reason Pastrana hasn’t had much success at it.
“Supermoto has just been a huge challenge for me, something I’ve really been struggling with and spent a lot of time with this summer,” he said. “That’ll be my toughest event, but if I can get a top-5 it’ll be a good event for me.”
So what is rally racing? It’s a driver and a navigator negotiating their way through a variety of conditions on closed sections of roads filled with humps, dips and hairpin turns. The race is held over two days in eight stages and the team with the lowest elapsed time over the point-to-point circuit wins, similar to the way the Tour de France works.
So what’s the appeal? First off, the cars are street-legal, giving the sport an I-can-do-that kind of feel. They’re also tearing around the course at 80 mph, sliding into corners and barely staying in control of their cars. And if you’ve ever seen highlights of crashes at European races or even America’s Funniest Home Videos, you know how wild it can get.
It’s not flipping and twisting in the air like the other sports, but it should go over well.
“I think people are really going to take to it,” said J.B. Niday, general manager for Rally America and X Games rally car racing sport organizer. “It’s fast, it’s fun and it has a great visual appeal.”
Rally racing isn’t the only new sport at this year’s X Games.
Organizers are constantly trying to keep up with the can-you-top-this world of action sports and BMX Big Air certainly fits that bill.
Here’s how it works: Riders take an elevator to a platform that’s 80 feet above the floor, barrel down a narrow ramp over a 70-foot gap onto a landing area that’s still nearly 30 feet off the ground. In the bigger-and-badder-is-better world of X, that’s about as good as it gets.
“As you’re riding up that elevator, the people in the crowd get smaller and smaller,” says BMX rider Chad Kagy. “Then you realize just how high you are. I’ve been a professional BMX rider for 10 years and this is by far the gnarliest thing I’ve ever done.”
And that’s what the X Games are all about.
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John Marshall is asap’s sports writer, based in Denver.
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