Red Bull celebrated Travis Pastrana's action-filled life by throwing him a bash in Hollywood at the Avalon a few months ago. After being roasted and toasted by friends and family, the thrill-seeker as he announced that he would be jumping a car on New Year's in the LA area. No certain details, we just knew something insane involving a car and Travis Pastrana was bound to occur come December 31st, 2009. Jesse Ziegler sat down with one-shoed Travis Pastrana to get the low down on "
what's next" in his career -as we now know, the NYE Rally Car Jump.
Jesse Ziegler: Speaking of going above and beyond in your sport, what's next? What's this car jump all about?
Travis Pastrana: Well, this is my official, "Yes, I'm going to jump really far in a car" statement.
Red Bull came to me and said they wanted to do something for New Year's and Maddo [Robbie Maddison] was just so amazing with his distance jump that, basically, I don't want to go that far on a dirt bike. I mean, this guy's got it dialed. He's been working at this for years. He's not only an amazing rider, but he's got the distance art of it figured out. For me to beat Maddo, it's going to take an act of God. I don't want to step up higher and I don't want to step down half as far as he did, either. So we looked into cars and I said, "You know what? I think I can push that sport a lot further."
Jesse Ziegler: So how far can you jump a car?
Travis Pastrana: We can definitely go for a world record. Ken Block went 160 feet from dirt-to-dirt but I think the world record is somewhere around 220. Whatever that record is, we're going to find it and we're going to beat it.
Now the time is here and the stage is set. Long Beach's Pine Avenue Pier. December 31, 2009, New Year's Eve. Around 8PM on the west coast (11PM/ET), the action will start to unfold on ESPN or ESPN HD with live coverage of the
Red Bull: New Year. No Limits. You may be out and about pre-gaming before the clock strikes 12, but ESPN Action has got you covered with text updates to your phone, sign up here:
http://espn.go.com/action/redbullnynl/news/story?id=4766030.
There really are no limits for Travis Pastrana. The Nitro Circus star plans to start 2010 off with a bang by hucking his rally car 250-ft. A successful jump will have Pastrana knocking Ken Block's 2006 distance record of 171 feet. Not only is he attempting to break his teammates' record, he's doing it in his Subaru WRX STI onto a barge floating in the water on live TV. While Pastrana has already dominated the record in his practice runs, it's not officially broken until New Year's where he will attempt to make the pages of the Guiness World Record Book. Apparently doing it all (flipping dirt bikes, winning 3 championships, 15 X Games medals, and being the star of your own tv show) is not enough for Pastrana, he's about to push rally cars farther than ever. Come out or tune into to see history in the making!
There are two videos below, the first one is of two successful- and-not-so-successful practice jumps and the second is Travis visits the jump site in the LBC. For more information on Red Bull New Year No Limits Rally Car Jump, visit: www.redbullnewyearnolimits.com.