X Games 12: Travis Pastrana

Travis competed in 4 X Games events and won 3 golds. Someone who competed as much and as successfully as Travis Pastrana did, really deserves his own blog mention.

How could I not devote a special blog to Travis Pastrana.

What can I say about Travis that hasn't already been printed or aired in the past week? For those of you who may have missed it, here's a recap. Travis Pastrana competed in four events this year. He competed in MotoX Freestyle (gold), MotoX Best Trick (gold), Super Moto, and in the X Games debut of Rally Car (yes, another gold).

There was a lot of talk about Travis going into the games. It was rumored that Travis was going to try to pull a double back flip (on a motorcycle, in case you aren't with me on this). Travis had been working on it but it had never been done in competition before. A special ramp was built for the double. The traditional kicker is only 12 feet high with a 60° incline which helps jumpers get 25 feet of air for their trick. The new kicker is 13 feet high with a 90° incline for a jump height of approx. 50 feet. On his second jump, Travis pulled the double, landed beautifully and the crowd went wild.

In Rally Car, Travis and his partner, Christian Edstrom were only ½ second behind leader Colin McCrae in the 9th stage. Colin was headed to the finish line (about 100 yards from it), lost control and flipped his car. He didn't just go rubber up though. Colin's car did a full rotation and as soon as the tires hit ground, Colin hit the gas and drove it to the finish line. Colin finished with the silver, and Travis Pastrana moved ahead to claim gold.

Travis actually left after his first run in the elimination stages of MotoX Freestyle. He was exhausted (really, what could he possibly have had going on??) and decided to hope that his first run was enough to qualify him for finals. It paid off, and a more rested Travis claimed the gold in MotoX Freestyle.

For more results from the X Games XII, check out this week's article.