Hot Pastrana

Accurate or not, the popular perception of high-flying X Games freestyle motorcycle riders probably is of a wild-haired (probably spiked and dyed) teenager with tattoos, earrings, tongue studs and little education.

So what is Travis Pastrana doing as the undefeated champion of this group?

At 17, Pastrana is a polite, mild-mannered boy from Annapolis, Md., already a sophomore at the University of Maryland with a 3.9 grade-point average. He has no body piercings, no tattoos, nicely combed hair and manners that include saying “yes sir,” and “no sir” to adults.

Why is he so different, from the perception?

“My dad is a Marine,” he said, as if that was answer enough. Then he added, “He wouldn’t stand for anything like that. He’s pretty strict.”

There are those, among them relatives, who claim there are two Travis Pastranas--one the devil-may-care creator of outrageous acts on a motorcycle, and the other just an everyday, if not precocious, college kid.

“On the bike, he’s invincible, off the bike he’s totally different,” says Robert Pastrana, his father. “There’s nothing wild about him, nothing at all.”

The “wild” Pastrana gained nationwide notoriety during the 1999 X Games when he flew his yellow Suzuki off Pier 32 into San Francisco Bay. He soared about 15 feet in the air and another 20 to the water, abandoning his bike in midair.

“I had already clinched the championship and wanted to have a little fun,” he recalled with a big grin. “I talked it over with my dad before and we had a boat in the water to pick up me and the bike.

“I landed feet first in the water. All I remember is that it was really cold. We didn’t think it was such a big deal.”

The city of San Francisco was not amused, and neither was ESPN, creator of the X Games.

“The city claimed it didn’t want other people to copycat what I’d done. They called it “reckless endangerment,” and the environmentalists were upset too. But we had drained all the oil and most of the gasoline before the jump. It was well planned and very safe.”

Pastrana got his gold medal as Freestyle MX champion, but not his $10,000 first prize.

“They said it cost them $2,000 for a scuba diver to fish the bike out of the bay after our guy couldn’t get it, and about $6,000 for a safety crew to clean up the bay,” he said. “The rest supposedly went to a Save the Bay charity.”

To show he had no hard feelings, Pastrana returned to San Francisco last year and again won the Freestyle MX title. That time, though, he stayed dry and pocketed the $15,000 first prize.

Pastrana might have lost his 10 grand when he was 15, but his leap earned him spots on Jay Leno’s and David Letterman’s late-night television shows.

“You should have heard it when Jeremy [McGrath] and I fired up our machines on the stage with Leno and rode down the hall and out the back door to the parking lot where they had a supercross course set up,” he said.

“We didn’t actually race, it was timed. I felt pretty good when Jeremy only beat me by 0.2 of a second. I know it was because of the X Games, but it was great exposure for motocross too.”

On the Letterman show in New York, Pastrana did his trademark jumps on the street, using wooden ramps.

“That was really wild too,” he said. “I landed near a fire hydrant and ended up sliding into a doughnut shop. One little kid was watching me through the window and you should have seen his eyes get wide when I just about slid through the door.”

Pastrana broke his collarbone on that jump.

At the rate he has broken bones, he may catch canyon-jumping Evel Knievel in that department one day.

Pastrana’s collection, so far:

* Twenty-four broken bones.

* Nine surgeries.

* Eight concussions.

He has broken his pelvis, a hip, a foot, an ankle, his wrists several times, thumb, fingers and an elbow, and dislocated his spine. Last October, he broke his leg while jumping a bicycle.

“I’m all healed now and have been training all December on the Suzuki track in Corona for the supercross season,” he said. “Riding a motocross bike is my No. 1 priority, not jumping in the X Games. That’s for fun. Racing in supercross is my career.”

Saturday night, in the 2001 season opener at Anaheim’s Edison Field, Pastrana will make his SX debut in the 250cc class against seven-time champion McGrath, 1999 world SX champion David Vuillemin and national outdoor champion Ricky Carmichael. Pastrana, at 6 feet 2, unusually tall for a motorcycle rider, stands in stark contrast to 250cc outdoor champ Carmichael, who is 5-4.

“Travis is extremely talented and has remarkable willpower,” said Roger DeCoster, the Suzuki team manager who was universally considered the world’s finest motocross rider while competing for Belgium several decades ago.

“His biggest drawback is that he gets hurt a lot. Because of that, I don’t want him to compete in those other [Xtreme] events.”

Among the outrageous things DeCoster doesn’t want his protege trying again is what Pastrana calls “the rodeo jump,” holding the handlebar with one hand while swinging his legs straight out in front and clicking his heels as he waves his other hand in the air.

“It’s like I’m bull riding,” he said. “The hardest part is getting back on the bike before it lands.”

Pastrana was the youngest rider ever selected to the United States team for the Motocross des Nationals last year.

“Travis did very well and helped us win the team title,” said DeCoster, who coached the U.S. riders. The others were Carmichael and Ryan Hughes.

“I would think he has a very good chance at winning in supercross, but might need another year on a 125 bike for the outdoor nationals,” DeCoster added. “We’ll see, if he just keeps from getting hurt.”

Pastrana’s success in the 125cc class earned him a shot at the more powerful 250cc class.

He won the AMA Chevy Trucks outdoor crown on the smaller displacement bikes last year, winning five of 12 motos, including the last four in a row.

“I got off to a slow start, but after I changed my attitude and my approach to racing, I finished strong,” Pastrana said. “At first, I was too concerned about getting a fast start, instead of concentrating on winning the race. The starts are really important, but there’s more to winning than just that.”

When he’s home in Annapolis, Pastrana and his mother, Debby, often spend hours together on the family driveway.

“I’d say I’ve probably made about 2,000 starts on the driveway, with my mom holding her stopwatch for every one,” he said. “My dad lays cement, so it was easy for him to build a concrete starting line.”

Pastrana also bought 200 acres of Maryland woods where he and his father laid out a motocross course.

“It’s rough and real tight, so it’s good for both motocross and supercross,” he said. “We built it around the trees, so as not to upset the environmentalists.”

Pastrana has been riding a motorcycle since his parents gave him one for Christmas when he was 3.

“They told me I could have one if I could stay up on it,” he said. “I rode my first race when I was 4 and finished fourth, but the kid who won was 6.

“My dad got me in a youth group called the Mid-Atlantic Motorcycle Assn., where kids 17 and under could ride. It was sort of like a motorcycle Little League.”

When Travis was 8, he finished second at the Loretta Lynn Nationals in Hurricane Mills, Tenn., and earned a ride with the 80cc Suzuki support team. Before he turned professional at 14 he won the Loretta Lynn Nationals five times.

“I owe an awful lot to my parents,” he said. “When I was 8, I started competing at the national level and that usually meant going to Florida every weekend to compete. It was a 12-hour ride both ways, but they never let me miss a race.

“And they’ve never missed one, either. I expect them to both be coming when I’m 40.”

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Saturday’s Supercross Event

* What: First round of 16-event EA Sports Supercross season.

* Where: Edison Field.

* When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Gates open at 12:30 for practice.

* Main events: 20 laps for 250cc final, 15 laps for 125cc support class.

* Defending 250cc series and race champion: Jeremy McGrath.

* Promoter: SFX Motor Sports Group, sanctioned by American Motorcyclist Assn.

* Tickets: $75, $40 and $25; 12 and under, $10. Available at Ticketmaster and Edison Field box office.

* Web site information: https://www.pacesupercross.com.