Travis Pastrana is Evel incarnate
Modern-day daredevil to recreate Knievel’s legendary jumps in just one day
Travis Pastrana is the closest thing we have today to the iconic daredevils of 1960s and ’70s Americana.
The 34-year-old from Maryland has won multiple world championships and gold medals in supercross, motocross, freestyle motocross, and rally racing, but has gained even more fame for his stunts. His Nitro Circus commands 2.1 million fans on Instagram alone, while his personal account pulls in 2.8 million followers. They also witness his injuries, including literally hundreds of broken bones over the years.
“Pastrami,” as his fans call him, possesses the kind of steely nerve you’d expect in an assassin or a cryptocurrency trader.
But he still sometimes feels like a wuss. “I don’t think Evel would have even tested out the jump, so I feel like a sissy already,” Pastrana says, calling from his home in Annapolis, Md. But, he admits, “The goal is to live through this.”
By “this,” he means a threehour History Channel special in which he attempts to pull off Evel Knievel’s three most famous stunts one after the other on live television: hurling a motorcycle over 50 crunched cars; again over 14 tour buses; and finally over the Caesars Palace fountain — the jump that resulted in a near-fatal crash for Knievel.
Pastrana is going all out for the July 8 event, filmed live in Las Vegas, including riding a modern-day but retro-styled Indian Scout ; it will be significantly heavier and more difficult to manoeuvre than the featherlight dirt bikes Pastrana usually rides.
Roland Sands, the architect behind the Super Hooligan crew, is overseeing many of the logistics of the operation, which in the sole nod to modernity will include fitting the 750cc V-twin Scout FTR750 with an Ohlin monoshock on the rear. This is more about history than just some jumps, Sands said. It’s about honouring a legend
“There’s not a lot of stuff that Travis doesn’t think he can do, and that came from somewhere,” Sands said. “Watching Evel when we grew up, at the time we all thought he was insane, but we also wanted to be him. He gave a guy like Travis the belief the he could do things. He fired all of our imaginations.”
Sands will also be providing the costume — white leather suit, heeled boots, and, yes, cape, all in American-made leather — that Pastrana will wear for the feat. Apparently the man doesn’t exactly go halfway in anything, let alone entertainment value.
“With all the leathers and the gloves and the helmet that you can barely see out of, it’s kind of shooting yourself in the foot!” Pastrana said with a laugh. “But it’s what Evel would have done.”
Evel, as you might expect, was a determinant force for young Pastrana, who said his entire life was based around the guy
“This is us trying to go as big as we possibly can on machinery as close to Evel’s as possible, giving thanks to him for starting the industry and the culture.”
More crucially for Indian Motorcycles, which is footing the bill for the three-hour TV special, the stunt is a way to incite younger people to get out and ride.
Where the industry at large has suffered declining sales for years, due most prominently to an aging consumer base, pockets of passionate riders are growing like weeds around flat-track races, hooligan gatherings and café-racer rallies.
The whole point about recreating the jumps is to show the next generation “that how all this started was from a salesman who had the brass to back it up,” Pastrana said. (Knievel famously started doing stunts to prove the worth of the motorcycles he was selling out of a backwoods shop in Washington in the early 1960s.)
Pastrana said he has seen a massive change in popularity since growing up as a kid obsessed with skateboards and BMX bikes. They provide an outlet to millennials who grew up loving speed, height, jumping, and sliding.
“This old style of bike has a huge appeal for people who want to go out and want to challenge themselves and work on things themselves,” he said. “So many vehicles are impossible to work on. But these bikes are workable. You can change and modify and do everything yourself — they let you get down in the dirt, and I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
Sands was rather more succinct: “It’s as real as it gets. There’s nothing more real than putting your ass on the line and riding a motorcycle fast.”
As for those preliminary tests, Pastrana will prepare by taking a few test runs in the dirt this week in California. And not much else. No special running or weightlifting or even stretching, for that matter.
“It’ll be July in Vegas — I’ll already be pretty warm,” said Pastrana, who admittedly is already in exceptional shape due to a lifestyle of constant riding, racing and jumping. As for breakfast the day of, it might be some cereal or eggs. In the end, it doesn’t really matter, he said. The main thing will be not to forget to eat it.
The way he sees it, preparing by doing much more wouldn’t be sporting.
“It’ll be very difficult to do three jumps in a row, especially with the same motorcycle,” Pastrana told me.
The wear alone makes each subsequent jump more dangerous.
“You’re jumping up and down two stories from takeoff to landing. Going as fast as the bike can go, we’ll just barely make it. But as a human spirit, you do want to put yourself in a situation where you feel like it matters.”
Evel Live premieres Sunday, July 8 at 8 p.m. on the History Channel.