Pastrana recalls NASCAR days
Daredevil briefly drove in Xfinity, Truck series
After flying over the fountains at Caesars Palace Sunday night and sticking the landing, Travis Pastrana was talking about how special Las Vegas has been to him.
How he had proposed to his wife here, had his first Nitro Circus show here. How he had jumped 52 crushed cars and 16 Greyhound buses and those iconic fountains in a tribute to his hero,
Evel Knievel.
The History channel had to wrap it up before he could talk about passing Dale Earnhardt Jr. here.
It happened during a 2013 Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“It was my first nonrestrictor plate race top 10,” the action sports star, 34, said with an engaging smile in recalling his brief NASCAR career that encompassed 42 Xfinity and three Truck Series starts.
He was 29 then, late for a NASCAR driver to be breaking in. He ran all 33 Xfinity races for noted car owner Jack Roush with average starting and finishing positions of 17 and 21.3. He was hoping for a little better, of course.
“I find that my talent is making the best of a (bad) situation,” he said.
“In rally, you come over a hill, full-lock drift, between a gate. You’ve got a 100-foot cliff on one side, you might have trees on the other, you might have busted out lights and you gotta figure out how to make that work. Could be snowing, could be raining, could be mud, could be pavement — you might have them all the same day.
“So you’re not dialing a setup. It’s not like trying to find that half a tenth
of a second per lap. It’s not as meticulous as NASCAR on pavement.”
Pastrana said he was well-received by the NASCAR drivers, and other than losing a bunch of his own money, he has no regrets about spinning wheels on the big-time stock car circuit.
“The best way to end up a millionaire is to start with two and go racing,” Pastrana said, his smile still on full-lock drift.
Schmidt team wins
Who says Sam Schmidt’s Indycar team isn’t fast on the ovals?
Seven weeks after being bumped out of the Indianapolis 500 for being too slow, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver James Hinchcliffe won the Iowa Corn 300, presenting Schmidt, his car owner and a longtime resident of Henderson, with his first victory on an oval track.
Because of a crash the race finished under the yellow flag, which NASCAR Camping World Truck
What: Buckle Up In Your Truck 225 Where: Sparta, Kentucky; Kentucky Speedway (225 miles, 150 laps).
Schedule: Thursday, practice, 6:05, 8:05 a.m., qualifying, 2:10 p.m., FS1, race, 4:30 p.m., FS1
Last year: Christopher Bell won for the second time in four races.
Last race: Brett Moffitt won for the second time in three starts at Chicagoland. Verizon Indycar
What: Honda Indy Toronto.
Where: Streets of Toronto (1.786 miles; 151.8 miles, 85 laps).
When: Friday, practice, 7:40, 11:30 a.m.; Saturday, practice, 6:50 a.m., qualifying, 10:55 a.m., Sunday, race, noon, NBCSN
Last year: Josef Newgarden led 58 of 85 laps to win in Toronto.