Travis Pastrana has announced his planned schedule for racing this year with his first race in the NASCAR Nationwide Series being on July 30th at Indianapolis – not the fabled oval used by the Indycars and Sprint Cup Series but the newly renamed Lucas Oil Raceway (formerly Indianapolis Raceway Park).
Not being one to shirk a challenge Pastrana also intends taking part in the X-Games that weekend in Los Angeles. He will compete in California on July 28th and 29th then fly to Indianapolis for the race, then immediately return to LA to complete the X-Games in which he has won multiple gold medals.
Following that Pastrana will race at Richmond on September 9th, in October will race on the first two successive weekends at Dover followed by Kansas, and finally will complete the season with the last three races of the year at Texas, Phoenix and Homestead-Miami which will close the season on November 19th.
His Nationwide racing will be sponsored by Boost Mobile, a cell phone network provider, or no contact service provider as they describe themselves, and Samsung Mobile, the telephone maufacturer. The colour scheme for his car has a basically black background with silver-grey emblems, such as crankshafts, checkered flags, monster trucks and no right turn signs painted on it. For such a simple idea it is remarkably effective and shows again the imagination that exists in the Pastrana camp, first seen in the funny video announcing his intention to race in NASCAR. Take a look at www.pastranawaltrip.com to see what I’m talking about.
Pastrana has also announced that he plans to run in at least twenty races in the Nationwide Series in 2012.
Pastrana unveiled his Boost Mobile backed car in LA
Before then he will race in some of the junior series to build up some experience, knowledge and race craft starting on Sunday in the K&N Pro Series Toyota All-Star Showdown at Irwindale Speedway, California which sees the drivers in the K&N Pro Series East and Pro Series West race against each other. Pastrana will have his work cut out achieving a decent result here as he races against seasoned drivers who have a chance to make a name for themselves at this showcase event. To that end Pastrana has been practising recently at New Smyrna Speedway, Florida in his K&N Pro Series East car.
Travis Pastrana is a first class showman, extremely adept at whatever he attempts, be it flipping a motorbike 720 degrees in the air, motocross or rallying at a national level. He always seems to be having fun and not taking life too seriously but don’t be fooled. Whatever he is doing he wants to be the best. He’s the first to admit he is on a steep learning curve racing in NASCAR but failing isn’t a word he comprehends. However long it takes him Pastrana will be good at this.
