Global motor racing and action sports superstar Travis Pastrana is locked in for next year’s Race Of Champions event at Accor Stadium in Sydney Olympic Park from March 7-8.
The YouTube sensation is regarded as one of the most versatile competitors in world sports and has a long and affectionate connection with Australian fans, having visited the country several times with his Nitro Circus tour.
Pastrana will make up one of half of Team U.S.A. with his teammate set to be confirmed in the coming weeks.
“When Fredrik [Johnsson] contacted me and told me that the Race Of Champions was headed to Sydney, that just felt right; one of my favorite events in one of my favourite countries,” said Pastrana.
“The ROC is a great concept and I think the Australian fans will love it.
“I have some unfinished business in ROC and I would love nothing more than to win my first Champion of Champions title and help Team USA win the ROC Nations Cup in Australia, which is almost like a second home to me.
“We are very close to confirming my teammate for the event and I would like to think we will have a serious shot at finally winning the Nations Cup for Team USA after coming close several times.”
The 41 year-old American became the youngest freestyle motocross world champion at the age of 14 and stunned the X Games by becoming the first rider ever to nail a double backflip.
Pastrana has won 11 X Games gold medals in a range of disciplines including motocross, supercross, freestyle motocross, rallying and offshore powerboat racing.
He is a six-time Rally America champion, won the first Nitro Rallycoss title in 2021, and has also competed in Global RallyCross, Monster Jam and NASCAR.
Pastrana will be making his 10th Race Of Champions appearance and has his sights clearly set on his first “Champion of Champions” title to add to his incredible list of career achievements.
In 2005, Pastrana made it to the ROC semi-finals where he was knocked out by Frenchman Sébastien Loeb in the Citroën rally car Loeb had won the world title with. That was despite driving with a broken leg sustained in a freestyle motocross exhibition jump at the same event.
The next year he single-handedly took Team USA to the ROC Nations Cup final after Jimmie Johnson and his replacement Scott Speed were injured just before the event.
In 2009, alongside teammate Tanner Foust, he led Team U.S.A. to the semi-finals of the ROC Nations Cup, ultimately facing Team Germany, represented by Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher, who went on to win that year’s competition.
2011 saw Pastrana again prove his versatility when he switched his attention to NASCAR where he is still competing part-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
He drove in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2012 and 2013 and made an incredible debut in the NASCAR Cup Series at last year’s Daytona 500 where he finished 11th in the No. 67 Toyota Camry for 23XI Racing after leading the race at one stage.
In 2022 he teamed with British racer Steve Curtis to win the Class 1 World Powerboat Championship.
To add to the craziness, in 2007 Pastrana jumped out of an airplane over Arecibo, Puerto Rico, without a parachute in a carefully choreographed stunt. He met up in midair with another jumper, then latched himself into a harness to make a safe tandem landing.
Pastrana paid tribute to his boyhood hero, the legendary stuntman Evel Knievel, by breaking a few of his motorcycle jump records. In 2018, in Las Vegas, Pastrana safely cleared three record-breaking big jumps, which consisted of 52 cars, 16 buses and a fountain respectively, for a total of 148m (484 feet) of jumps in a single night.
The first jump over the cars was at 44m (143 feet), the second jump over the buses was at 59m (192 feet) and the third was over the Caesar’s Palace Fountain — a jump that Knievel himself was unable to land in 1967 — was at 45m (149 feet).
The announcement of Pastrana for March’s Sydney event comes on the back of the confirmation of nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb and Kiwi rally ace Hayden Paddon last week.
They join the German “super team” of four-time Formula 1 champion Sebastian Vettel, F-2 champion Mick Schumacher and seven-time Australian Supercars champion Jamie Whincup.
The 2025 Race Of Champions will run over two nights with a purpose-built 1km tarmac track taking centre stage at Accor Stadium, Sydney’s Olympic Stadium.