TRAVIS PASTRANA, No. 99 Boost Mobile Toyota Camry, Pastrana-Waltrip Racing Have you developed any strong relationships in NASCAR? “For me, the guys that I didn’t know that well coming into this season — Brett Moffitt, he’s younger, but has offered so much help. He has sacrificed a lot of his practice sessions and a lot of his time to go not only to tests with me, but to give some feedback and lap times in his car so we know we’re on par. Also, at the races last weekend in Loudon (N.H.) — he held back and waited for me in practice and the first couple of laps he got me up to speed before he took off and started working on his car. Matt Crafton, we’re so competitive on everything that we do. We’ll go out all day, it’s 100 degrees outside and 130 in the car all day long and we’re not going to sleep, we’re finding a go-kart track in town to try to figure out how to race each other. I think that’s been pretty cool. The top guys like Jimmie Johnson have been a pretty close friend as well as Brian Vickers and the whole Red Bull family has been really cool as well.”
What expectations do you have for Indianapolis? “I’m going to try to go out to Indy like I did at Irwindale and really don’t have expectations. I have to drive the car the best that I can drive it without overdriving it. Honestly, judging off of the K&N races, we’re going to be mid- to back of the pack. If we get a top-20, I shouldn’t say happy because no driver is ever happy unless they are on top of the podium, but that would be really good for us. I would like to stay on the lead lap and I think that’s going to be a difficult goal. That means we’ll have to keep the car together. I have a tendency to overdrive the cars and they said that at this track it’s really hot and it has a tendency to wear the tires out really quickly. If I drive like I normally drive, I might be competitive for 10 laps and then I’m going to be five laps down before we go to the first pit. I’ll need to slow myself down to be more competitive.”
What is your overall goal for your Nationwide races this season? “I want to learn something every race. I want to make improvements every race. Even if those improvements aren’t in the results, I want to be as competitive as we possibly can be with the experience we have. I was talking with Jimmie Johnson the other day and asked him if he had any tips or how he can help me. He said, ‘Look, I could tell you a lot of stuff, but the bottom line is seat time.’ It is what it is and our starting point, we had hoped, would be a little bit higher just because everything that I’ve ever jumped into in my entire life, I’ve been competitive. I’ve never necessarily been as good right off the bat, but I’ve always been able to make up time doing something stupid. You can go through the whoops and just pin it and you make up two seconds. You take a risk on Rally cars and you can make up time. There’s really no risk that I could take in this car to make up time. That’s going to be difficult.”
How do you plan to earn respect on the race track? “I think for me to earn respect is just going to be not crashing out and not making stupid moves on the first couple laps. Not making the rookie mistakes that I’m sure I’m going to make. I’m sure at the same time — everyone is kind of expecting what every rookie does when they come in. There’s going to be things that I’m going to have to learn along the way. (Brian) Vickers, I asked him what he can recommend. He said, ‘I don’t know, just get as much seat time as you can and you’re going to hit a lot of walls and you’re going to piss a lot of people off on your way to making it.’ He said if you can withstand the criticism and if you can learn something every weekend — you’ve figured it out in everything else and you’ll figure it out in this.”
What has been the biggest surprise in NASCAR? “I didn’t really know what to expect coming into NASCAR and I really had an open mind. I think the biggest surprise was how many people are really, really good at driving stock cars. There’s probably 60 or 70 year olds that have more experience that could be competitive. There’s 17-year-olds that have been beating me in the K&N Series. There is such a wide angle. It’s about finding that balance and the team and understanding what the car is doing and how to make it better and how to relay that information. For me, like with motocross, there are 30 guys in the world that are decent and really if you’re the best you can go to any track around the entire world and you could dominate on any bike. Get a stock bike out of the showroom floor and you could win anywhere against anyone — with stock cars, it’s not the case. You go to any hometown track anywhere around the world and there’s going to be someone that’s going to give pretty much anyone a run for their money. That’s been difficult.”
What is the biggest challenge for you in NASCAR? “For me, from what I’ve gathered so far, the biggest challenge is going to be just getting the seat time. I knew this first year was going to be tough because we’ve had so much else going on. With great sponsors like Toyota, Boost Samsung and Waltrip — I have the people in place to be able to get the seat time and really be able to learn this faster than someone without the background that I have coming in. I just have to take this, utilize this awesome opportunity and when it comes down to it, I’ve put a lot of stuff on hold or stopped and I’m willing to do that because I want to figure out how to make this car go faster than all the other cars that I’m racing on the track.”
TRAVIS PASTRANA, No. 99 Boost Mobile Toyota Camry, Pastrana-Waltrip Racing (continued) Has it been difficult to communicate changes you want made in the cars? “What’s interesting is that with a motorcycle, it’s pretty simple — there’s not a lot of lateral because you pretty much have up and down — compression, rebound in the suspension is fairly similar. The terminology is exactly opposite. We say with Rally under steer and over steer. With NASCAR, it’s loose and tight. With motocross, you say tucking or kicking out. I’m speaking all three of these languages and I’m trying to explain to the guys like I’m coming in the pits and I’m like, ‘It’s doing this, this and this.’ And they’re like, ‘Okay, can you speak NASCAR?’ It’s like a kid that learns three different languages and doesn’t know which one to use. My communication skills are lackluster at best.”
Do you think you might bring a younger audience to NASCAR? “I think it definitely could, but bottom line, I have to do well. There’s been a lot of motocross that have switched over. I was thinking that Jeff Ward got second at the Indy 500. You had Rick Johnson has won the Baja 1000, there’s CORR truck championships and this and that. NASCAR obviously being the biggest of those switches. You have a couple guys that are trying to get into it now from moto, and they’re all struggling, but it’s not to say they won’t make it. The guys with perseverance are thinking — I didn’t watch a lot of Truck races. Not to be that, I have always watched the Cup and when (Ricky) Carmichael started running the Trucks, I’m not best friends with Ricky Carmichael or anything, but I just wanted to see how that was going to pan out. I still, I’ll watch — now I know Matt Crafton, so I watch a lot more Truck racing and obviously I’m trying to learn as best I can, so I watch a lot of races. But, that’s something that a lot of kids come up to me and say, ‘Hey, good luck with NASCAR,’ and that’s something that I thought I’d see. Like and eight-year-old kid with a DC hat and a skater, not to say punk, but that stereotype and super pumped on sitting down with their dad or whatever and watching NASCAR. I think that’s a cool aspect, but if I don’t do well, it’s not going to matter.”
How will you stay true to yourself while trying to make it in NASCAR? “People always saw me in motocross as a checker or wrecker kind of guy, that’s kind of the way I’ve been all the way through. That brand, if you will, will have to change a little bit because it’s not about taking risks to go faster. In NASCAR, I’ve found the more risks I take, the slower I go. So, this is going to be a problem. But, it’s also going to be a new challenge. Some people, they’re like, ‘You’re either going to be first or last, you’re going to just go in the corners harder,’ but it doesn’t relate to lap times. I think a lot of people are going to be like, ‘Why don’t you crash out trying, that’s what you’ve always done. Just get up front and do what it takes.’ I think this is going to be the least true to brand that I’ve ever been, but at the same time, if you can find a way to make it work, find a way to get to the front, that brand stays true.”
How would you define failing? “Failing would be in two years to give up. Failing would be not getting results you wanted and quitting before you ran your course. For me, if I work as hard as I can, I try as hard as I can, and I do put all the resources that I have around me into place, and if I’m not good enough, then although it’s a failure in to where I would have hoped to have been, there’s nothing on the table — there’s no regrets there. So, for me, the failure is to later down the road think ‘what if?’ People say, ‘What if you would have done motocross?’ But you know what, I wasn’t happy there — I’m happy here. This is where my passion’s working. What if this works?”
What did the email you sent after New Hampshire say? “After most races, I send the team — there’s an entire team — there’s literally 30 people that have been helping. More than that, but 30 close people from coaches to engineers to crews — everybody is really focused on doing the best they can. They gave me so much — they gave me the best car on that race track when we started practice and they gave me everything. We went out and in the second lap of the race, I messed up my qualifying and we started in the back, hit the wall and went all the way to the back to fix the car, make sure we had a perfect car. I went around and made it three-wide on the second lap and hit a wall and put the toe out for two inches on the front which basically didn’t end our night, but it ended our night. All the work they had put it, I said, ‘Look, I’m going to go out, try my best and I’m going to learn and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry that I was aggressive and I’m going to try to learn from my mistakes and I sincerely appreciate all the work that you’ve put into it. I know we’re not starting, we’ve done five races now.’ After a certain point, you go maybe the results we’re getting might actually be where our starting point is. After every race we have an excuse, we really think we should have done better, we know we could have done better, but if this is our starting point, I’m not scared. Don’t keep coming up to me and going, ‘It’s okay, imagine if these guys were on a motocross track.’ We’re not a motocross track, these guys aren’t trying to race motocross — I’m trying to race cars, I’m trying to do the best I can and if you have something that you think could help in any way shape or form, don’t worry about my ego, man — lay it on me. Let’s learn as much as we can and let’s start from where we are, not would have, should have, could have. This is what you did wrong — this is what you could have done better. I’ll take as much criticism as I can get and make it as far as we can because I think we can do it.”
TRAVIS PASTRANA, No. 99 Boost Mobile Toyota Camry, Pastrana-Waltrip Racing (continued) How did you go from the action sports path to NASCAR? “There’s no all of a suddens — there’s no overnights. That’s for sure. For me, it was competition. The most competitive sport that I had a possibility of doing is NASCAR. The top drivers in the U.S. are in NASCAR. Every time I won a Rally race everyone would go, ‘Oh yeah, but you know what there’s not a lot of good American drivers in Rally. Most of the top American drivers are in NASCAR.’ They’re like, ‘You won the equivalent of winning the Australian baseball championships or whatever.’ Not to say that there’s not amazing drivers in the U.S. Rally, because there are and there’s great competition. It’s not to say I dominated by any means, but we’ve won over here whether it lucky, whether it’s good or whatever you want to say. Where can we go from here? What’s the next challenge and what’s the biggest challenge that we can undertake right now and leveraging what we have behind us? The amount of sponsorship that we could possibly get, the amount of fans that we could possibly bring. Let’s do the best we can. Let’s shoot for the moon. The worst would be a shooting star. Crap, we’ll take it.”
Will NASCAR become your focus once you are done filming? “After we’re done filming I can sit down, come to the shop, live here — eat, sleep, breathe NASCAR. Honestly, I don’t know what half of the adjustments do in the car still. I can drive the car right, but when it comes down to it I need to be more familiar with the equipment, I need to be more familiar with the crew, I need to have more seat time and that’s what we’re going to get.”
