Friday 4 April 2014 the western weekender • west life
entertainment
2
COVER STORY
It’s a family affair for extreme sports icon Travis Pastrana Far from your “hooligan” stereotype, freestyle motocross champion Travis Pastrana says the sport has an incredible, supportive atmosphere that draws fans in their millions. Plus there’s the wicked tricks too.
xtreme sports may have once had a bad-boy reputation but Nitro Circus frontman and champion motocross rider Travis Pastrana is set on changing that.
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SHANNON COCHRANE @shanc_91
The well-known motorsports figure will be visiting Australia next month to tour with his show Nitro Circus Live, which will be coming to Sydney’s Allphones Arena on Friday, May 23 and Saturday, May 24. The show features Pastrana and a crew of talented action sports stars taking to the stage to perform impressively dangerous stunts and tricks. Nitro Circus has toured extensively before but the upcoming show promises to be even bigger and better with a multimillion dollar set and exciting new stunts to impress fans. “For us it’s all about the people you put together... we have about 40 of the best athletes in the world and when they come together, it’s just one big explosion of people trying to push themselves and when that happens, you’re going to get entertainment,” Pastrana said. The Nitro Circus team will also get to enjoy Sydney while they film on location for their action sport themed television show. “The TV show allows us to really go around and have fun on our off days and for us, that’s just a win-win, because it’s good promotion for the show and it’s good fun for us,” Pastrana said. While there’s no denying that the risky stunts performed at Nitro Circus shouldn’t be copied at home, Pastrana believes that the positive, energetic atmosphere at the show makes it family friendly. He said that although he receives the occasional complaint, most feedback is positive and some parents are grateful to Nitro Circus for inspiring children to put down the video games and be more active. “I just figure that if I can be the best person I can be, and we surround ourselves at Nitro Circus with a bunch of passionate guys that are just really positive people, they’re going to do their best to represent our sports well,” he said. “I think action sports, at the beginning, had a reputation for hooligans and destruction... if we’re going to get in trouble for something, it’s going to be base jumping off a building or something that hopefully doesn’t hurt anybody else,” he joked. For Pastrana, a love of action sports began during childhood, with both of his parents racing motorcycles and bringing him along to races on the weekend. Despite doing well in races and competitions, Pastrana found that he wasn’t
Life doesn’t have to be all work, but you do have to work hard
truly fulfilled in his sports career – until he found freestyle motocross and the supportive spirit that came with it. “I started hanging out with some of the freestyle guys and it was such a different atmosphere. When you go to X Games and your biggest competition is cheering you on, it was something that was different to the mentality I was brought up with,” he said. He branched out into creating the Nitro Circus franchise without realising how successful it would become, and said that he believes the passion and energetic spirit is what attracts fans. “I think the reason it’s been so successful is people can genuinely see the passion. A lot of times, we’ll completely stop the show because someone on a tricycle or a boogie board did a trick that they’ve been trying maybe for a year, maybe two years, and with that they landed and we’re all so excited and we’re running out on the field,” he said. “People watching the show, they get amped up, they’re like ‘I don’t know what happened but you guys were fired up for this guy on the scooter,’ so it’s pretty cool.” Regardless of Pastrana’s obvious enthusiasm for the sport, he recently had a three year hiatus from freestyle motocross due to injuries, pursuing NASCAR racing while his knees and ankles healed.
Returning to Nitro Circus was also a choice influenced by family matters, with Pastrana’s professional skateboarder wife Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins enjoying the experience of touring. “The [NASCAR] racing for her, she had to really take a backseat, she was awesome and to be that supportive wife was something that she would do, but I can just see the passion and that smile on her face when she’s skating down that ramp,” he said. Pastrana also hopes that to bring up his six-month-old daughter around the warm, positive environment of freestyle motocross. “I’d rather her see that her parents wake up every morning with a smile on their faces and they follow their dreams and I hope that she sees the passion in the people around her,” he said. “I don’t mind if she’s a doctor or an artist or whatever she may pick up, she’ll definitely have the option to take up action sport if she’d like to. For me it’s just really important as a parent that she sees that life doesn’t have to be all work, but you do have to work hard.” Nitro Circus Live will tour at Allphones Arena on Friday, May 23 and Saturday, May 24. For bookings or more information, visit www.nitrocircuslive.com or www.ticketek.com.au.