The Nationwide series kicks off the weekend tonight at Richmond International Raceway. Travis Pastrana is set to hop back in the saddle once again to make his Nationwide debut, after is was postponed due to an X Games accident at the Los Angeles Arena last year while doing a trick on his dirt bike.
His ankle was shattered into about 20 pieces during that accident, so it wasn’t your typical break. It has taken Pastrana about 9 months to recover from his injuries and countless hours of rehab.
Travis said that he has been spending a ton of time in the iRacing Machine track simulator, to try to prepare for the Virginia 529 College Savings 250 that will run tonight at RIR.
Pastrana also went on to say that he’s a little more prepared now then he would have been last year, and that he didn’t fully understand the language that the drivers use to describe set-ups and how the car may be handling. During his time off he watched more of the sport to educate himself on what the drivers were talking about when describing different scenarios and situations.
Another thing that they had to fix was, when Travis sat in the cock pit of his race car they had to relocate the gas pedal in relation to his repaired ankle so that he could get on and off of the throttle easier while out on the race track.
He said that he would he happy to finish his first race and to stay out of trouble by not hitting the wall or a fellow competitor.
It’s really unfortunate to see such an exciting motorsports star go from rally/motocross/rally cross/nitro circus shenanigans to wasting his time in the racing equivalent of watching paint dry (i.e. NASCAR)
Pastrana had a great run on Friday in the Nationwide Series. He accomplished what he had set out to do, and that was stay out of trouble, not hit the wall and finish the race.
He even ran in the top 20 for most of the night,finishing 22nd right behind Danica Patrick.