Photo is courtesy Subaru
We recently caught up with one of Maryland’s most famous personalities, Travis Pastrana, and his newest venture, Circuit 199.
Any fan of action sports will know the name. Travis Pastrana was born in Maryland and by four years old was already riding motorcycle. He knew early on that motorsports were his calling. By 1998, Pastrana served notice of his versatility; the then fourteen year-old secured the world freestyle motocross championship and he was only getting started.
Pastrana’s hard work and dedication to success continued into the early 2000s racking up numerous Supercross and Motocross podiums as well as representing the USA and being part of the 2000 Motocross des Nations winning team. In 2001, Pastrana was awarded Motocross Rider of the Year at the ESPN Action Sports & Music Awards and has since accumulated 17 X Games medals, including 11 gold medals, plus five golds from the Gravity Games, and more wins at other events such as Dew Tour and Red Bull X- Fighters.
Pastrana remains active in motorsports where he continues to race rally and rallycross for team Subaru USA and competes in off-shore racing with team Miss Geico. He can also be found on one-off TV specials such as HISTORY’s Evel Live, co-hosting Nitro World Games, and working on passion projects such as ‘Race to Rebuild,’ a Puerto Rico relief project which recently aired on ESPN 2.
Circuit 199 will be a future, state of the art racing facility, motorsports park and entertainment venue where everyone from true beginners to Tier 1 athletes can pursue their passions and progress as safely as possible. Circuit 199’s facilities plan to include a next generation paved rallycross course, an action sports progression park, and a year-round bicycle, skateboard, and scooter facility.
We learned all about Circuit 199, having talked with Pastrana late last week.
James Houck: Are you back in Maryland right now?
Travis Pastrana: Yeah, I've been in Maryland for a couple months now. Honestly, it's time that I would never have had because of all the traveling, but to do it here without my wife doing her skate contests or me doing rally or whatever. It was time that I wouldn't have had, so that's always a positive.
James Houck: Good, good. And has COVID just totally delayed all of these projects and whatnot? Has that been kind of tough for you?
Travis Pastrana: Well, it's interesting because with Nitro Circus, it's mostly a touring company, and that's not good for sure. But, we've really been kind of pushed into doing more from the media side of it, which having, kind of my backyard, we've been able to... And when I say film commercials, I'm talking iPhones with my wife and my mother-in-law, and one of the other guys that quarantined with us here. But, we've been able to do a lot of more kind of low budget stuff, just to fill the void. So it's honestly been more work.
But, as far as the racing, man, I had the best racing year ever scheduled, and now I've got so many overlapping events between different boat racing and car racing. So we'll see how the year goes.
James Houck: Oh, I hope it gets going for you. Well, let's talk about Circuit 199. So let's just dive right in. Tell me a little bit about what it is exactly.
Travis Pastrana: Yeah, well, no, I really appreciate it. That's honestly, what kind of wanted to talk to you guys about was more just, there's a lot of misinformation out there on, "Aw, they're bringing a motocross track. There's going to be dust, there's going to be this." My main goal is to put rally cross on the map. This is going to be a motor sports park. Definitely state of the art racing facility and also be an entertainment venue.
And because selfishly, I want to do stuff with my wife and kids and be in Maryland, we picked Sudlersville to do this. It was a town that has a high school that I think could really benefit from... We're going to have a pump track out there that's free of charge year round. My wife, she does a lot of stuff for Women's Sports Foundation. So hopefully get a lot more girls and just kids, on the pump track into action sports.
And just, I guess starting from zero, pump track is basically your entry-level BMX track, if you will. So it's good. My kids started on it when they were two on little Strider bikes. But with Red Bull and Hyper Bicycles, basically we're sitting on G, waiting on O to put in the World Championship, the final round of the World Championships right here in Sudlersville, which is, it's not a huge crowd or anything, but you're looking at maybe, 8,000, 10,000 people come out to ride bicycles, which is pretty neat. So it should be good for the community to have that.
But, for me specifically, trying to do this rally cross track and just to show the world what can be done with Nitro Rallycross, we started with one event out in Salt Lake City, Utah. But it's tough to work at someone else's track, and you didn't really have the funding to do it paved and to cut the dust down like who wanted to. And the jumps. We got to have a proving ground to show people that we can build big jumps, and huge Talladega bank's rights and lefts, but to do it safely.
So, to have it in our backyard, to have some of the world's top drivers from all different disciplines, come over and really start a new sport. That's definitely my main goal. And to be able to build it from the ground up. We'll have everything from kids, go-karts... kid go-kart racing, all the way to side by sides, which is a lower, less expensive form of racing, all the way up to supercars. And definitely working with everything to try to go electric as much as possible. I think within the next... Definitely next year, we're starting our main supercar class it's going to be electric SUVs that do 0 to 60 in one second.
James Houck: What?
Travis Pastrana: And they make no noise, except for the tire squeal. So it's going to be pretty rad.
James Houck: You got to be kidding me, that's crazy. Well, that's really cool. So there's like an eco-conscious element there. Who would've thought? You got to be kidding me.
Travis Pastrana: No, and that's where all the manufacturers are going. So all the go-karts and everything now, from the ground up... I actually worked with Rotax, who does the World Championship for electric karting. So, working with the motorcycles that hopefully go almost all electric here for the next couple of years. But all the car manufacturers are really pushing electric direction, and they're pushing small SUV direction. So, our job is to make electric and SUV cool.
James Houck: So it sounds like to me, you were looking to create almost like a home base, if you will. You tour a lot and all that, and maybe... I don't know, you tell me. What was the dream there? What was the inspiration? Just to kind of get back home and create this awesome facility?
Travis Pastrana: Yeah, well, starting two years ago, we were traveling on tour a lot. And it's every single guy in their early twenties' dream, travel the world with your best friends, but it became family. Now I've got my wife and we started... It was fun with the kids, but my oldest is going into first grade next year and our youngest is going into kindergarten, and we're not going to be able to travel as much. Lyn-Z, my wife won the World Championship last year, in 2019, and pretty much, as soon as that was done, she said, "Look, I have to be home more and we have to establish a home base."
And that was, not to say the last hurrah, she still skates every day, but... And she works with Women's Sports Foundation and that kind of stuff, like I was saying.
And so my goal is to be able to build this facility where I can still help Nitro Circus, I can still progress, I can still do what I love to do, but I can do it with my kids. Because we're always at the Chesapeake BMX. My kids love the pump track and that kind of stuff, and they love go-karts. And I'm like, "Man, if we could just kind of put all this together, selfishly, that would be awesome." And then, we get a lot of, they're like, "Well, why Maryland, why Eastern Shore? Why not to go to Dover or somewhere else?" I'm like, "Man, I'm from Maryland. Crab cakes, football, action sports and Olympic gold medals, that's what Maryland does.
James Houck: There you go. So you sited out the project, you actually found a good location that suits you? How'd that come together and how's the permitting and all that coming along?
Travis Pastrana: Well, that's an interesting part. We were really hoping to be up by this Fall, at least the pump track, just to give the community just, like I said, free of charge, open year round, weather permitting. We got... Hyper Bicycles and Red Bull is fully on board too, basically support the local community and to try to... Actually, the first kid from Eastern Shore, just this last year, got a full scholarship to college on mountain bike. So there's a pretty good mountain bike program over there, build some skills parks and stuff.
But we ended up in Sudlersville because they need a big project go in; they overextended themselves on a, basically a sewage and waste management facility. So they're like, "Hey, this town really need something else in here.
So we went there and talked to the firehouse and they were pumped. And have some friends that are actually out there that all ride four wheelers and stuff. And they were like, "You know what? This is perfect, because we got our schools right in here. We've got a few hundred students that could use, as the main facility, literally just ride a bicycle right out the back of the school and they can have this pump track open to them year round." And I was like, "Yeah, this is going to be great." And then, I guess there's an anti-growth organization over there.
James Houck: Ah.
Travis Pastrana: I know that's what, "Ah." That's what I got, everybody... But I went and I talked to some of the guys and I was like, "All right, well it sounds like they're pretty reasonable." It said they want to promote sustainable growth. And, we put in our first proposal and they put a lawsuit against the town for trying to build a new motocross track. I'm like, "We're not even trying to build a motor cross track. It's all paved, there's no dust." And I'm like, "Well, you guys don't even know what you're fighting."
James Houck: Right.
Travis Pastrana: Honestly, if they... But the problem is that something has to go in there, and the town's so for it. Ford, the president of the town is, he's like, "Why haven't you guys broken ground yet?" I'm like, "Well, because I can't get investors until we know that we can... Till we have Ts crossed and the Is dotted." So I guess, if anything, just to get that out there that, hey, this isn't a motocross track. There's not going to be dust. We're trying to go electric. It's for the community.
It's been tough to really get out there and get an audience with anybody because of COVID. I would have loved to have basically gone door to door, which we did with the Annapolis show. And that was, the Navy Marine Corp Memorial Stadium, I think, was a great example of, people just assuming that it was a bunch of hoodlums and delinquents coming in, and not realizing that action sports is, it's the Olympics. And there's skateboarding, there's BMX in the Olympics. My house right now is the main training ground for most of the top athletes in the world that come here to learn in the safest way possible.
And that's another reason why we're doing this and I want to do it somewhere close to home, and in Maryland, not in a different country or a different state. But, is to get... When we have 30 guys staying at our house training for Olympics and training for world championships or X Games or Nitro World Games, it's hard to have the family time, the quality time that I like. So to have this where we could still help progress these guys safely, and build the next generation coming into the sports, give them a platform to do it, but also to have more family time where we can go into the facility and also go back home where I can just be with the family.
James Houck: Right. It sounds like educating the public right now is kind of a top priority, it's probably one of the reasons you're doing this interview. Have you had a chance to really get out there? I know you said you can't, because of obviously, everything going on, but are you trying to get the word out? Is that sort of the main thrust right now?
Travis Pastrana: Yeah, main goal. Literally, there's a lawsuit, so I can't even go talk to most of the people that are against this. Not to try to overstate it or get into too many details, but they could postpone it and, probably two, three years, just, if they'd fight everything, and I can't get any sponsorships. So, that's a half million dollars in legal fees. And, I think it'll be similar to the Annapolis show, when we got done, everyone that was against us was like, "Aw, this was so great, it brought the community together. Thanks for coming.”
James Houck: So, is that sort of the main hang-up right now? Otherwise you'd have investors and sponsorships ready to go. You just kind of need that green light.
Travis Pastrana: Yeah. we've got a lot of investors, a lot of great... Basically all the top drivers from around the world are looking forward to starting this new sport, that really challenges the drivers, that gives excitement to the fans. NASCAR is awesome if you know what's going on, but for most of the general public, it looks like they're driving in circles. And it's really similar track.
So our goal is to make this next generation, state-of-the-art racing facility. We'll get top drivers from F1 and IndyCar and NASCAR, will be basically staying in Sudlersville, helping us design, helping us build, and really making the premier racing facility in the world, and doing it with, not with V8s or NASCAR type stuff, but doing it with... Hopefully going electric here real soon. But the Supercars are... They're Subaru's and Volkswagen's and more attainable vehicles. And just try to build that from go-karts all the way up. So making racing affordable to, pretty much anyone, from the ground up, and then working with electric all the way through.
James Houck: And that's a pretty important point because, in addition to all the professional training and athletes that'll be coming through the facility, really the fact that this is going to be accessible to anyone. Think of any kid that just has an interest and sees that on, maybe TV or wherever, and they say, "Hey, I want to do that." This will be a facility for that, right?
Travis Pastrana: Oh, 100%. So pump track... My kids started, when they were two years old, on little Strider bikes. So we'll have, basically a two to six year old course, and then kind of an intermediate course, if you will, for any age group. My dad can do the pump track and, obviously my wife loves it, she's a skater, and myself, but also with the kids. And then for the Red Bull World Championships, we'll have a really top level pump track for those guys. But what's cool about that is, that we'll have top Olympians and world champions coming through to work on, basically the progression park, which is what everyone comes to my house to use right now, which is state of the art airbag systems and training facility. So, that won't be open to the public, obviously, as it's requires a lot more skill, but we'll be able to build those kids up to get there, if they want to and if they have the passion for it, to maybe go to the Olympics or something like that.
And then from a racing perspective, I feel like action sports has taught me that it always gets unattainable. The ramps get too big, it gets too crazy. There's not enough ways for your locals to come up. And that's like Tony Hawk, he put skate parks all around the country in lower income areas, where they wouldn't be able to get a chance to skate. And, there's definitely a lot of people in action sports that are trying to do the best we can to make it more attainable to get there. But for this facility, we're going to start out with go-karts. Kids... And there's an actually, a really good contingent of great young go-kart racers on the Eastern Shore, but they mainly go to North Carolina, to Charlotte to race. So it'd be really cool to have a track where they can hone their skills without, just going on the weekends to North Carolina.
James Houck: And in your experience, doing this your entire life, from the ground up. You know what it takes to succeed, but you also know what it takes to train safely. And so this facility... Anyone that would have a fear of safety measures or this, that, and the other, you can pretty much squash that because you're going to have a facility that, I assume has all the safety measures and personnel in place, for this to run successfully without a catastrophe, right?
Travis Pastrana: Well, we've learned so much over the years, through the Nitro Circus and we basically started the World Championships for big air and action sports. And we're so proud, our first year, we had over 50 stunts, tricks, that had never been done before, landed in competition, and we had zero broken bones in the entire event. So for us, that was huge.
I don't want to see anyone get hurt. I got my best friends, my wife, and now my two kids that are all at action sports. If anyone gets hurt, that's a fail on my part.
James Houck: Right. And, as you move along and this progresses, and hopefully, it all comes to fruition, as you envision, I've read through some of the materials, and you also see this as a potential site to host some of the more major events and maybe even some charity and philanthropy events. Can you tell me a little bit about what you envision in terms of a Circuit 199 hosting events?
Travis Pastrana: Well, first and foremost, we want to be a positive outlet. If we wanted to make this strictly, for profit, we would probably go to Australia, or we'd be somewhere completely different for sure. But Maryland's my home. I love it here and I want to be home. We talked to the firehouse and they said, "Look, we need an area to do our cook-offs and our festivals and everything." I'm like, look, yes, free of charge, you guys, anyone in the town. Let's make this an area that allows for the town to grow and to... We'd love to have concerts and stuff. But, if the town doesn't want it, that's no problem.
I really, at the end of the day, selfishly, I want to build a facility for the community, where I can spend time at home, with my wife and my kids, and hopefully, really start a new sport. But we're not bringing in NASCAR's. It's not V8s, we're not going to have 100,000 people there. This is a facility that we're hoping 8,000 to 12,000 people, for our big events that we have twice a year, can come out for. And, maybe we'll do some, like I said, some pumps track events, or some charity events. But at the end of the day, the facility will be operational, basically, on a coaching/instructional, as a training facility and maybe film some commercials out there for different things, but also to be able to kind of start racing from the ground up, from go-karts all the way up, in the most affordable, possible ways.
James Houck: Well, it sounds like you've really thought it through and you've really put down a plan that's scaled appropriately for the size of the town and the community and all that you want to accomplish at the same time. So I can't thank you enough, Travis. I really appreciate it. And I wish you luck on this one. I'm going to be following it.
Travis Pastrana: My goal, like I said, is just to try to get the information out there. And I think most of the people that... Everyone I've talked to in the town is awesome. And therefore, it's just trying to get the word out to everybody.
