The Wheel Man

Travis Pastrana is fearless, reckless or just plain nuts.

At least that’s what I thought, having watched him defy physics and gravity for the last 20 years. Pastrana came onto the extreme sports scene as a teenager, just as this outlier of the sports world was gaining mass interest. He did things with a dirt bike that looked impossible and quickly rose to the top of his field.

As his skills developed, he looked for new challenges. He jumped into rally car racing with Subaru, zipping cars through all kinds of terrain and earning respect from the racing world. He broke several of Evel Knievel’s records, jumping over 52 cars, 16 buses and the Caesar’s Vegas fountain—a total of 484 feet—in a single night, without crashing. He’s jumped out of a plane without a parachute (not recommended) and raced NASCAR. There’s little this thrill junkie has not done, except run an offshore racing boat. That’s about to change.

In early 2020, the Miss Geico Racing Team announced that Pastrana would be driving one of the world’s premier racing boats, a 3,000-hp, 47-foot catamaran capable of eclipsing the 200-mph mark. Because he’s