TRAVIS PASTRANA

Travis Pastrana is one of the most decorated action sports athletes in history and the first person to land a double backflip on a motocross bike in competition, at the 2006 X Games. He has won 11 X Games gold medals, and then somehow decided that motorcycles were not dangerous enough and became a NASCAR and rally car driver too.

He founded Nitro Circus in 2003, which turned his personal stunt show into a globally touring live event franchise and a media company that has produced over a hundred TV episodes. On New Year's Eve 2009 he set the world record for the longest jump in a rally car — 269 feet off the Pine Avenue Pier in Long Beach, landing on a barge in Rainbow Harbor, in front of an estimated crowd of 20,000 and a live ESPN audience.

The record has since been broken. He is also genuinely impossible to kill.

Nitro Circus (co-founder in 2003 — Michael Porra is the CEO and creative director, and The Raine Group took a strategic stake in 2013), Nitrocross (the rally car racing series he launched), pastrana199 (brand and social media operation), long-running partnerships with Subaru and Yokohama Tires, plus motocross and motorsport sponsorships and a licensing business.

Pastrana's business philosophy is the same as his approach to stunts: find something nobody has done, commit entirely, and worry about the landing later. Nitro Circus was built as a pure passion project and evolved into a legitimate touring entertainment business, one that eventually outgrew him as an operator and brought in outside capital and a professional CEO.

He has since expanded into rally car racing with Nitrocross, which ran an electric class before the wider motorsport world had committed to electrification.

Nitro Circus grew from a backyard stunt crew into a global touring franchise with major TV deals, content airing in more than 60 countries and over three million tickets sold. He co-founded it and it still carries his name and his signature, though a 2013 investment from The Raine Group and the arrival of professional management mean he is no longer running it day to day.

Building something from a home video series into a global entertainment property puts him in a very small club of athlete-founders.

His NASCAR career was an expensive lesson in the difference between being a great motorsports athlete and being a great stock car driver. He was competitive but never elite in NASCAR, and the crossover took him away from the action sports world where he was unchallenged.

He eventually refocused.

He talks about building a business that lets you keep doing what you love — Nitro Circus is the embodiment of that. He has been clear that he would rather be deeply involved in an action sports property he believes in than hold a passive stake in something he does not.

Married to Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins (professional skateboarder) since 2011. Two daughters: Addy Pastrana and Bristol Pastrana.

His wife is a former X Games snowboard and skateboarding gold medalist.

University of Maryland — briefly enrolled but left to pursue professional motocross full-time.

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