Pastrana Electrifies Crowds With His Theatrics

Long live Travis Pastrana!

If that’s not the motto at X Games headquarters, it ought to be.

Pastrana stole this year’s show Friday night, when he performed a double back flip on his motorcycle before a captivated Staples Center audience. Then, customarily, he provided more electrifying theatrics at the Home Depot Center as an encore.

On Saturday he drove the winning car in the inaugural Rally Car Race, an event he had a hand in bringing to X Games 12, and Sunday, after struggling in a Moto X supermoto race, he won the Moto X freestyle competition to become the second athlete in X Games history, following Dave Mirra in 1998, to win three gold medals the same year.

Between events he had his knee drained and took fluids intravenously, “because with freestyle if you’re a little off it’s over,” a beaming Pastrana said of an event that has knocked him senseless more times than he cares to remember.

Yet the 22-year-old always comes back for more, and for that, ESPN should be grateful.

“Travis has helped us establish athletic credibility for action sports athletes,” said Chris Stiepock, X Games general manager. “There is a calculated method to his madness -- he trains very seriously and diligently, and he represents himself, his sponsors and his sports in a very professional manner.

“His energy, passion and enthusiasm are contagious and run through all sports at the X Games -- not just his sports. I’d be willing to bet that his double back flip on Friday inspired Kevin Robinson to nail his BMX double flair [in the vert best-trick] a half-hour later.”

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Survival of fittest: Long live Travis Pastrana!

It’s a fitting motto for his legions of fans too; much snappier than the common refrain: “I hope Travis doesn’t kill himself this year.”

Had he under-spun his double back flip in the best-trick competition, he might have done just that. But then, the Moto X freestyle event is no picnic either.

“It’s been a very, very brutal event this year,” he said. “The course was great, but just the fact that everybody’s stepping up. I tell you, it’s been a privilege to be able to compete in four events, and to win three is something I couldn’t even ask for.”

Amazingly, he could smile afterward, though he could barely lift his leg from his foot-pegs.

“My knee just completely fell apart out there,” he said. “But it was good because I made it through the entire week before it fell apart.”

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Way, ‘No Way’: Count Danny Way among those not behind a grass-roots movement to get skateboarding into the Olympics. Way, 32, created the mega ramp and won all three X Games big-air contests.

“Track’s dead and pingpong is fun with your buddies if you’re drunk, and curling?” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I respect those athletes totally. But grouping skateboarding with these sports, to me, is taking the soul out of what we do.”

Not long ago people were making similar comments about snowboarding.