Motor sports icon Travis Pastrana on attempting to make 2023 Daytona 500 field: 'This is my one chance'
The motor sports icon and stunt performer will attempt to qualify for the Daytona 500 for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin's NASCAR team.
Travis Pastrana is about to make a big jump, just perhaps not the jump you’d expect from him.
The 39-year-old motor sports icon and stunt performer famous for competing with two- and four-wheeled vehicles — his resume includes several X Games medals, along with championships in motocross, supercross, offshore powerboat racing, per the Associated Press, and Nitro RallyCross, a series he created in 2018 and is currently the reigning champ — is about to make his return to NASCAR. And he’s doing it with some help from Michael Jordan’s team.
Pastrana will attempt to qualify this week for Sunday’s Daytona 500, the NASCAR Cup Series’ season opener at Daytona International Speedway, behind the wheel of the No. 67 Toyota for 23XI Racing, which is co-owned by Jordan and Denny Hamlin.
“This was always [on] the bucket list,” Pastrana said last month. “And this is definitely not a profitable thing for me to race the Daytona 500. But it’s something I really wanted to do, and I’m not getting any younger.”
???????????? ????????????. ???????????? ????????????????. ???????????? ????????????????????????.@DAYTONA 500 is a bucket list item for @TravisPastrana!
#TeamToyota #ForwardTogether | @blckriflecoffee pic.twitter.com/czLE7mUpFn
— 23XI Racing (@23XIRacing) January 17, 2023
NASCAR’s biggest race of the year, the Daytona 500 features a 40-car field, but 36 of those rides are already locked into the main event as chartered teams, including fellow 23XI drivers Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick. That leaves four open entries available, and Pastrana will attempt to qualify and steal one of them.
“But this, this is my run,” Pastrana said. “It’s one chance. If I win or don’t qualify, this is my one chance to be a part of the Daytona 500. I’m pumped, man. We’re gonna have a blast all week.”
Should he qualify, the Daytona 500 will be his first career Cup race. But he competed in 42 second-tier Xfinity Series races between 2012 and 2013, including running a full schedule in the latter season. He collected four top-10 finishes in 2013 with a NASCAR career-best ninth-place finish at Richmond Raceway and won the pole at Talladega Superspeedway. He also competed in five third-tier Truck Series races between 2012 and 2020.
Pastana has made two career starts at Daytona, both in 2013. In the Xfinity season opener that year, he started fourth and finished 10th, and in the second race, he started second but crashed with a handful of laps remaining.
But the Daytona 500 is a different beast and almost twice as long as the first Xfinity race of the season.
“This is bigger than anything that I’ve done,” Pastrana said. “It’s the best drivers all over the world, but especially the best drivers in America. And to be able to line up alongside of them, especially if I can qualify and get in for the actual 500, that’ll be something that I’ll be able to smile proudly about for the rest of my life.”