Travis Pastrana and his Waltrip Racing NASCAR race car
Earlier today we brought you news that Travis Pastrana had ended his partnership with long-time rally partner Subaru. At the time, we speculated that he may well already have another deal lined up. Some sleuthing by our expert social media team turned up something interesting: a Twitter account linking Pastrana to Waltrip Racing, along with a URL for his new website.
The Twitter account, @pwr99, contains a profile pic of Pastrana sitting next to his NASCAR Nationwide series ride, which bears a charicature of Pastrana asking, "When do I get to backflip this thing?" A visit to the URL shows the page isn't live yet--likely because the deal isn't due to be announced until tomorrow, according to motorsports marketer Mike Nelson via his Twitter account, @mikenele.
Nelson posted "@mikenele NASCAR announcement is tomorrow. It's a done deal. See @pwr99" earlier today in response to talk about Pastrana's potential NASCAR move.
It will be interesting to see how Pastrana's foray into oval-track racing plays out, especially since it's all-paved, and his forte to this point has been almost exclusively in the dirt. Speculation as to why Pastrana might be interested in the move to NASCAR include his numerous injuries making the more extreme physical nature of rally racing too painful to endure, though with the frequency and severity of 150-mph-plus crashes in NASCAR, injury avoidance seems low on the list. Money, exposure, and competition seem to us to be more likely motivators for the motorsports superstar.
Back in June, Pastrana drove a Late Model car at Eldora Speedway for the Gillette Profusion Prelude to the Dream race, where he finished 23rd, three laps down on winner Jimmie Johnson, and bracketed by Jeff Gordon in 22nd and Tony Kanaan in 24th.
[Twitter]
