Nitro Circus announced that the Pastranaland Pit Bike World Championship is scheduled to begin on August 15th. Pit bikes racing on dirt tracks? Yes. Freestyle Motocross rider Travis Pastrana is organizing a racing event based out of his “Pastranaland hone compound” which can be watched on ESPN2.
Pastrana and a bunch of his friends from the Nitro Circus are going to race pit bikes around a special design motocross like a track in two-rider teams. The Pastranaland Pit Bike World Championship will gather 11 teams that will compete. The racecourse was designed by Nitro Circus mechanic, Hubert Rowland and features wooded sections and a more open MX-style section and as the press release states “Once out of the starting gate, riders quickly have to contend with banked turns, ramp-to-ramp jumps, and an over-under crossover, creating a run just as challenging as a Pro National track.” The new event format was designed by a friend of Nitro Circus Jarred “JT” Taylor, and the racecourse was set in Travis’ backyard. So, we are set to see some action-packed races.
“All of us have been itching to ride and missed the thrill of racing,” said Travis Pastrana. “With Pit Bike Challenge, we set out to get that competitive fire going again while making it as fun and exciting for fans to watch at home as it is for us banging bars on the track,” he added.
We’re used to seeing riders training on pit bikes on tarmac tracks or parking spaces, and most of the time, they are used to train kids and to help them become professional riders, but when a freestyle motocross racer like Travis Pastrana takes a look at it anything is possible. Moreover, the pit bikes feature a compact lightweight frame which helps them enhance their handling, therefore the pit bike races will likely feature a lot of close action.
The Pit Bike World Championship teams will include Travis Pastrana alongside 2018 MXoN Team Puerto Rico partner Ryan Sipes. Also, fans we’ll have the chance to see three-time world champion mountain bike rider Anneke Beerten, who is pairing with Tarah Gieger, the most decorated female athlete in X Games history. To make things more interesting, Gieger will face off against Beerten’s husband, Nitro Circus veteran Dusty Wygle. Besides motocross motorcycle riders, the Pit Bike World Championship will have competitors with mountain bike background, as we mentioned before, Anneke Beerten and her husband Dusty Wygle.
The riders will race on offroad pit bikes thru dirt tracks together with jumps just like in a motocross race. Crashes, head-to-head racing, jumps, more jumps, and a lot of fun as we can see from the promo video. The Pastranaland Pit Bike World Championship is good to go on August 15th and will run on ESPN2 at 9 AM ET/12 PM PT.