plus 4, Leap Year! - ESPN.com

Leap Year! - ESPN.com
Pastrana jumps rally car 269 feet - ESPN.com
Pastrana breaks world record for jump in rally car - Philadelphia Inquirer
Florida Tech knows winning conference games is tough - Florida Today
TOP 10: 2009 brings national, worldwide spotlight to Nevada County ... - Union

Posted: 31 Dec 2009 10:02 PM PST

He did it. And he made it look so easy.

A few minutes after the clock struck 2010 (on the east coast, that is), Travis Pastrana jumped his Subaru Impreza 269 feet, smashing the previous record of 171 feet set by DC Shoes co-founder Ken Block in November 2006. And, just for added flare, he did it under the first blue moon in 19 years and in front a live television audience. Then he landed on a barge floating 200 feet off the Long Beach pier, flew into the tire wall and jumped out of the car to celebrate with the tens of thousands of folks lining the pier. Then, reminiscent of his 1999 jump into the San Francisco Bay, he backflipped off the pier and into the chilly water below. But he's come a long way from having his gold medal and prize winnings stripped for that stunt. "Yep," he says. "A long way."

The thing is, it was hard to find anyone in Long Beach who was surprised by his success — or nervous in the hours leading up to the jump. "When I used to say I was going to do something, everyone would say, 'Don't do it. That's crazy! That's dumb! And they'd try to talk me out of it," Pastrana says. "Now, I say I'm going to do something like jump a car onto a barge and they say, 'Cool. You'll be fine. You're Travis Pastrana. It will work.' Somehow I've built this reputation as being better than I actually am. It's an amazing position to be in, because when I have an idea, people are willing to take a risk to help me make it possible. But it's also very scary, because I have to think things through a lot more now."

But if his friends weren't offering their usual last-minute advice or trying to talk him out of yet another possibility-bending stunt, perhaps it was because, in the days leading up to New Year's Eve, there were signs.

Like when, at lunch during two of the final practice sessions in Lake Elsinore, Calif., Subaru rally team manager Clint Fast was handed his order number — 43, Ken Block's rally number — printed in black on a white, plastic card from Carl's Junior. "They were a sign," he says, showing Pastrana the two identical cards, the day before the final jump. "That Ken's record is going down tomorrow night!"

And there was the Target omen. "Check this out, Trav," says Mario Panagiotopoulos of Red Bull, a few minutes later, while pulling a rather lengthy receipt from his wallet. "I spent more than $200 and bought a ton of stuff and, after all of that &" He points to the "change due" line, which reads, "$1.99." Pastrana's number since he was a kid. "That's a sign if I've ever seen one," he says. "That's good luck."

And, of course, there were the signs. Plastered all over the city of Long Beach, posters announcing that, "On New Year's Eve, Travis Pastrana will make a car fly." The city, its firefighters and police force embraced the event. So Pastrana didn't want to let them down. "If I could sit down tonight and write about this experience," he says, "I would write about this town. How cool everyone has been, and how fun it's been to get to work with the fire marshals and the law enforcement. I get to do so many things that have nothing to do with racing cars or motorcycles. I am so fortunate to be in these situations. And I don't know how it keeps happening to me."

Lately, his sponsors have a lot to do with that. Last New Year's Eve, Pastrana watched his friend and Red Bull teammate Robbie Maddison jumped his bike onto a replica of the Arch de Triumph in Las Vegas. While he wasn't interested in swapping places with Maddo — "I was scared to death for Robbie last year," he says. — he decided he was interested in getting in on the New Year's Eve action. "It sounds cliché, but it's so cool to be a part of No Limits," he says. "They shut down the whole city and thousands of people are out here just having a lot of fun." So tomorrow, once the party is over, will he start 2010 with any resolutions?

"I've never made a New Year's resolution," Pastrana says. "I don't need the extra motivation. I live my life every day as best I can." And if he wants to change something, he doesn't wait until January 1. "I get that from my dad," he says. "If he bought me a cool Christmas gift, he'd give it to me that day. He'd say, 'What if I waited to give you this bike and it snowed the day after Christmas and you couldn't ride it? Why wait for Christmas?"

But if he were to make a resolution today? "It would be to do less," he says. "Lately, I'm always tired and sore and hurt." So, less is more? "I couldn't do it," he says, rethinking his resolution. "I'd be bored by next week."

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Pastrana jumps rally car 269 feet - ESPN.com

Posted: 31 Dec 2009 10:23 PM PST

Pastrana Sets New Record

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Travis Pastrana ended up in the water again.

The daredevil shattered the world record for the longest jump in a rally car on Thursday night, making a nearly perfect flight of 269 feet from the Pine Street Pier onto a barge anchored in the harbor.

"It was a wild ride," said the wild man of action sports.

His Subaru skidded sideways after landing and slammed into a safety wall at the end of the barge, but Pastrana emerged unscathed. He ran up the landing ramp and did a backflip into the water in front of a crowd estimated at 20,000.

In 1999, Pastrana announced himself to the action sports world when at age 15 he celebrated an X Games gold medal by jumping his motorcycle into San Francisco Bay. That stunt got him into a fair bit of trouble, and he lost his prize money and medal.

This time, his splashdown was well-received.

"It's soft," Pastrana joked about his penchant for jumping into the water. "It was a lot colder than I anticipated."

He broke the old record by 98 feet.

"The flight was awesome," the 26-year-old daredevil said. "I couldn't have asked for anything better."

After teasing the crowd of several thousand with a warmup run down the 1,000-foot run-in and up the takeoff ramp, Pastrana did it for real, flying across approximately 220 feet of water to the landing ramp on the barge just a few minutes after midnight EST.

Pastrana said he skidded at the end because the dew had set in about 10 minutes before he took off. Had he landed straight and stopped before the wall, he planned to spin doughnuts in celebration.

Asked about the condition of his car, he laughed and said, "Good-ish. It's not a submarine, so I think that's good."

The old record was 171 feet set by Pastrana's Subaru teammate, Ken Block, in a rally car in November 2006. Pastrana wanted to break that mark by more than 100 feet.

He came close.

"There's a 40-foot window where I wasn't going to break or die," he said, "and I hit it right in the middle."

The stunt was the latest in Red Bull's New Year, No Limits series.

Pastrana was the first to do a double backflip on a motorcycle, and he's gone on to win four straight Rally America championships.

As part of his Nitro Circus TV show, he's done such crazy stunts as riding dirt bikes off a ramp into the Grand Canyon and parachuting the rest of the way down; and jumping out of a plane without a parachute, confident that a fellow skydiver with a parachute who jumped out at the same time would catch up to him and guide him to earth.

"This is one of the cooler feelings, just to be part of something so huge," he said. "It was kind of pass or fail. It was just a really good time and trying to push the envelope of what's possible in a car."

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Pastrana breaks world record for jump in rally car - Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted: 31 Dec 2009 10:16 PM PST

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Travis Pastrana shattered the world record for the longest jump in a rally car on Thursday night, making a nearly perfect flight from the Pine Street Pier onto a barge anchored in the harbor.

His jump was unofficially measured at 274 feet, which would smash the old record by 103 feet.

After teasing the crowd of several thousand with a warmup run down the 1,000-foot run-in and up the takeoff ramp, Pastrana did it for real, flying across approximately 200 feet of water to the landing ramp on the barge just a few minutes after midnight EST.

His Subaru skidded sideways after landing and slammed into a wall at the end of the barge, but Pastrana emerged unscathed, ran to the end of the barge and did a backflip into the water.

The old record was 171 feet set by Pastrana's Subaru teammate, Ken Block, in a rally car in November 2006. Pastrana wanted to break that mark by more than 100 feet.

The stunt was the latest in Red Bull's New Years, No Limits series.

Pastrana was the first to do a double backflip on a motorcycle.

A decade ago, he announced himself to the action sports world when at age 15 he celebrated an X Games gold medal by jumping his motorcycle into San Francisco Bay in 1999. That stunt got him into a fair bit of trouble, and he lost his prize money and medal.

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Florida Tech knows winning conference games is tough - Florida Today

Posted: 31 Dec 2009 10:02 PM PST

Asking Florida Tech men's and women's basketball coaches Billy Mims and John Reynolds what their teams have to do to win in the rugged Sunshine State Conference and then having the players do it falls into the easier said than done category.

Tech's men, 10-2, and its women, 7-4, kick off the 2010 SSC schedule Saturday at Florida Southern in Lakeland. Waiting will be Southern's men, undefeated, 11-0, and ranked second nationally, and Southern's women, 10-1.

The games, crucial enough as they are, have more significance since the Panthers stumbled in their December conference games against Tampa. The men fell 77-70 and the women lost 75-57.

So, that being said, here's Mims' and Reynolds' thinking on the 15 remaining SSC games.

The five things Mims said the men must do to win in the conference.

1. Remain healthy. Tech won five SSC games last season playing without star forward Justin Sedlak, who missed 2008-2009 with an ankle injury, and standout guard Donovan Woodson, who missed appreciable time with multiple injuries. Now, with Cocoa High graduate and freshman backup point guard Julius Reid out for the season with a broken bone in his right foot and junior transfer Mark Caviness out for at least two weeks with a sprained ankle, Tech is suddenly thin.

2. Execute the offense with good shot selection and minimize turnovers.

3. Rebound. "You can't give your opponent two and three chances to score," Mims said. "It's hard enough to stop teams in our league one time."

4. Free throws. Shoot and make more free throws than the opponent.

5. Have swagger and confidence. "In this league, you cannot turn up with a B or a C performance and win," Mims said. "You've got to bring your A game every night. That's the swagger I'm talking about."

Players who must step up: Woodson, a senior, will shoulder increased responsibility in both starting at shooting guard and backing up Cummings at the point. Also, sophomore Edgars Eglitis will see increased time at forward replacing Caviness.

The five things Reynolds said the women must do.

1. Improve field goal percentage. Improve shot selection and ensure shots are in the flow and tempo of the game and within the offense. Tech has shot under 40 percent for seven straight games.

2. Increase and maintain defensive intensity. Continue to be aggressive without fouling.

3. Take less 3-pointers and attack the basket and get to the free-throw line. A Reynolds goal is always making more free throws than an opponent takes.

4. Rebound. Be relentless. Limit opponent's second-chance opportunities.

5. Expect to win. Have confidence on the road since SSC home teams are so confident.

Step up: "You need the entire team to be consistent," Reynolds said. "There's things we can't afford. (Lynisha) Nelson can't get in foul trouble early in games. She's our on the floor leader."

"(Ashton) McClairen, (Amanda) Allen and (Emi) McCullough have to be consistent from the perimeter. Our post players have got to finish inside."

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TOP 10: 2009 brings national, worldwide spotlight to Nevada County ... - Union

Posted: 31 Dec 2009 09:05 PM PST

Seventh-inning heroics lifts Lady Bruins to third-straight Division IV title

The Union, May 16, 2009

STOCKTON — As the foul ball bounced from the Oakdale catcher's glove, falling harmlessly to the ground behind home plate, Bear River senior Tori Humbard looked up to the sky and said, "Thank you Jesus!"

"I just knew we were going to win the game right there," said Humbard, pointing out that giving Bear River junior Courtney Ceo a second chance was not the best course of action for the Oakdale Mustangs in a section championship game knotted up 1-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Given another shot, Ceo drove the ball to deep right-center field and sped around the bases so fast that she had nearly caught up with her little sister, Stephanie, who picked up the pace to score the game-winning run Saturday afternoon.

By virtue of the 2-1 win over Oakdale, the Bruins (25-4) became the first Division IV softball program to win three consecutive Sac-Joaquin Section championships.

"I just knew I had to either get on the ground or get a hit to bring Steph in," Courtney Ceo said. "I needed to do what I was I supposed to do, instead of popping out.

Driving the ball to the wall afforded Courtney Ceo, who led the bruins with a .583 batting average and 44 runs scored, enough time to round the bases for an inside-the-park home run. But in the scorebook, the round-tripper went down as a double due to her little sister scoring the only run the Bruins needed.

— Brian Hamilton, sports editor

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