Travis Pastrana Nails Record Setting New Years Eve Jump

Call me crazy or just plain stupid.

But won't it be cool to see a NASCAR Sprint Cup COT car or one of those rough and tough Camping World Trucks pulling a stunt like Travis Pastrana did in a Rally Car.

Pastrana did another stunt jump on New Year's eve, and in typical fashion he made it look easy.

Minutes after the the East Coast rang in 2010. Pastrana strapped himself into his Red Bull Subaru Impreza Rally car and nailed a record setting setting jump of 269 feet.

Pastrana eclipsed his teammates Ken Block's previous record of 171 feet set in 2006.

To add a little ambiance to the jump, he did it in front of a live television audience and under the first blue moon on New Year's in 19 years.

Pastrana took off at an estimated 90 miles per hour, landing on a barge floating 200 feet off of the Long Beach Pier and came to a stop sliding sideways slamming into a tire barrier at the end of the barge.

He jumped out of his wrecked car to celebrate with the estimated crowd of 20,000 fans lining the pier and did a perfect victory backflip off of the landing ramp into the chilly water.

According to Pastrana, he skidded at the end due to dew. Otherwise he would have done some celebrating burnouts for those in attendance on the barge.

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

Pastrana broke the old record by some 98 feet.

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

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

Pastrana also is the first to do a double backflip on a motorcycle, and he's won four straight Rally America Championships.

Prior to making his historic jump, Pastrana tried to get another driver in the Red Bull family to ride shotgun with him—NASCAR's Brian Vickers.  

Which Vickers passed on doing, but I'm of the opinion had he ask Scott Speed, Vickers teammate in Cup...Speed would have taken him up on the offer and probably would have inspired him to try the same stunt himself in a stock car. 

Source for quotes: sports.yahoo.com & espn.com