I was fortunate enough to be able to shoot photos of a recent Yoshimura Suzuki Supermoto test. The test was an opportunity for former 500cc world champion Kevin Schwantz to get it a little test session in preparations for the upcoming Red Bull Supermoto races. It also was a perfect opportunity for Travis Pastrana to throw his leg over a Factory Yoshimura Suzuki DRZ450 machine and have some fun.

Travis arrived at the APEX go-kart track in Perris, CA with his good friend Malcolm. Travis was eager to bust out his new Alpinestar leathers and hop on the bike and give it a go. Travis put on his new and rather tight leathers while Schwantz's back up bike was warmed up. Travis was given numerous warnings to be careful and watch out for the front brake because it's very powerful."Travis, take it easy." was the sentence repeated by more than two people as TP hopped on the bike. TP's reply was... "Hey it's a motorcycle, how different can it be?"Travis put the bike in gear and proceeded to pull off an immediate wheelie and stoppy just to test the front brake. TP followed Schwantz around the track to learn the lines and then followed Kevin as best he could. TP rode around and with every lap picked up speed and looked very comfortable. TP was eventually looking like he had been riding a Supermoto bike for years. It is amazing to watch a rider of his caliber take to a new "sport" and dial it in such a short time. Given a few weeks on a Supermoto bike Travis could easily be up front competing for Supermoto wins.

After TP was done riding around and debriefed on the whole test by the Suzuki brass, I was able to spend a few moments with Travis. We spoke for a few minutes about his impending surgery on his knee and how he liked the supermoto bike and I also had him autograph a recent RacerX magazine that he was on the cover of when I decided to ask TP a question I always wanted to ask him.

My 1 question:

goonrider: What's the best part about being Travis Pastrana?

village idiot: My house! It's awesome. I love my house. I have a track in the back yard, a foam pit, rock wall and all kinds of goodies. It's like Disneyland. I always have kids from the neighborhood coming over playing at the house...I mean I wake up at 7 in the morning and there are 5-6 kids waiting for me wanting to play at my house. It's just a fun place to be.

There you have it people. My fascinating interview with TP. This interview will go down in history as one of the best interviews ever in our sport. =) I hope you weren't hoping for some ground breaking, earth shattering, in depth interview... this is goonrider.com not some fancy website. My interviews will be boring... they'll have dumb questions... but maybe somewhere in there you will find some humor. So for my first interview this is what you get.

Next up on my interview list is Ryan Clark. Maybe I'll ask him 2 questions. Stay tuned...

Thanks Travis.