Judge Travis Pastrana May Be New to ‘AGT’ But He’s a Pro at Extreme

Motorsports competitor Travis Pastrana will be sitting at the judges’ table on the new series America’s Got Talent: Extreme. To prove just how qualified he is to judge extreme acts, Pastrana recorded a video for the AGT Instagram page explaining his experience.

Travis Pastrana Shares Extreme Sports Experience

“I’m new to AGT, but I’ve been around extreme quite a bit,” Pastrana said to start the clip, before recounting his early experience with motorbikes and go-karts as a kid. “If it had a motor and it had wheels, I was driving it from a very young age.”

Pastrana won his first amateur national motorcycle championship at 10 years old, and he went pro at 16. He’s won 11 X Games gold medals in his career. He then shifted his focus to racing cars. It’s easy to see why the show chose him to join Simon Cowell and Nikki Bella on the panel.

The judges will be offering their thoughts on some dangerous acts when AGT: Extreme premieres on NBC February 21. Production was paused in October after contestant Jonathan Goodwin was injured in an on-set accident, but filming resumed in January.

SEE ALSO: MEET ‘AMERICA’S GOT TALENT: EXTREME’ JUDGE TRAVIS PASTRANA

Pastrana Was Recently Injured in an Accident

Pastrana recently had an accident of his own while performing a base-jumping stunt off a tall building. He shared that he suffered a broken L5 vertebrae, multiple hip fractures, and a pinned sacrum. However, Pastrana was already moving around and said he’ll “make a full recovery.”

It doesn’t look like Pastrana’s accident will affect his appearance on prerecorded episodes of AGT: Extreme. His accident took place on an unrelated project, and the show is only running for four weeks, so it doesn’t look like there will be any live shows.

Pastrana recently gave an update on his condition in response to an Instagram commenter, saying that he’ll “be on my feet in a few weeks.”