Travis Pastrana has returned to the brand of tires he likes best: Michelin.

Pastrana will use Michelin tires in all of his motorsports pursuits, whether on two wheels or four.

Starcross MS3

Reigning World Enduro Champion Juha Salminen is racing in the U.S. this season with Michelin and KTM.

he 2005 Supercross season has been one of change for superstar Travis Pastrana. He’s still with Suzuki, of course, but late last year he launched his own team and rides out of his own semi, separate from the factory Suzuki squad. The arrangement gives him the independence to choose his own sponsors, and that includes Michelin tires, the brand on which he won his first Supercross championship.
     “I pretty much got my own rig here, and I have full factory support,” Pastrana told Racer X Illustrated in January. “I also have all the sponsors that I really like. You know I like Michelin, so if I want to go with that tire, I can. Basically, we have everyone I want to be with, and I have all the right people around me. It’s all really good.” Pastrana also enjoys major support from Thor, Parts Unlimited, Red Bull, Cernic’s and DC Shoes.
     For Pastrana, his return to Michelin marks the renewal of a highly successful relationship. In addition to winning the 2001 AMA 125cc East Region Supercross Championship on a Michelin-equipped Suzuki, his freestyle exploits are legendary. He was one of the first riders to land a backflip in competition, which he did en route to winning the 2002 Gravity Games. Making that event even more memorable was the debut of prototype colored Michelin Starcross tires on the bikes of Pastrana and Mike Metzger. The blue and yellow tires generated so much interest that they were later put into limited production.
     “Travis has been a big part of our success in the United States, both in tire development and in promoting Michelin products,” said Michelin off-road racing manager Randy Richardson. “We look forward to a long and successful relationship with Travis in developing future innovative Michelin products.”
     While Pastrana’s 2005 Supercross season was interrupted by injury, his popularity remains undiminished. Even at Supercross events that he’s sat out, fans have snapped up thousands of Pastrana posters from the Michelin semi, and when he’s appeared for autograph sessions, people standing on line number in the hundreds.
     In addition to teaming up with Michelin in Supercross and freestyle, Pastrana will also use Michelin tires exclusively in his other motorsports pursuits, including his nascent career as a rally-car racer. He finished fourth overall in the 2004 Rim of the World Rally, in only his second start in the SCCA Pro Rally Championship. You can also expect to see him contesting select Supermoto races throughout the year, riding the new Suzuki
DR-Z400SM.
     But Travis is hardly the only champion competing on Michelin off-road tires in 2005. Finland’s Juha Salminen has won a string of World Enduro Championships, including the 2004 crown in the Enduro 2 category. But after accomplishing so much at the world level, Salminen felt it was time to find a new challenge. So he gave up the schedules and time checks of enduro racing for the straight head-to-head competition of the AMA Grand National Cross-Country Championship, riding a Michelin-equipped KTM.
     While it may seem like a step down from a World Championship to a domestic series, Salminen doesn’t see it that way. “In Europe, I was beginning to feel bored with all of the titles and victories,” he told Racer X Illustrated. “I’m 28 so I need a new goal for my career. If I want to make good results I need to get the interest and the motivation.”
     Clearly Salminen isn’t lacking for motivation. He won two of the season’s first three GNCC races, finished second in another, and added a victory in a World Off-Road Championship Series event, all before mid-March.
Just like the rest of the KTM off-road team, which also includes six-time National Enduro Champion Mike Lafferty, Salminen uses the same off-the-shelf Michelin off-road tires you can buy. Depending on the course conditions, KTM riders can choose from the soft-terrain S12, soft-intermediate Starcross MS3, intermediate M12 or intermediate-hard Starcross MH3 from the Michelin motocross range, DOT-approved AC10 dual sport tires, or the Enduro Competition tires that won three world championships in 2004. All are available through Parts Unlimited, along with the limited edition Starcross MH3 Red.

Starcross MH3