Lyn-z Adams Hawkins Pastrana announced on social media that her and husband Travis Pastrana are the parents of a healthy baby girl. The couple’s first child arrived Monday, Sept. 2. The two posted the following photo on Facebook and Twitter to announce the birth of "199-and-a-half," nicknamed so until the pair reveals her name — one the two have long decided on, but kept within their close circle of family and freinds.
The photo accompanied the following Tweet by Lyn-Z: ".@TravisPastrana & I are stoked to have welcomed our baby girl into this world 9/2/13 #199andAhalf #babyPastrana."
Lyn-Z spoke with NASCAR.com before the newest Pastrana’s arrival. See what she had to say about her and Travis introducing their child to their non-stop lifestyle below.
Aug. 15, 2013 — Lyn-z Adams Hawkins Pastrana was 9 months old when she took her first steps. Her husband, NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Travis Pastrana, was walking by 7 months.
No matter which gene pool their baby pulls from, the two will have their hands full come September when their first child — a daughter — is born. And that’s on top of the hectic schedules of two action sports stars and a NASCAR driver.
Yet there is a surprising amount of normalcy between the couple, who have a combined 13 X Games gold medals in their household — they met at the X Games after hearing of the other from motocross rider Ashley Fiolek. In October of 2011, they were married.
This year, with Travis in the No. 60 Roush Fenway Racing Ford full time, Lyn-z has added NASCAR wife to her list of responsibilities. Just like her husband entered the sport with a yellow-and-pink car with a bare hood awaiting the right sponsor, Lyn-z is also doing things her way. She’s not standing on pit road in heels; she’s more often matching her husband’s car.
"I want our daughter to see both of us being passionate about something that we love … as long as you love what you’re doing, then that’s a great job for you to have."
— Lyn-z Pastrana
“I can agree that I’m definitely not the typical NASCAR wife,” she said. “But I’ve become friends with a lot of them, and I don’t feel like an outcast or anything like that — I just do my own thing, and I don’t really worry about fitting the norm.”
She seems to fit in without trying to fit that norm, befriending several fiancées and wives and joking about starting a NASCAR “Mommies and Me” club for all the expecting and recent mothers in the sport. She’s jumped right into the NASCAR world, surprising herself by standing up and shouting at her husband on the track, and picking up knowledge of how the sport works with each week.
On top of being a chance for Lyn-z to learn her husband’s new sport, race weekends — despite being some of the busiest days of the week — have also doubled as the time the couple spends together.
“… Especially this year, being at the track is kind of our only time that we have just the two of us together, because we have such a hectic household and he’s got a lot of stuff going on during the week that we don’t get to spend a lot of time just the two of us,” she said. “So, we make sure we utilize our time at the track for that.”
But Lyn-z also knows what it takes to be competitive, and understands the sacrifices both Pastranas must make for the other’s career to be successful. For the wife of the man who didn’t get the dress code at his introduction as part of the Roush team in January, helping Travis pack falls in that category.
“He just kind of throws things in, and then I go through and make sure he’s got the right sponsor shirts, that he has the right stuff for the actual weather, because he’d just kind of pack a pair of jeans and a t-shirt for everywhere. So I’m the one that looks at weather and goes, ‘OK, you need a jacket or a pair of shorts.’ ”
With less than a month until the baby’s due date in the first week of September and Lyn-z staying home in Maryland, the two have been planning how and when Travis will get home should she go into labor on a race weekend.
For these competitors, missing a race is out of the question. Travis may not even know his wife is about to have their baby.
“We’ll just have some sort of helicopter or plane on hand at the next few races, just even if it’s talking to one of the other drivers who’s got their plane out there …” she said. “But let’s say I go into labor the morning of the race, I probably won’t tell him. I’ll just tell someone who can help arrange everything and after the race they can be like, ‘Well, your wife’s in labor, let’s go!’
“I don’t know if it would really affect him, his mindset driving at all … I’d rather him not feel bad that he’s not already there or anything like that.”
Their daughter — who has been nicknamed “199-and-a-half” after the number Travis has worn since his early days in action sports — will get to experience her parents’ lifestyle early. They’re both going to be on the Nitro Circus Live European and North American tours, heading off to the former tour just after the finale at Homestead. Lyn-z will skateboard on the latter tour, which begins Jan. 3, 2014.
“That’ll give us about four months to pull ourselves together, and Travis will be on that tour as well, so we’ll just take it on as a family and I think it will be awesome,” said Lyn-z, who has been working out during her pregnancy to ease the transition back into training. “I probably won’t be skating as much as I used to, but I definitely want to continue to skate and I want our daughter to see both of us being passionate about something that we love and show her that as long as you love what you’re doing, then that’s a great job for you to have.”
Despite being such a hard-working pair, Lyn-z and Travis don’t let their work take over their life as a couple. When they’re on the road after the baby arrives, the Pastranas will be a family, but mom and dad will still keep some time to themselves.
“We both agree that it’s important to keep that (time) and you know, we love each other and we enjoy each other’s company and we’re each other’s best friend, so I don’t want that to go away and neither does he,” she said. “I think that’s one of his biggest worries.”
That worry is lessened by having family members willing to babysit the newest Pastrana — especially both grandmothers. Travis and Lyn-z are also looking for a place to stay near Charlotte, N.C., where Travis can be closer to the work he does in the garage and spend more time with his daughter when the three are at home together.
Lyn-z and Travis Pastrana before qualifying at Daytona International Speedway.
With a lot of talent to inherit from both her parents and exposure to the excitement of NASCAR and action sports, 199-and-a-half will nearly be born with the same love of the sport. But it may be her dad who she’ll have to talk into letting her follow his career path.
“I think I’ll be more excited than Travis; he will be a little more wary,” the mother-to-be said. “Either of us, there’s definitely some things and career paths we’ve taken that we hope she doesn’t, just because of how much work it is and how much it takes over your life and all the sacrifices we all will make and things like that. We want to make sure she has a childhood, where the two of us kind of had careers instead of childhoods.
“We’ll support her in whatever she wants to do, and Travis hopes she golfs. I hope she wants to do all the fun action sports things that we do, but if she doesn’t choose to have a career in it, we’ll definitely be OK with it. And if she does, then off to the skate contests or the motor racing we go.”
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