LaVallee, of Longville, Minn., performed the trick and Pastrana signed a poster for him, saying, “Nice work on the backflip. Next year, I want to see two.”
It took LaVallee a little longer than a year to perform Pastrana’s trademark double, but he did it last winter.
On a snowmobile.
LaVallee dazzled the Winter X Games crowd after becoming the first person to perform a double backflip on a snowmobile, and he will be one of the riders to beat this weekend at the 18th annual Amsoil Duluth National Snocross at Spirit Mountain after earning a second place in each of the past three years.
“Snocross is still my main concern, and freestyle I just do for fun,” LaVallee said of flying roughly 60 feet in the air on a 450-pound snowmobile. Then he paused and laughed. “I guess I do snocross for fun, too.”
People thought LaVallee was crazy when he first suggested the stunt, but he didn’t go about the task lightly. He practiced jumps over a foam pit that helped keep him from getting hurt, and all the while, a crew with Red Bull filmed his every move. LaVallee would look at the film and take notes on what he could do better to pull off the seemingly impossible.
“I had a good thing going last season in snocross, so even other riders would say, ‘Are you sure about this?’ ” LaVallee said.
Last January in Aspen, Colo., LaVallee performed the trick as part of the X Games’ best-trick competition. Under rotating could have meant paralysis or death, but he landed upright, even over-rotating slightly. He was bounced from his seat upon impact, so he
didn’t win the gold because he didn’t land the stunt, but he won the lions’ share of the attention.
“I jumped up and ran all the way to the top of the hill, like nothing at all. I was so excited,” said LaVallee, 27. “But by the time I walked down the hill, I was like, ‘Oh boy, that ankle is a little weak.’
“I sprained my ankle a little bit, but other than that, for falling out of the sky that far, I came out pretty darn good.”
LaVallee still has that Pastrana poster hanging in his living room, only now, he has his own legion of fans dreaming they can pull off a stunt like his.
“It was quite the buzz. Afterward, my agent went and added it up, and I had more than 20 minutes of TV coverage, way more than the next closest athlete,” LaVallee said. “That was kind of cool being a snowmobiler, because that’s usually the stuff reserved for Shaun White or somebody like that. I got e-mails from Texas and Hawaii saying, ‘Gosh, that was crazy.’
“I plan to do it again. I just want to land one, ride away from it, and then I can close the book on that. Put it on the shelf, never to return again because it’s just too dangerous of a trick to do all the time.”
