In the winter of 2006, Ken Block, 2005 Rally America Rookie of the Year, hooked up with the producers of the Discovery Channel TV show, Stunt Junkies. Block had an idea: He had made a decision to climb inside his Subaru Rally Team USA WRX STI and launch it off a massive motocross jump. All too excited about the idea, the Discovery Channel set their cameras up and recorded Block jumping the machine 171 feet.

So impressed with this feat, the fine people at the X Games decided to include rally in the 2007 Summer X Games — and as part of the course, they incorporated a 70-foot jump. As history has taught us, while Block went on to win the Silver Medal, just losing the Gold to rival Tanner Foust by a few tenths of a second.

As well as he has done in the 2008 Rally America National Championship Open Class, Block — a consistent event winner — also loves nothing more than dreaming and scheming up new stunts for he and his 340-horsepower 2.0 DOHC turbocharged-motivated 2,900-pound Monster Energy Subaru. To that end, Block recently invited his close friend and Subaru Rally Team USA Travis Pastrana out to Salt Lake City to part in his latest brainstorm. The concept? Block would jump his WRX, while Pastrana, a former AMA 125cc National Motocross Champion and multifold X Games Gold Medal winner, would, with the help of a 70-foot Super Kicker ramp, leap over the roof of the car on a five-speed, single-cylinder, 45-horsepower, 215-pound motocross bike.

“I grew up riding and racing dirt bikes and snowboarding, and as a kid, I really enjoyed jumping,” explains Block, smirking. “Jumping is a fact of life in those sports. To me, with my background in these sports, I see this stuff I do with the rally car like free riding in motocross. You have fun with the tool you have. It’s like freestyle motocross on a dirt bike. It’s so much fun.”

Eric Johnson