Ken Block on balancing on four wheels

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Paul Webb / Ford RacingBlock may be busy with Gymkhana ideas, WRC and the Octane Academy, but he's still got time for his family.

It sounds a little self-inflicting, but Ken Block actually took steps to make his life busier this year. After competing in seven of the 13 World Rally Championship events in 2010 -- and becoming the first American to score WRC points in 22 years -- Block, 43, is slated to enter nine races this year, including France, which is going on now, and the upcoming final two in Spain and the UK.

He debuted a new 2011 Ford Fiesta this summer, a.k.a. the Hybrid Function Hoon Vehicle, and launched 'Gymkhana 4' and a Gymkhana World Tour, demonstrating his globally known stunt-driving talents in Austria, L.A. and Australia. (As of Friday, 'Gymkhana 4' was up to 9.1 million views on YouTube five weeks after its release.) It all adds up to Block spending a big chunk of the year away from his three kids and Park City, Utah, home.

Given how much Block loves to race, and given the time it takes to satisfy the other side of his driving career, it seemed a fair question as to what his future holds when we caught up with him at a Ford Octane Academy preview event in Michigan. For the record, after a trio of racing journos laid down 2:04 lap times on the Octane rally course, Block appeased requests and took a timed lap himself. He clocked a 1:49. The next day, he met his family at the airport and flew to Europe for five weeks.

ESPN.com: How will you continue to balance the very marketable, Gymkhana side of your career with the racing side?
Ken Block: I would really like to race the WRC full-time, but it would be hard to do that and do some of the other fun things that I do. So I'm trying to figure that out right now. I can't really make a commitment one way or the other. If I'm going to race in the WRC full-time, that will take up so much time that I wouldn't be able to do a lot of the other stuff. It's a balance of making myself happy, making sponsors happy and trying to find the right amount of time to be able to do everything. Because it's a busy year, especially with the World Rally Championship.

You were 12th in Mexico for your best WRC finish, so still on the cusp of points this year.
Yeah. Unfortunately it's been a really bad year for me. The events that I normally do really well in, like Mexico, I had three mechanical problems in that event. That's what's unfortunate when someone only looks at the standings and doesn't know what happened in the event. My car broke on the entrance to stage 1, and then my car broke again in the middle of day 2. I think if I hadn't had those issues, I had some really good times, I think I would've been sixth overall. And same with Argentina. I was actually in ninth or 10th overall in the middle of stage 2 and the car broke. Then in Australia, I hit a tree on day 1. And I had one of the biggest crashes of my year in Portugal. It's a new WRC car, and unfortunately, I was the victim of a couple problems with it in the beginning.

How much does Gymkhana affect the results you could be getting on the WRC?
It's hard to say. It's always great to have seat time in any car, but if I were to take the budget we have to spend on some of those Gymkhana events and actually spend that on more testing and more WRC races, that would definitely improve my performance. But unfortunately, the fans and our sponsors really enjoy this thing called Gymkhana and want me to do it even more.

What do you have in store for Gymkhana 5? I heard you mention a possible trip to the UK?
Well, there's all sorts of different ideas. The process of figuring that out and doing a story line always takes six-to-eight months. It seems fairly easy when you just see the finished product, but there's a lot of work that goes into it. As of right now, we're still working on what the ideas would be, where we would go, what the budgets would be, all that. DC's the one that pays for that every year, and their budgets for next year aren't even done yet.

How often do you check your YouTube views?
Not every day, but every couple weeks to see what fans are liking, or not liking, and then track the views of different videos and Facebook posts, that sort of thing. Everything that I do is quite expensive; racing cars is ridiculously expensive. I have a great avenue with YouTube and Facebook and Twitter to reach my fans and get exposure, and that's something my sponsors definitely look at to measure the value I give to them every year.

Looking at the state of U.S. rally racing and where it is now compared to five years ago, do you think the U.S. is catching up to the rest of the world?
I think that when Travis [Pastrana] and I started racing, we genuinely saw a big difference in the number of spectators at the events -- there was a huge increase. And just the awareness of what rally was over those years has increased dramatically. I think that obviously has a lot to do with X Games and Travis being involved and myself making the Gymkhana videos. It's just made that sort of driving and that sort of car much more identifiable. Before all that happened, rally didn't have as much notoriety. Unfortunately, though, as this popularity has come along, we've also had the economic crash in 2008, so the sport has grown, but not at the rate it potentially could have in the U.S.

Do you have a grand plan for 10 years from now? Think you'd ever get bored with driving and suddenly do something new?
I'm just going to keep pushing for as long as I can, and once I either get too old or tired of doing it, I'll retire and have a nice quiet family life, because I have three kids that I'd like to watch grow up and spend more time with. But I'd also like to develop other drivers in the long run. Potentially my team could have two or three drivers who are doing the same thing I'm doing, and I'd just oversee the team. But we'll see. Every year, I just continue to be the best driver that I can, and have as much fun as I can. And until that stops, I won't really look at anything else. I'm very lucky because I sit in a very good position.

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Devon O'Neil

Writer, Action Sports

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O'Neil was raised in the Virgin Islands before dropping anchor to ski, write, and combine the two for profit. He now lives in Breckenridge, Colo.