Life of Evel: Evel Knievel

by Stuart Barker

  By the Thursday before the jump approximately 5,000 people had gathered in and around Twin Falls. Many of them had come to take part in or watch the motocross races organised as an extra attraction, since the jump itself, however it went, would be over in a few short minutes. Further entertainment was planned for launch day itself, though only those watching on the closed-circuit television coverage would have any hope of seeing it, since all the acts would be performing near the canyon’s edge, out of sight of the paying live spectators.

  Bob Arum had always said that there were only two ways to watch the canyon jump: live at the site or on closed-circuit in a cinema or theatre. There was to be no coverage on network television, not even weeks after the event. Various members of the press, however, had noticed television broadcast trucks belonging to Evel’s long-standing collaborators ABC parked at the jump site, and suspected another con. It looked like Knievel and Arum were trying to force people into buying theatre tickets or live gate tickets by claiming it was the only way to see the event of the century, when there had actually been a television show planned all along. As it turned out, Arum had indeed struck a deal with ABC, in which the firm would provide the cameras and team to film the event for the closed-circuit coverage free of charge and would then be allowed to use the footage one week later to air on television. Between them, Arum and Knievel never missed a trick.

  Another television channel, CBS, tried to get in on the action by offering the Idaho Land Board $50,000 for use of the opposite side of the canyon to film the event. They argued that national interest in the jump was so great that it had become a news story and not just a performance, and therefore they had a right to film it. But when Bob Arum threatened to cancel the event if CBS went ahead with filming it the firm backed down, realising that there was nothing to be gained by anyone in a non-event.

  ABC tried to further encourage anyone who wasn’t already on the Knievel/canyon bandwagon to hop aboard by screening a new documentary, One Man…One Canyon, as well as re-running the George Hamilton movie, Evel Knievel, in the days leading up to the event.

  As the big moment drew ever closer, the strain on Knievel began to show, and it reached a peak when he had a run-in with an NBC cameraman called Jim Watt. During a pre-jump press conference in Knievel’s massive personal trailer, Watt requested that the daredevil stand up during the question-and-answer session in order that the assembled media would be able to get better pictures. Knievel, obviously nearing breaking point, exploded, ‘If I wanna sit down I’m gonna sit down,’ before telling Watt to get out of his trailer. After some further heated words on Knievel’s part and a refusal to be humiliated on Watt’s part, Knievel jammed Watt’s camera into his face and struck him with his cane, knocking the diminutive cameraman to the ground and sending his camera reeling. Watt later attempted to sue Knievel for $1.1 million in damages, but nothing ever came of it and Knievel refused to back down or even apologise, simply saying of the offending cane, ‘The cane is worth 20,000 dollars and I wouldn’t want to waste it on an NBC cameraman.’

  It was an ugly incident, but not as ugly as things turned around the jump site on the eve of the main event. Around 500 of those camping in the area embarked on a rampage, burning fast-food stands and breaking into any vehicle or trailer that contained booze, further fuelling their riot. Drunken, helmet-less bikers (Idaho had a mandatory helmet law, unlike some American states) tore up the land on their motorcycles and rode through the camp bonfires. A fire engine was also vandalised, and the only thing which prevented the Sky Cycle from being torched before the big show was the armed guards on the fenced-off launch pad. The carnage didn’t cease until dawn and for many 8 September was a day to sleep off a thumping hangover in the Idaho sun, oblivious to the main event.

  But for Evel Knievel it was to be the biggest day of his life. There was just one last thing he had to arrange before he tried to get some much-needed sleep. ‘The night before the canyon jump I made a deal with my son Kelly. I said, “Tomorrow, when we get in the car to go the airport I want you to pretend that you left your little shaving kit in the house and you gotta run back in for it,” and I said, “I got a picture I had made for your mother here and if I get killed at the edge of the canyon I wanna make sure that this is hanging on the wall over the bed in this bedroom when she comes home.” What I had done was gotten a picture of the Snake River Canyon without the Sky Cycle or the ramp or anything in it and I had written in the sky, “To my darling wife Linda – I love you” and signed it Bob.’ According to Knievel, Kelly carried out his duties to the letter.

  8

  Rocket Science

  ‘I think that man was put here on earth to live, not just to exist.’

  The Idaho sun rose over the Magic Valley accompanied by a stiff 20mph wind, which not only fluttered the Old Glory flag on top of the launch ramp but coated everyone present with the dusty, dry sand of the Snake River Canyon rim. There could be no more talking, no more hype, no more planning and no more excuses: Evel Knievel was finally going to face the canyon. But there were going to be far fewer people there to see his attempt than he had imagined.

  After the initial predictions of a 200,000-strong crowd had been downsized to 50,000, it was estimated that only 15,000 people turned up on jump day to witness the event live. In fairness, the remote location of the site probably contributed to the disappointing crowd figures, but given that there are few major cities with canyons running through them there was little Knievel could do about that. The show had to go on, despite the added headache of a New York congressman who was kicking up a fuss and wanted to ban the closed-circuit television coverage of the event. Republican John M. Murphy was concerned that Knievel’s antics would inspire young children to emulate him and put their lives at risk. He complained, ‘I have received newspaper reports and photos from concerned parents in Idaho which already show youngsters on bicycles and jerry-built ramps trying to perform Evel’s stunts over local streams…One of the phone calls to my office came from a parent who felt the promotion of this event was having a bad effect on young people and that Mr Knievel was a sick individual.’

  Murphy claimed he had received hundreds of letters of complaint, and in a completely over-the-top statement called Knievel a ‘modern-day pied-piper of suicidal mayhem’. The Federal Communications Commission, to whom Congressman Murphy complained, refused to get involved, and the whole protest eventually fell on deaf ears. It was one problem solved but there were plenty more to contend with on jump day.

  As the temperature soared above 80 degrees, the shortage of food and beer on-site, due to the looting of the night before, became ever more apparent. And there was a shortage of security men too at first light as many had left in disgust at the rioting campers. Knievel hired more, even more goonish than his first batch, selected as they were from some of the hordes of trouble-makers who had that very morning been threatening to break down the fence which enclosed the launch site, the press area, Knievel’s truck, the ABC television trucks, and the prototype X-1. The latter had finally been retrieved from the depths of the canyon and put on display, a grim reminder that there really was a genuine chance of Knievel meeting his doom this very day. A further reminder of the dangers – albeit an unintentional one – was the one-ton, six-foot-high granite ‘monument’ which had already been erected by the canyon’s edge to commemorate the event, whatever the outcome. Many commented that it looked more like a tombstone than a monument, and while it bore the words, ‘From this point on September 8th, 1974, Evel Knievel attempted a milelong leap of the Snake River Canyon’, it had been left with enough space to carve an epitaph should the need arise.

  Evel Knievel finally made his appearance at the jump site by helicopter at around 1.45 p.m., along with Linda, Kelly, Robbie and Tracey. He made straight for his trailer, waving to the gathered and impatient crowds on the way, then was hidden from view again, determined to spend some quiet time with his family before he had to do what he’d come to do; what
he’d waited seven years to do.

  After a quick glimpse of their hero there was once again nothing much more for the crowd to do or see. They certainly couldn’t see the sideshow acts that had begun on the canyon rim. Acts like the Karl Wallenda family who performed pyramids on a tightrope; the Sensational Parker who would swing out over the canyon on a flexible pole; the Great Manzini who would wriggle out of a straitjacket while being suspended 150 feet above the crowd by a burning rope; and Gil Eagles, who was to ride a motorcycle blind-folded along the rim of the canyon between obstacles. It was pure big-top hokum and of no more interest to those in closed-circuit theatres who could watch it than to all the ticket-paying live fans who couldn’t. Even so, at least it would have given them something to do as they waited for their hero to reappear.

  The rougher elements of the crowd took the time to make their own entertainment, most of it inspired by drink and drugs. Upon seeing a handwritten sign held aloft by one hopeful young man pleading, ‘Chicks – Show Your Tits’, a certain young lady obliged by removing her T-shirt. She got more than she bargained for as the crowd immediately hoisted her aloft and began stripping the remainder of her clothes off as she was passed around by mauling, desperate hands. Eventually she was stripped completely naked and was thrown over the fence into the press compound, her flesh scratched, bruised and bloody but her vacant eyes signalling that she didn’t know much about what was going on.

  This was the side of the Knievel Woodstock that the closed-circuit coverage choicely ignored, preferring as it did to focus on the Butte High School marching band’s procession and all the other wholesome all-American carnival acts.

  Finally, Knievel strutted out of his trailer, decked in his jump-day finest: the lucky red rabbit’s foot attached to the zip of his leathers, the zip itself being largely undone; famous cane in hand. With his huge Elvis-style collar, the flared trouser-legs and the Harley-Davidson Old Glory Number One logo, Knievel looked more like a Las Vegas entertainer than a rocket passenger. The only giveaway was the custom-painted jet-fighter-pilot helmet he carried under his arm.

  He made his way up to a platform on the launch mound overlooking the spectators to be interviewed by David Frost, who was hosting the closed-circuit television show (and would later use much of the material for the benefit of British audiences on The Frost Interview). Looking strained and talking much quieter than usual, Knievel told Frost, ‘I think my chances now are 90 per cent. I’ve got a team behind me, Mr Truax and all the boys, that are 100 per cent and I think we’ll do it. I wish the wind wasn’t blowing so hard but I think we’ll do it.’

  Despite the fact that he was breathing heavily just from walking up the launch mound, Knievel insisted that he was in top shape for the jump. ‘I’ve kept myself in good physical shape. I don’t drink very much and I’ve never taken a narcotic and I’m ready to go. I’m in good physical shape and mentally, right now, I’m 100 per cent. I’m ready to go.’

  He added that if he was going to die, then smashing himself into a canyon was about as good a way to go as any. ‘I’ve never been afraid in my life of dying under any circumstances…As far as the dying goes, if I have to hit that wall over there on the other side I think that maybe I would rather do that than be the victim of a senseless tragedy. I’d rather be busted into the wind like a meteorite and not become just dust. I think that man was put here on earth to live, not just to exist, and today is the proudest day of my life.’

  One of Frost’s guest commentators on the broadcast was Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell, who, interestingly enough, had some concerns over the X-2’s parachute recovery system. Having checked over the craft on the morning of the launch and had a last-minute discussion with Knievel, he told Frost, ‘We did tell him to make sure to hold the lever back on lift-off because we don’t want to prerelease the drogue chute. At one time in the vehicle we had an automatic system that would release the chute. This did not work too well, as a matter of fact it released it prematurely on the last [practice] launch. So now Evel has a switch, which he must hold back with 45 pounds of pressure, and when he wants to release the chute he leaves the lever to go forward. If something happens to him and he blacks out he’ll release the lever automatically and the chute will open. Of course, we don’t want the chutes to be released prematurely because it would slow down the trajectory and he’d land in the river. And so that’s the main thing he has to do is to hold back the lever until the proper time, which is about 10 seconds after [the launch].’

  For once in his career, Knievel and his team had actually calculated the forces, distances and trajectories involved in a jump. Instead of simply eyeing up a ramp, twisting the throttle on his motorcycle and hoping for the best, he had spent many hours with his crew, calculating in great detail what was needed and how the whole thing would work. So, in theory at least, the X-2 would be launched up the take-off ramp at a 56-degree angle and would reach its maximum speed of 394mph five seconds after lift-off. By that point the engine should have burned itself out but the craft would continue soaring upwards until it reached its peak altitude, 15 seconds after the launch. The X-2 should then slow to 227mph as it levelled off. At that point, 3,000 feet up and almost a mile from the launch site, a preset gyroscope would trigger the parachute recovery system, then a drogue chute would be deployed which in turn would pull out the main parachute. The entire ‘recovery’ sequence should take just eight seconds but would give Evel a series of three-G jolts at each separate stage of the sequence. Twenty-three seconds and 4,700 feet after lift-off, the X-2 should be at 2,200 feet altitude and should begin floating back down to earth at a rate of 15mph, landing two minutes and three seconds after its launch. On paper at least, every last detail seemed to have been worked out, but if history has taught us anything it’s that theory doesn’t always translate smoothly into practice.

  There really was only one way to find out if the calculations had been correct and if all would go to plan, and that was to climb into the Sky Cycle and activate the launch button – but not before asking for God’s blessing. In the absence of the Pope who had mysteriously failed to respond to Knievel’s invitation, Father Gerry Sullivan, reputedly a cousin of Knievel’s, led a prayer asking God to deliver Evel safely across the canyon. As he finished, the national anthem was played, and, as a last attempt to tug on the heartstrings of all present, John Culliton Mahoney’s ‘The Ballad of Evel Knievel’ blared out over the PA system, followed by Evel’s recorded recital of his poem ‘Why?’. His parting words to Frost as he prepared to mount the Sky Cycle would appear to have inspired a young Arnold Schwarzenegger; for as he turned his back on Frost he simply said, ‘I’ll be back.’

  As the last words of his poem rang out, Knievel was finally hoisted up to the Sky Cycle in the ‘Liberty’ crane, looking for all the world like the king of the daredevils in his red metal throne as the chair he sat in swayed and twirled gently. He waved to the throngs below who waved, yelled and cheered back, some positively and others jeeringly. But whether he was eagle-eyed enough to take in one particular tribute among all the hustle and bustle is unknown. As he was being hoisted up, one man in the crowd grabbed his lady companion by the hair, forced her to her knees, popped out his manhood and ‘encouraged’ her to perform an indecent act. As she did so, he shouted out, ‘For you, Evel – for you, man!’ What benefit the act was expected to bring to Knievel is unclear.

  Naturally, the television cameras avoided this incident, as they did all the other undesirable happenings in the rowdy crowd, and concentrated on Knievel’s struggle to enter the cockpit of the Sky Cycle, aided again by three of his crew.

  The countdown began as 700 lbs of water reached boiling point, ready to launch Knievel skywards with 5,000 lbs of thrust. Finally, after a week of milling around in hundreds and then thousands, the collective attention of the crowd that had gathered on the banks of the Snake River was fixated on whatever their vantage point allowed them to see of the flimsy-looking craft that was the X-2. Many were ro
oting for Evel; others were hoping for a gory crash-and-burn spectacular, but even the cynical were now captivated.

  Knievel himself, though surrounded by thousands and with many hundreds of thousands more watching in cinemas all over the United States, was now completely and utterly alone. He had said goodbye to his family and it had not been a pleasant task. ‘I hope that no one ever sees in their wife’s eyes and in their children’s eyes what I saw in my wife’s eyes and my kids’ eyes before that jump. My wife was petrified. And I hope nobody ever has to say a prayer like I said when I punched that fire button. I just said, “Three seconds to go. God take care of me, here I come.” I know what men felt like when they stood in front of an executioner. I was a dead man. I never thought that I had a prayer. I didn’t think I would get 10 feet in that thing.’

  With a final countdown of 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, there was then an almighty whhhooooosh as if the lids of ten thousand boiling kettles had been blasted off simultaneously. Knievel had punched the fire button, and the immense rush of pressurised steam blasted him upwards and sent huge chunks of earth, stone and debris flying 100 yards all around with tremendous force as Knievel’s crew ducked for cover.

  The X-2 flashed up the ramp at tremendous speed, pinning Evel back hard into the cramped cockpit seat as the crowd gasped, yelled and cheered in equal measure. He had done it. The madman had actually gone through with his promise of seven years and the X-2 looked easily fast enough to reach the other side of the canyon. Or at least it did for two seconds. Confusion reigned as the craft started twisting to the right just after launch, eventually performing a 360-degree roll while still rocketing forwards and upwards. Then it happened. The crowd were puzzled, scared and disappointed as they saw the Sky Cycle’s parachute open and the craft started slowly drifting down into the canyon.