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One of the great characters of our time.
They just don't make them like this guy anymore.
He began his daredevil career in 1965, when he formed a troupe called Evel Knievel’s Motorcycle Daredevils, a touring show in which he performed stunts such as riding through fire walls, jumping over live rattlesnakes and mountain lions and being towed at 200 mph (321 km/h) behind dragster race cars.
In 1966 he began touring alone, barnstorming the U.S. West and doing everything from driving the trucks, erecting the ramps and promoting the shows. In the beginning he charged $500 for a jump over two cars parked between ramps.
He steadily increased the length of the jumps until, on New Year’s Day 1968, he was nearly killed when he jumped 151 feet (46 metres) across the fountains in front of Caesar’s Palace. He cleared the fountains, but the crash landing put him in the hospital in a coma for a month.
In the years after the Caesar’s crash, the fee for Evel’s performances increased to $1 million for his jump over 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London — the crash landing broke his pelvis — to more than $6 million for the Sept. 8, 1974, attempt to clear the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in a rocket-powered “Sky Cycle.”
The money came from ticket sales, paid sponsors and ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.”
The parachute malfunctioned and deployed during takeoff. Strong winds blew the cycle into the canyon, landing him close to the swirling river below.
On Oct. 25, 1975, he jumped 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island in Ohio.
Knievel decided to retire after a jump in the winter of 1976 in which he was again seriously injured. He suffered a concussion and broke both arms in an attempt to jump a tank full of live sharks in the Chicago Amphitheater.
Originally Posted by robitusson
...the King...I know this is off topic but does anybody know of a download or DVD version of Thats the way it is?
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