Life of Evel: Evel Knievel by Stuart Barker

Author:Stuart Barker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction
Publisher: HarperSport

10

Unhappy Landings

‘I fear dying but I can’t quit because the banks won’t let me.’

It’s a fact that Evel Knievel is better known for his failures than his successes, and no jump proved this more than his perfect leap over 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island, Ohio on 25 October 1975.

Most people with even the slightest passing interest in Knievel have heard of the Caesar’s Palace crash, the failed Snake River Canyon attempt and the horrific Wembley wipe-out, but few have heard of Kings Island, the scene of Knievel’s greatest success. This has largely been due to the media who, while repeatedly screening Knievel’s horrific crashes, seemed to ignore the many times he did manage to make safe landings; although, to be fair, the media is at the same time pandering to what viewers want to see and read about – and, more often than not, that’s blood and guts.

Evel arrived in Dayton, Ohio on 13 October to visit the Kings Island jump site and perform some practice jumps before the main event. He had already completed a seven-city, non-jumping promotional tour to publicise the event, taking in Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville and Cincinnati.

A jump stadium had been specially built for his attempt just outside the Kings Island Family Entertainment Center. Able to hold 70,000 people, it was hailed as the largest temporary-seating arena in the United States. Even so, there were fears that it might not be big enough as word started getting around that up to 100,000 people might turn out to see Knievel’s longest-ever jump. The attendance record in the entertainment park itself was 43,000, and everyone involved fully expected this to be broken. The centrepiece of the arena was a 400-foot-long ramp leading up to where the 14 Greyhound buses would eventually be placed, but Evel built up to that number slowly during the week, initially jumping just five, six and seven buses.

When the first five buses were lined up for his initial practice leap, Knievel complained they were not close enough together and that he wanted them ‘so close together that the paint would rub off’. The drivers then parked them just eight inches apart but Evel still wasn’t happy until a local friend called Pete Ankney suggested he bring in two fork-lift trucks to lift the buses into place so they were actually touching. Knievel obviously wasn’t taking any chances on this one. As Ankney commented at the time, ‘Eight inches may not sound like much, but when you multiply that 13 times you’re talking about more than eight feet.’

Unusually, and perhaps showing a new-found caution after one crash too many at Wembley, Knievel continued making practice jumps throughout the week before taking a day out on Friday to celebrate his thirty-seventh birthday. The mayor of Dayton, James H. McGee, presented Knievel with the keys to the city, and Montgomery County officials commissioned a six-foot birthday cake designed to feed 300, which featured 14 buses and a model of Knievel on his bike suspended above them.

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