Life of Evel: Evel Knievel (13 page)

Evel Knievel liked to think big. A crazy idea like jumping over a canyon is always guaranteed to receive some coverage in the media, whoever attempts it, but there is no way that the Snake River Canyon event would have created anywhere near the amount of public interest that it did, had Knievel not been a natural-born showman and promoter.

He wasn’t just content for television cameras to capture the event and show it on the evening news, nor did he plan to settle for a few hundred live ticket sales at the remote location of the jump site. Evel wanted nothing less than to make his jump the biggest pay-per-view sporting event in history, hoping that punters all over the world would buy tickets to attend movie theatres where they could watch the jump live on closed-circuit television.

Knievel planned to sell 200,000 tickets at the jump site itself, turning the sleepy neighbourhood of Twin Falls, Idaho into a latter-day Woodstock on two wheels. Knievel was already a huge name but Snake River was set to make him a living legend, as well as a truck-load of cash from the TV rights, ticket sales, appearance fees and related merchandising.

Knowing his star was shining at its brightest, Knievel kept up his public appearances and his jumping, determined not to let the momentum slip. After clearing 16 vehicles (nine cars and seven vans) in Portland in March 1974, he cleared 10 Mack trucks in Fremont, Irvine, Kansas City, Tulsa, and in West Salem, Ohio. These jumps were risky enough, given that the canyon attempt was just months away and any serious injury could have seen it cancelled at huge financial loss, but Knievel’s very last jump – just three weeks before his big day – seemed completely unnecessary and insanely risky. He headed north to Canada in a bid to break his own record by jumping 13 Mack trucks at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.

As a warm-up to Evel’s jump, Robbie and Kelly (now 12 and nearly 14 respectively) both performed wheelies round the stadium, all decked out in mini Evel-style suits and capes. The 21,500 audience loved it, and, at that point at least, Evel seemed to love it too, sounding very emotional as he introduced his sons over the PA system. After addressing the crowd and reminding them that this was his last performance before the canyon assault, Knievel easily soared over the 105-foot gap between the ramps and left Canada triumphant, ready to focus his thoughts entirely on the big one.

Earlier in the year, the huge organisational effort required for the canyon jump meant that, for the first time in his career, Knievel had been forced to bring in some outside help to promote the event. It’s not that he lacked the ability to deal with such a task (he once claimed, quite accurately, that he was better than P.T. Barnum and Colonel Parker put together), he simply didn’t have the time. Evel brought in Bob Arum, who owned 75 per cent of the biggest boxing promotions company in the world, Top Rank Inc. Arum also acted as Muhammad Ali’s attorney and manager and was the recognised king of closed-circuit television promotions. Arum in turn brought in a certain Sheldon ‘Shelly’ Saltman to help with promotional duties. It was a move that would have grave consequences for Knievel some years later.

The trio arranged an exhausting, non-jumping, promotional tour during the summer of 1974, which would see Evel take in 62 cities in just 15 days at a cost of $350,000. It was rather sensationally billed as the ‘Evel Knievel says Goodbye Tour’, and Knievel, Arum, Saltman and a select band of others flew by Learjet to all the venues, starting with the Rockefeller Center in New York on 24 June.

It was during this tour that Knievel released more detailed plans of the upcoming event to hundreds of journalists all over the United States, as well as revealing how much money he expected to make from it. In New York, Arum presented Knievel with a cheque for $6 million – supposedly his guaranteed advance on royalties for the closed-circuit television rights alone. It was later revealed that the cheque was simply a publicity stunt and Knievel’s actual advance was more in the region of $250,000. Arum was still expecting to gross $32 million all-in from the deals relating to the jump, with Evel claiming a $10 million share, though, as optimism gave way to reality, that figure was eventually downsized to $20 million.

Arum boasted that there had been a demand for 200,000 tickets to watch the jump live but that he’d been forced to limit sales to 50,000 by Idaho state officials. On the final day of the promotional tour on 14 July, Knievel claimed all 50,000 tickets had been snapped up the first day they went on sale, though his boast quickly proved hollow when it was revealed that the $25 tickets hadn’t even gone on sale yet.

But the real big audience figures were expected to come through closed-circuit ticket sales. Knievel and Arum expected around two million people would pay $10 apiece to watch the show live in a two-hour broadcast to be shown in cinemas and theatres around the world – and Knievel expected a 60 per cent share of the profits, netting him $1,200,000.

And there were so many more ways of cashing in on the jump, and Evel always made sure he never missed out on his cut of the profits. He would receive 60 per cent of camping charges (ranging from $2 to $7.50 per head); 30 per cent of the profits from the sale of T-shirts, burgers, popcorn, hot dogs and beer; and a slice of all the action going on in Twin Falls itself, where everything from Evel Knievel posters, albums, toys and baseball caps, to EK underwear and radios were being sold. If it said Evel Knievel on it, the man himself demanded a piece of the action.

On 31 July, Knievel flew to the jump site to unveil his completed X-2 Sky Cycle to the press. He hadn’t done himself any favours by using the word ‘cycle’ to describe his bizarre creation, as many people were disappointed when they saw it bore no resemblance to a motorcycle. It could have saved a lot of criticism if Knievel had just called it what it was – a rocket.

Bizarrely, he had become increasingly paranoid about anyone discovering the ‘secrets’ of the X-2. He employed security guards to stop anyone getting too close to the craft and told one reporter, ‘There are hundreds of guys who want to know how this Sky Cycle works, and if they found out, everyone will be into the canyonjumping game.’

While Knievel had sat in the extremely confined cockpit of the X-2 before, he hadn’t done so with the craft in its launch position, a position of 56 degrees, which made his entry infinitely more difficult. It took the assistance of three workmen to hoist him into the machine, which would, he prayed, successfully carry him over the canyon. Sitting exactly as he would on launch day, Evel’s nerves seemed to start getting the better of him. He was probably only half-joking when he shouted to Arum from the cockpit, ‘Hey Bob. I don’t wanna do it!’, but he was deadly serious when a sponsor asked him to smile for a photograph, replying, ‘Can you think of anything funny enough for me to smile about being up here?’

Following the press call, Bob Truax and his team performed a static firing of the X-2’s power-up system. The engine fired on the third attempt and a massive burst of steam spewed from the tailpipe, so powerful that it blasted rocks and rubble for yards in all directions, forcing Evel to take cover behind a tree. He was reported to have emerged looking pale and saying, ‘And I’m going to ride that thing? Over there?’

The next logical step was to fire the test model X-2 over the canyon in order to assess the chances of Knievel surviving the leap. For reasons never adequately explained, the press were not informed of the test and it was carried out in secret on 25 August, just two weeks before the jump date. Like the X-1 before it, the X-2 plummeted straight down into the canyon, but there was at least a reason for this: it was only fired at half power using around 2,500 lb of thrust. Truax claimed he was more interested in testing the parachute recovery system which would help the craft glide down to a gentle landing. Had the team already decided it was mission impossible? Were they testing the chute because they suspected the craft had no chance of making it across the gap and that Knievel would inevitably drift into the canyon? It seems odd that out of two tests with two different craft, neither one was given its full head of steam to see how far it would go. Rather, with Knievel’s budget already spent and no more test rockets to fire, the team concentrated on the get-out clause – the parachute system.

Significantly, the parachute whipped out before the X-2 had even cleared the launch ramp. There were still two weeks in which to make modifications but there could be no more test shots. Knievel had already spent his allocated budget and was unwilling to commit any more money to the project, so the next craft to be fired over the Snake River Canyon would be the last remaining X-2 – and Knievel would have to be in it.

Bob Truax insisted that, while both craft may have plummeted into the depths of the Snake River, neither test had been a failure. ‘Well, those two didn’t really fail. We fired the first one at one-third power in order to discover if the ramp could take the punishment. The second one was fired over the rim and into the canyon on purpose. One-half power was used and we were looking to test two things – how the drag chutes would function and to see how efficient our recovery team was.’

Successful or not, Truax admitted the jump was still a huge risk. Knievel himself obviously thought that if he was going to die in the attempt he might as well go out with a bang. During his promotional tour he had revealed his plans for a ‘last supper’ in the week leading up to the canyon jump. ‘You know what? I’m gonna try and spend a million dollars in Butte, Montana and Twin Falls, Idaho the week before I jump the canyon. A million-dollar drunk. I’m going to have the biggest party you ever saw at the Freeway Tavern in Butte. I’m going to drop one million dollars. I’m inviting Liz Taylor, the Pope, whatever the Greek husband of Jackie Kennedy calls himself, and the entire city of San Francisco. If you think Jesus had a Last Supper, wait until you see mine. I plan a party that will leave mankind breathless. I want the Pope to come. In fact, I’d pay for His Holiness to bless me before take-off time.’

As well as inviting the Pope, Knievel extended the invite to anyone else who wanted to come along. ‘The Governor of Montana is already planning on calling in the California National Guard just to help him. The big party’s going to start at a tavern in Butte, Montana called the Freeway, and that’s where it’s gonna go – right down the freeway. I spent 25 or 30 thousand dollars in Butte when my motion picture was made there. Partying and fighting. I left town because I broke both hands. Got in lots of fights, lots of ’em. You know, come back, do a picture, some guy’s jealous, says something to you. Anybody say anything to me, I’ll knock their goddamn head off. I knocked the heads off the Hell’s Angels. I’ll knock the head off any son of a bitch who opens his mouth to me.’

But Knievel’s most outrageous promise was that he would bring along an armoured Brinks truck filled with $250,000 in cash and tip it out among his fans and fellow revellers outside the Freeway tavern. Those who were familiar with Knievel’s often idle boasts knew better than to believe him, but the more gullible were taken in and many turned up in Butte for Knievel’s last supper hoping to make it rich. Naturally, the truck never did turn up – a fact which makes a mockery of Knievel’s code of living, which was always, ‘if you say you’re gonna do something, you do it’. That was, after all, the reason he kept giving when asked why he was going to risk his life jumping the canyon; not for the money, but because he’d
said
he was going to do it. Knievel once claimed that the thing he was most proud of in his entire life was that he’d kept his word in attempting to jump the canyon. His word about throwing $250,000 in cash to his fans was obviously less important.

Nevertheless, the party did go ahead, though on a much smaller scale than Evel had promised. Instead of throwing out cash, Knievel tossed out cans of beer from behind the bar in the Freeway Tavern to a few hundred revellers; spirits and wines were not on the house. The party moved on to the Acoma Lounge and Supper Club, Knievel and his entourage being driven in a police car to the venue, leaving everyone else to follow by whatever means were at their disposal. Again, Evel climbed on top of the bar and tossed out free beers, but there was still no sign of any free money and disappointment was beginning to show on the faces of more than a few who had turned out. The last supper then moved on to the Met Tavern and finally the Elmar, just a few blocks from Evel’s house. By three in the morning he had slipped off home and the party to end all parties was over. It was far from being a million-dollar blow-out, as Evel admitted years later. While he says he ‘tried’ to get through a million, he’d actually only managed to blow a few thousand dollars. It was to be the first of many disappointments surrounding the canyon jump.

Knievel continued to promote his big moment right up until the day of the event itself. As well as his jumping tour and his promotional tour, he had appeared on every television chat show that would invite him (and most did) and had spoken to every reporter who was prepared to spread the word about what Knievel was calling the sporting event of the century.

Finally, after seven years of dreaming and planning, boasting and bragging, people began turning up at the Idaho jump site in the days leading up to the event. But it was no family fairground audience that began to converge upon the canyon; the first arrivals were a motley band of bikers, and the locals began to fear the worst. The quiet town of Twin Falls (population 21,914 at the time) was situated just three miles from the jump site, and while some locals appreciated the boost for local business the event would surely provide, others were wary about reports of 50,000 wild motorcycle fans descending on their town. Situated 132 miles east of Boise, Twin Falls was founded in 1904 and by 1974 was a peaceful and relatively prosperous little town where the main concern that year had been the damage to local potato crops following a bout of frost in August. Agriculture had always been the chief source of income for those living in the fertile ‘Magic Valley’ and potatoes were generally of much more interest to the inhabitants of Twin Falls than Evel Knievel. But by jump week that had all begun to change as wild rumours began to circulate about the influx of people into the town. Hell’s Angels would be arriving in their thousands; it would be like Woodstock but without the atmosphere of peace and love; it would just be full of drugged-up, long-haired beatniks out to cause trouble. And what was even worse for some residents was that jump week clashed with the Magic Valley Fair and Rodeo.