Been thinking lately of starting up a series spotlighting tales of legendary Americans from all and every era, and decided the first installment could only be about a YUGE favorite of mine back when I was but a young sprat: the amazing Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel.
Knievel started his career as a professional rider a bit late in life when he was 27 years old. He was the first daredevil biker to transform his stunts into a lucrative business and became a worldwide sensation in the 1960s/70s.
Robert Craig Knievel was born in the copper-mining town of Butte, Montana, on October 17, 1938. His parents broke up not long after he was born and the kid was raised by his grandparents. Knievel was a very energetic teenager, a standout athlete in track and field, sky-jumping, and ice hockey. Unfortunately, he used part of this energy to become a petty criminal.
His very first bike was a Harley-Davidson he stole when he was 13 years old. Three years later his grandmother bought him a Triumph.
One night Robert was caught by the cops for riding his bike recklessly (no shi…!) and was taken to the local precinct. There, the police were holding a guy named Knofel, whom they called “Awful Knofel“. To call Robert “Evil Knievel” was a no-brainer. The name stuck, and some years later, Mr. Knievel legally took the name Evel, changing the “i” to “e” because, he said, he thought it looked better.
His career as a petty criminal continued, He was once again caught by the police, at this time, stealing hubcaps. Hoping the military life could straighten him up, the judge decided to give Evel a chance, it would either be going to jail or joining the army. Knievel jumped into the green uniform in the 1950s, but a regular infantry job wouldn’t do it for him; he volunteered to be a paratrooper and performed more than 30 jumps during his tenure. Afterward, he played semiprofessional and professional hockey, for a time with the Charlotte Clippers of the Eastern Hockey League. Then he took up motorcycle racing full-time until falling and breaking bones in a race in 1962.
When he was 27, Knievel became co-owner of a motorcycle shop in Moses Lake, Wash. To attract customers, he announced he would jump his Honda 350cc, 40 feet over parked cars and a box of rattlesnakes, and continue past a mountain lion tethered at the other end. More than 1,000 people came to see him, His jump was almost perfect, but he failed to fly far enough; his bike came down on the rattlesnakes. The audience was in awe.
“Right then,” he said, “I knew I could draw a big crowd by jumping over weird stuff.”
Some guys in history were born to become legends and that might be the case with Evel Knievel, even if he turned out to be a controversial one. Some stories about his personal life are as extreme as his stunts. He said he had twice kidnapped his hometown sweetheart, Linda Bork, and married her after the second time. He said he had robbed a service station of $900 when the owner failed to pay off a $25 bet. He said he had worked as a card shark, a swindler, and a safecracker. How much of it is true or not remained unclear.
Evel started his career riding Honda, Norton, and Triumph but his favorite bike was Harley-Davidson. For an American hero through and through, there was no other brand that could fit the bill.
He chose the XR 750, a bike designed primarily for dirt track competition, but it could also perform well on paved tracks.
And the tale continues on from there, featuring some really great, seldom-seen photos of the legendary daredevil in action. The famous Caesars Palace smash-up—”by far my worst crash,” according to the man his own self—is covered in minute detail, including the backstory of what-all went into booking the event to begin with. Fascinating stuff, believe you me; the pics alone are well worth the price of admission.
Follows, the fabled Caesars Palace misadventure—the jump that made him a superstar, but which also damned near killed the guy.
Watching the crash as a 7 year old kid horrified me, the way his body rag-dolled limply, seemingly boneless, as he went bouncing along at the bottom of the ramp. A fractured skull, pelvis, hips, and ribs; a month-long spell in a coma, effectively dead to the world. God only knows what my mom must’ve thought about the whole thing.
There have been other motorcycle stunt-riders and jumpers over the years—including Evel’s own son Robbie, who died in ’23 of pancreatic cancer—but none of them quite like the one, the only, the original Evel Knievel.
1
1
- Entries
Made in America