You'll remember Evel Knievel. If you're of a certain age, you might recall his 13-bus jump at Wembley Stadium in 1975 which resulted in him breaking his pelvis. The man was famous for both things: jumping improbably large objects - usually in improbably large numbers - and not always landing safely on the far side. Both elements were equally spectacular, and made him easily the most well-known stunt performer of the seventies.
To honour the legendary daredevil, Travis Pastrana - in many ways his modern-day equivalent - will spend his Sunday recreating three of the Knievel's most dangerous jumps in Las Vegas. Why should you care? Well, because it's live on the tele (assuming you've access to the History channel), and because Pastrana plans to do them back to back over a three-hour period - which is undeniably cool.
They're also all fairly hair-raising, and record-breaking. The first will see him jump 50 crushed cars - a favoured stunt of Knievel's and one he managed in 1973. Then, for good measure, and apparently in the same parking lot, he'll endeavour to jump 16 Greyhound buses - fully two more than Knievel ever managed. But the piece de resistance, following a ride along the strip with police escort (naturally), will be the proposed jump over the fountains in front of Caesars Palace.
Said fountains are famous in their own right (see numerous films for examples) but also very famous in the Knievel canon, as it was the American's longest attempted jump at 43m - and the scene of one his most spectacular accidents as he fell cruelly short of the landing ramp. The trailer for the Pastrana event helpfully points out just how many bones were broken as a result.
Pastrana will hope to be more successful, and is likely to be helped along by the bike he's riding, which has twice the power of Knievel's. It is not though, the usual lightweight, mega-jump modern faire. Instead Pastrana has chosen an Indian Scout FTR750 - the sort of modern V-Twin machine that best resembles the kind of flat-track bikes that Evel used throughout his career.
"It was extremely important to use a motorcycle similar to the ones Evel jumped. The Indian Scout FTR 750 is just that, a modern-day evolution of the flat track motorcycles of the past," said Pastrana. "It has the power I need and handles well, but I'm only going to have a few days to get comfortable on it, not to mention I've never jumped a V-twin before. I've got my work cut out, but we're used to going big at Nitro Circus, so we'll make it happen."
Pastrana's inexperience with the Scout obviously adds a little spice to proceedings, as does the back-to-back nature of the three-hour broadcast planned. But we are talking about the same man who jumped out of a plane without a parachute so what's the worst that could happen? If you'd like to find out, plan for a late one on Sunday.
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