Free Life of Evel: Evel Knievel by Stuart Barker Page B

engine oil added to his beer was the magic ingredient. Like most things surrounding Knievel, the facts have been misinterpreted, distorted and exaggerated, and Evel was, more often than not, prepared to play along – or at least not deny any of his legend. However, he did finally put an end to the speculation surrounding the contents of a Montana Mary in 1998 when he disappointed many by confessing it was ‘…just beer and tomato juice [a drink favoured by Butte miners]. The stuff about Wild Turkey and vodka in it is just crap.’
    Of course, even a daredevil wildly drunk on Montana Marys would realise that the massive, gaping chasm that was the Grand Canyon could never be jumped by any standard motorcycle. It was, after all, two miles wide at the spot Knievel was considering jumping and was as much as 5,700 feet deep in places. But that in itself was not enough to put Knievel off and he started making preliminary plans which would one day allow him to tackle the ultimate stunt. He initially conceptualised the building of a giant take-off ramp, 200 feet high and 740 feet long, which would allow him to tackle the canyon in the same way he tackled any other jump but on a much, much grander scale. He would have a custom bike built specially for the stunt, featuring a jet engine, wings and a parachute. Knievel even went as far as to claim he had made scientific calculations (for once) that would allow the bike to bridge the chasm. The bike was to be 13 feet long and weigh in at almost 1,000 kilos and, according to his calculations, it would reach a top speed of 250mph and would accelerate to 158mph in just 3.7 seconds. The total cost of building the ramp and bike he estimated at $1 million.
    The whole idea seemed nothing short of ridiculous but, if nothing else, it gave Knievel something more to talk about and he announced these plans on national US television in late 1967, saying, ‘I’m going to try and jump across the Grand Canyon but I may have to parachute off the bike before reaching the other side. I know how to parachute and I can “track” with my body. If I bail off the bike, I’ll just aim my body toward the opposite rim of the canyon, open my parachute and land there.’ To those who scoffed at the idea and claimed Evel was just a publicity seeker, he added, ‘Before I even make the jump I may show these sceptics I mean business by riding a motorcycle across the Grand Canyon on a cable. I’ll be just like a tightrope walker in a circus, but I won’t have a safety net to catch me. That’d show those sceptics.’
    In actual fact, the sceptics did have the last laugh as Knievel never did manage to jump the Grand Canyon, nor did he ride over it on a cable. Despite gaining preliminary permission from the Department of the Interior (who owned the land where Knievel proposed to take off from) to make the jump, this was later withdrawn when it was realised that Knievel was actually serious about the attempt. He had already announced a tentative jump date of 4 July 1968 but permission was withdrawn just a few months beforehand. For the time being, Knievel was grounded, at least as far as flying over the Grand Canyon went. But the seeds for jumping a canyon had been sewn; Knievel had promised his public he would see it through and the idea refused to go away. It would change shape and, eventually, location but it did not go away. One day, Knievel vowed, he would jump a canyon, some darned canyon, if only to prove the doubters wrong.
    Unable to realise his ultimate dream for the time being, Knievel looked elsewhere for a means of breaking out of the rut that was jumping over cars. He finally found his location at the newly opened Caesar’s Palace casino and hotel resort, which was situated, somewhat appropriately, in the gambling capital of the world – Las Vegas. It was here, he decided, that he would take the gamble that would ultimately lead to worldwide fame and fortune or, equally likely, his own