Evil Knievel, a corruption of Evel Knievel, refers to the big daddy of all daredevils – the guy who wrote the book on motorcycle daredevilry and in the process earned a record 433 broken bones! Robert Craig Knievel was the inspiration and hero for a generation of youngsters growing up in the 70s. The same guys sport beer bellies now and root for Robbie Knievel.
Evel Knievel did a lot in his 69 years, macho stuff that kids read about in comics. Maybe the America of those days was a place where free spirits could do their thing, though not always the right thing, and still get a chance to get back on track. Knievel was not THE ideal man, of course. A lot of people know this.
The first wheelie that got him noticed (and fired from his job) was not with a motorcycle, it was with an earth mover! And the stunt left the entire town of Butte, Montana without electricity for several hours as Evel mowed into the main power lines. Rodeo, ski-jumps, the army, raising awareness about animal rights, poaching, and of course motorcycle jumps – Evel did it all.
He was the first guy to popularize the stunt of jumping over cars, till then motorcycle stuntmen had been jumping over crates of animals and swimming pools.
Guys like Evel are not made for treading the straight and narrow – maybe his circumstances didn’t help either, but in my opinion the sum of the guy’s life had more pluses than minuses. And that’s all that matters.
Here’s an old old video circa 1973 of Evel Knievel pulling a jump that’s more than a 100 feet.
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