Evel Knievel’s Caesars Palace Jump: A Daredevil’s Legacy

On New Year's Eve, December thirty first, nineteen sixty seven, the air in Las Vegas was a buzz anticipation when they were attempting to see something that had never been seen before, where Evil Knieval, a daredevil growing in popularity, was prepared to launch himself over the iconic Caesar Palace Fountain on a motorcycle, a one hundred and forty foot leap that could make or break him literally. What followed was a moment of gravity that pushed the limits of human endurance and cemented Knievel's name in the history books in sports history forever, but it came at a price. Today we dive into Evil Knievel's Caesar Palace jump and what made it so iconic and cemented him as one of the greatest daredevils of all time on a daily Sports and History parts. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. And today's trivia question to listen out for is what was the record for Evil Kannevel's longest jump. Listened throughout the episode to find out the answer, and if you miss it, I will give it to you at the very end. Now, Evil Knievel was not his real name. His real name was Robert Craig Kanieval and he was born in Montana and was the first of two children, and by the age of eight, his parents decided to leave him and his brother to be raised by their grandparents. And while growing up there, Knievel took in a show done by joeykin Chitwood, who was an auto daredevil, and this really vested the dream of him becoming a daredevil himself, and he actually dropped out of high school his sophomore year to get a job in the Comper Minds as a diamond driller, and he was later fired from this job when he drove a large irk mover and made it do a motorcycle wheelie and drove it into a main power line and leaving the city without electricity for several hours, showing he just had that daredevil excitement gene and he and he would later get the name Evil from when he got arrested for reckless driving and he got put in a jail cell next to a guy named William Knapfil who said his nickname was Awful Novel, and so he said, well, I'm Evil Knievel because he liked the way it rhymed, and after getting fired from his mining job, he really took two participating in local rodeo shows and ski jumps and even won the North Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A ski jumping Championship, showing he had the thrill for jumping things early. But before the fifties was over, he joined the US Army and after his After his army deployment, he came back to home debut where he joined a semi pro hockey team and even tried out for the Charlotte Clippers, who were the part of the Eastern Hockey League at the time, which was a minor professional league, but he did not end up making the team, but decided he didn't want to travel for hockey as his first son, Kelly, was being born from him and his wife Linda, so he wanted something maybe a little more stable, and in the early nineteen sixties he discovered the motocross circuit, which is where dirtbike's race and go over jumps and mounds, and he actually had a lot of success, but in nineteen sixty two he broke his collar bone shoulder in a motocross accident and the doctor said he shouldn't race for at least six months. But still needing help and support for his family, he switched his career to being an insurance salesman. Now, Knieval actually had a lot of success sailing insurance and it was a steady job for him and his family, but he didn't get that thrill from that he got from hockey or motocross. He wanted that thrill, and so when the company refused to promote him to vice president, he decided to quit his job then moved to the state of Washington, where he opened up a motorcycle dealership and promoted motocross racing. Him and the other dealers at the time had trouble selling the Japanese imports because of this deep competition in the auto industry, and because of this he had to eventually close and he went to go work at a motorcycle shop. And he still wanted that thrill, and remembering when he saw Joey Chitwood's stunning driving, he thought he could do similar things. So he started to promote himself and run out venues and write press releases, setting up shows and selling tickets to watch him do amazing stunts. He would impress entice crowds with wheelies and then he would jump a long distances like he would dump twenty feet of rattlesnakes and two mountain lions. After this, he realized how much money he could make at this and he would just need to hire more and more people to make it even more of a spectacle to get more people to show up, and so he started hiring other daredevils to work with him, and he officially appeared him in His Daredevils officially debuted on January third, nineteen sixty at the National Date Festival in Indigo, California. And this was the Evil Knieval and his Motorcycle Daredevils, and it wasn't long in only their second appearance. In February that year, Evil Knievel would do a stump where he would jump spread eagle over a speedy motorcycle. But Evil jumped too late and was hit by the motorcycle hit him in the groin, tossing him fifteen feet. So it wasn't long before he got his first daredevil injury that would follow him throughout his career. He would have to be hospitalized for his injuries, but would be released and returned that very day to finish out his performance, and he would return a month labor a month later to finish out his performance. But the problem was he lost his daredevils as well, so it was all back on him. So he started traveling too small towns doing a solo act. And at the time it was common for stunt motorcycle stunt drivers to jump animals and pools, so he changed it up by jumping over cars and add more and more, and he would continue to get larger and larger with each successful jump. The public wanted more cars and wanted bigger jumps. By March nineteen sixty seven, he was jumping over fifteen cars. In July that same year, he was attempting to do it in Graham, Washington, but he didn't have enough speed and hit the last vehicle and was thrown from the bike and suffered a serious concussion. But true to form, he would come back months later to finish out that show and jump the fifteen cars for Graham, Washington again, but again he fell short. He crashed, breaking his left wrist, right knee in two ribs. But what was impressive was him missing the jump wasn't necessarily a bad thing, because we all know this. We like to see injuries when they're not to us. It's something that happens a lot. You watch America's home video, when you see someone fall, when you see someone get hit by a baseball or get hit by a bat on accident, it's something we enjoy watching as people. It's just you feel the pain and you laugh and it's just like an emotion that comes over you, and he was giving you that emotion with these jumps. You thought it was so amazing to watch him fly through the air, but also you kind of wanted to see him crash. And that's actually what increased his popularity is that even though he crashed, he would come back to that same place and people would come back to watch him even though he failed before, because they wanted to see is this gonna happen again. It was something you wouldn't expect that failure could help you succeed, and that's exactly what happened with Evil Knievel. So by the end of nineteen sixty seven, Evil could see that he had something that people wanted to watch, and he thought, I need to do something that'll catch the nation's attention. So he connected with the Caesars Palace, who had the famous fountains that you've seen on countless movies, or if you've ever gone to Vegas, you've seen these fountains. They put on a great show and they're iconic, and he wanted to jump over them and the jump would be about one hundred and forty feet, which at the time would be a record for the longest jump on a motorcycle. And he was able to talk to Caesar's Palace into it, as he knew he would garner attention not only from local media but from national media doing something like this, and the more people you come you get to watch, the more people that will come visit your casino and make you money. So Vegas agreed and to set up for it, Knievel got a Triumph Bonnieville T one twenty, which was a six hundred cc motorcycle that he had modified to increase the power, but in doing so he actually made it heavier as well and more difficult to control. Because at this time, something that's very different than what we do now is evil didn't use a lot of mathematics or physics to figure out how fast he needed to go and the angle he needed to take. He really just went as fast as he could, hoping the jump would make it to the other side, something that now we use a lot of physics and numbers to measure how fast we need to go to make it, and it's it's different, it's safer, but at the time it just was really thought of. So December thirty first, nineteen sixty seven comes and crowds and thousands are finding anywhere to stand to watch this epic moment. Knevo comes out in his iconic white jumps suit with stars on it, similar to what Elvis wore at the time, and he takes off and he hits the ramp about ninety miles an hour, launching him into the air, leaving everyone silent as they watched him fly over the fountain, and then just towards the end, it looks like he may not be able to make it, and that front wheel just clips the edge of the landing ramp just a little bit, tossing him over the bicycle as he bounces on the ground multiple times, flipping onto his head and over like a rag doll. Mendis quickly rushed to the scene to check on him and take him to the hospital. At the time, he is unconscious and they rush him to the local hospital where he stays in a coma for twenty nine days due to the result of a severe concussion. He also suffered a broken pelvis, a fracture femur, a broken hip, Both risks were broken, and multiple ribs were fractured. Now, like we said before, just because he rex doesn't mean it wasn't a success. This garnered so much attention, and the aftermath actually garnered attention where everyone wanted to know was he going to live? Was he going to survive? Did they just watch someone pass away? And footage of the jump was actually sold to ABC, who broadcast it widely and it made Evil Knieval a household name, with many speculating whether he would live or die. Knievo would not die. He would come out of this. And not only would he come out of this now he had people that were his fans that wanted to see him, and he would not disappoint. He would continue to push the limits even after this to see what successful things he could do in the future. It would take him months to recover from this, but he would do his next jump on May twenty fifth, nineteen sixty eight, where he jumped thirteen cars and again crashed on landing and broke his leg and foot. It wouldn't be till August in sixty eight when he would have his next successful land and he would continue to grow and this allowed him to do even more shows throughout the rest of the year. And by this time he was a superstar, so everyone wanted to see him jump, and he even had merchandise. There was a toy back in the day where the toy would jump over a ramp just like Evil, and lots of times crashed just like Evil. But Evil did have a lot of successes. In October twenty fifth, nineteen nineteen seventy five, he actually jumped over fourteen greyhound buses at King's Island in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was his longest jump of one hundred and thirty three feet. He had many more jumps in his life, more than we can go over countless ones. But last jump happened on January thirty first, nineteen seventy seven, in Chicago, where he jumped thirteen sharks roughly ninety feet, and he crashed during practice of his collarbone, his right arm and it would be his final jump. He attempted to put jumps together in nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty, but just couldn't make it happen and he would officially retire, and in the nineteen nineties he required a life saving liver transplant that resulted in him suffering from the effects of hepatitis C that he contracted from numerous blood transfusions that received from before nineteen ninety two, when they tested blood more rigorously than they did back in the day. And in nineteen ninety nine he was only given a few days to live when he got a call and he left the hospital and got a call saying that a young man had died in a motorcycle accident was a donor and he would be able to receive a transplant. He would go on to live until November thirty first, two thousand and seven. Amazing for all that he had been through his life. He dealt with chronic pain after all his injuries and fell out of the limelight of the nineteen seventies and eighties. But he's always remembered when we think of daredevils. But we still love to see these as we've seen Red Bull put on crazy jumps, including him Tomber of twenty twenty four when Robbie Madison jumped a distance of three hundred and forty six feet in Melbourne, Australia. Thanks to the advances of technology, that stuff is possible and seems I'm crazy amazing, but we still watch crazy stunts. If you watch Red Bull, red Bull sponsors all these crazy jumps, like a guy jumping from space and we just all love to see what will happen, and Evil Knevil really brought that out in everybody. I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to learn more about stunts, check out the Get Vertical Real Talk with d Dress Stunts, who's ready to dive into the nitty gritty world of Harley stunt writing with her background and professional stunt writing and deliver you the real deal of well what all goes into the sport, behind the scenes and in front of fans. We'll put a link in the description below for you to check her out. And if you enjoy today's episode, please go wherever you're listening, leave us a rating review, tell us who your favorite sports team is, and I'm back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History and did you catch the answer? Today's trivia question, what was the record for Evil's longest jump? And the record was one hundred and thirty three feet when he jumped over fourteen Greyhound buses in nineteen seventy five.