Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over Greyhound buses, live sharks and Idaho's Snake River Canyon made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.Immortalized in the Washington's Smithsonian Institution as "America's Legendary Daredevil," Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.
"They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives," Knievel said. "People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner."
1 comment:
He was definitely quite the character. There was a documentary on just last Saturday about him.
While I think he believes a little too much of his legend, you can't tell me that any other dude wouldn't be scared s**tless to even think of trying some of the jumps he made and those he didn't where he caught some major league bone breakers.
Nothing but respect to him. Succinctly, he was.
-ADRIAN
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