2000ft over the canyon… but 6 inches UNDER the media radar.

Earlier this week we posted about the recreation of Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon jump, well, Eddie Braun successfully ‘jumped’ over the infamous 1400 ft canyon.

The launch was scheduled for today, September 17^th….but the EVEL SPIRIT team opted to do it yesterday, possibly because of better weather conditions. There seemed to be virtually no crowd watching.

It looked like a textbook exercise and everybody is smiling. Hats off to the team but this is possibly one of the most under-publicised events in recent history. I don’t know why this newsworthy event failed to get any media coverage. It was rather badly covered by a local TV news crew and (so far) captured with a couple of quite frankly, terrible amateur Youtube clips. I sincerely hope that this occasion has been properly documented.  

I acknowledge that times have maybe changed and everybody these days is ‘Extremed-Out’ but I can’t help but think that this just shows what a showman and entrepreneur Knievel was. Always able to ‘Bring the Circus to town’ in what seemed an effortless and flamboyant way, hawking his stunts on a global scale.

I read that Braun Spent $1.5 million of his own money to make this happen. Perhaps the EVEL SPIRIT team invested all their combined resources and energy into the mechanics of making a successful jump, maybe overlooking the pre-event publicity and build up. Or maybe the mainstream media just don’t care about an ongoing 42-year-old story. Either way, it seems criminal that this wasn’t presented ‘live’ on satellite TV and it didn’t make ‘News at Ten’. I found a picture of a tattoo belonging to an English chap who made the pilgrimage to Twin Falls Idaho to witness the jump. Ironically, this tattoo could possibly make a bigger internet splash than the jump itself.

In other news it seems Rocket Sky-Cycles are just like buses…you wait 42 years for one and then two turn up together. Apparently, on October 18^th , self-taught rocket scientist ‘Mad Mike Hughes’ will climb aboard his own version of Evel Knievel’s X-2 Sky-Cycle and endeavour to jump over the ghost town of Amboy in California. You couldn’t make it up!

Dave Skooter Farm

All photos: AP

Never Go Back: Snake River Canyon

Dave Skooter Farm reports...

In this modern age, there seems to be an insatiable quest to revisit the good old days. The ‘rebooting’ of classic movies, old bands you thought you would never, ever get to see, reforming and long-discontinued chocolate bars once again available in the newsagents. However, maybe some things should be left in the nostalgic mind’s eye.

On September 17th 2016, as tribute to his childhood idol Evel Knievel, Hollywood stuntman Eddie Bruan will attempt to recreate Evel’s 1974 career highpoint (pun intended) and jump the Snake River Canyon in Twin Falls, Idaho. Regular readers of Sideblog won’t need me to point out how Knievel’s effort played out.

Bruan will be piloting an exact replica of EK’s ‘X-2 Sky-Cycle’ built to vintage blue-prints belonging to the builder of the original, NASA rocket scientist Bob Truax. The new version of the Sky-Cycle has been co-built by the late Bob Truax’s son, Scott. The craft has been christened ‘Evel Spirit’

Just like Evel’s ‘bike’, it’s steam-powered. 

Steam is superheated to precise temperature and pressure and when released, produces 6,000 pounds of thrust and 10,000 Horsepower! Expected maximum speed is in excess of 400 mph in 3.0 seconds with a calculated altitude of 3,000 feet. 

In keeping with exact specifications of Evel's X2 Sky-cycle, all of that temperature and pressure is being held in the rocket by THE LID OF A DOG-FOOD CAN!

'Evel used it—so we're using it! That's right, we actually cut off the tops of dog food cans (just like Evel did) and place the lid inside the rocket engine to keep all the pressure at bay until we are ready to release it!' 

For some reason, live spectators at the launch site have been limited to 500 people. We could speculate that it may have something to do with Evel (above) leaving behind a trail of unpaid bills with vendors and the local services his team used during their stay 42 years ago. A city councillor in Twin Falls said the town was wiser about what to expect from a daredevil attempting to jump their canyon.

Happy landings to the ‘Evel Spirit’ team.

Dave Skooter Farm

(Above) This post's author, Dave Skooter Farm, with the original Sky-Cycle in 1999. It prompted me to ask, 'Where was the photo of you taken? And why do you look like you’ve just taken one to the nuts?'

Dave replied, 'Daytona Bike week 1999, Met Evel that day too. Can’t explain why I’m in that position….soz'