CN
III ARCHIVES
I
t was only 15 feet, but it may
have been the most significant
distance that that a young man
called Robert Craig Knievel ever
traveled. Over the oasis-like foun-
tains of Caesar's Palace in Las Ve-
gas, Nevada, Evel Knievel's career
was launched—with a crash.
The year was 1967, and America
was in a cultural quandary. Conflict
was everywhere. The hippie move-
ment was gaining ground, as was
the deadly momentum of U.S. in-
volvement in Vietnam. A microcosm
of the upheaval, motorcycling, too,
was trying to find itself, arguably
fighting a losing battle in an attempt
to gain respectability among the
general population. On December
31, Knievel gave it a huge leg up.
"The rest of the motorcycle
industry, and I don't care who you
P96
fountains. The louder that Evel beat
the drum, the more they listened,
wondering just what kind of individ-
ual was this who would risk death
for the enjoyment of others. Some
said he was crazy. Knievel's extrava-
gant flamboyance only fueled the
fire further.
"I really tried to come off as a
cross between Elvis Presley and
Liberace," Knievel says. "I tried to be
as first class at everything as I could.
Everybody thought that I was loaded
with money, but I didn't have a dime
to my name. I borrowed money from
a friend of mine, from Aggie [Ascot
promoter J.C. Agajanian] and from
my grandmother to go to Las Vegas
and stay there for the month that I
was there, working on the takeoff
and landing area with one other me-
chanic and carpenter with me—same
name, was still about rodeo arena-
type, dirt-track-performing areas,"
Knievel, now 65, says. "The best
that they could do was Ascot Park.
There was a lot of difference be-
tween being a Las Vegas showman
and driving a car at Ascot Park."
Ascot had given Knievel his start
in the motorcycle daredevil busi-
ness, and he had made a decent
go of it for the first few years. Yet he
knew that to make the great gains
he was seeking in his life, he would
have to take greater risks. The
fountains at Caesar's Palace would
provide the perfect opportunity.
"I decided that no matter how
long that jump was, if I made it, I
would go down in history as a real
conqueror," Knievel remembers.
And so the drum-beating began.
Evel Knievel was going to jump the
The attempted
jump that made
Evel Knievel more
famous than he
already was—
Caesar's Palace.
AN EVEL ARRIVAL
