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Motorcyle Stunts Are Dangerous |
By:
Leigh Day |
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The King Of Motorcycle Stunts
Robert Craig Knievel was born on October 17, 1938 in Butte, Montana. During his early life he was a reckless teenager constantly running from the law and occasionally getting caught. It was almost a natural progression in his life to go from harrowing chases with the law to making a living doing motorcycle stunts but it almost did not happen that way.
One of those times Knievel was in jail he was put in a cell next to a man named William Knofel. People in town used to call Knofel Awful Knofel so when he was in prison next to Knofel, and the guards would call out roll call, they would call out Awful Knofel and then Evil Knievel because the two names rhymed. The name stuck and Knievel changed the spelling to Evel to avoid any negative implications and soon he was known as Evel Knievel.
After a tour in the army Evel came back to Butte to kidnap and marry his girlfriend Linda. To support his family Knievel made a living selling insurance. Even though he was very successful as an insurance salesman he was not happy. He needed more so he turned to motorcycle stunts.
Evel Knievel put together a traveling motorcycle stunt show that featured him jumping his motorcycle over boxes filled with rattlesnakes or smashing through walls of fire head on while driving his motorcycle. He began to develop a reputation as a motorcycle stunt expert and decided that motorcycle stunts was how he wanted to make a living. He knew that the world of motorcycle stunts was all show business so he set out to create as much of a buzz about himself as he could and he thought there was no better place to do that than Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
The Crash That Almost Ended It All
After some shrewd self promotion Evel Knievel convinced the manager of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas to allow Evel to do what Evel considered to be the ultimate motorcycle stunt. He wanted to jump his motorcycle over the fountains at Caesar’s Palace. The manager agreed and Knievel attempted the jump on New Year’s Eve in 1967. The networks declined to show the jump but agreed to broadcast any footage of it afterwards if the jump was impressive enough. After a horrific crash that put him in a coma for almost 30 days Evel Knievel was on his way to becoming the world famous daredevil he always wanted to be.
Evel Knievel didn’t kill himself doing motorcycle stunts as many suspected he would. He lived out his life in constant pain but died at the age of 69 on November 30, 2007. He died from Hepatitis C that he contracted from blood transfusions during his daredevil days. He may not have died on a motorcycle but eventually it was the motorcycle stunts that killed Evel Knievel.
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Article Source: http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article76069.html |
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