Braun soared over the southern Idaho canyon in a custom-built rocket dubbed “Evel Spirit”.
Advertisement
He’s been preparing for the past three years and spent about $1.6 million of his own money on the jump. He walked away with only minor injuries. It was designed by Scott Truax, whose father, Robert, had designed Knievel’s X2 Skycycle.
Knievel tried and failed to make it all the way across the Snake River Canyon on September 8, 1974, because his parachute deployed too soon.
Internet and wire reports were used in this story. Braun credits Knievel for his decision to beome a professional stuntman. “I met Evel Knievel as a small child and he inspired me so much when I met him”, Braun said today on “Good Morning America”.
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought it couldn’t be done”, he said.
Braun says he is attempting the jump not to prove he can, but to fulfill the dream of his hero.
“I was so mad at that engineer”.
Because Knievel failed to cross the Snake River Canyon, the feat often gets overshadowed by the sideshow that took place around the jump. Many residents remember Knievel’s promise of a weeklong festival complete with celebrities and a golf tournament. Although the 50,000 spectators he said would show up didn’t materialize, those who came upset locals by skinny-dipping, partying excessively and fighting. The daredevil was later accused of leaving town without paying debts to area businesses.
Tim Woodward covered the 1974 attempt for the Statesman.
Advertisement
Stuntmen and daredevils certainly didn’t forget it, and 2014 was not the first time another jump had been proposed. Both times, his project went nowhere.
