Life of Evel: Evel Knievel by Stuart Barker Read Free Book Online

hoisted the front wheel of his Bantam onto the boot of the car, rode up over the rear window, smashing it in as he went, then revved the bike up and over the roof and finally back down over the bonnet and onto the street. He scared the life out of Pavolich, amused the hell out of the gathered drinkers and won his $10. The owner of the Volkswagen was presumably less than pleased.
    Knievel may have been good at performing stunts on his BSA, but back in the 1960s there was no obvious means of pursuing motorcycle stunt-riding as a career. Therefore it was to becoming a motorcycle racer, rather than a stunt rider, that Knievel aspired, and in America in the early 1960s there really was only one kind of motorcycle sport and that was dirt-bike racing. Had Knievel been born 20 years later there is every chance he would have taken to road racing on purpose-built Tarmac circuits but back then this was almost exclusively a European pursuit. The Americans preferred to race ‘flat-trackers’ round dirt or shingle-based ovals ranging from a quarter-mile to a mile in length. It’s a fearsome spectacle, with riders racing their bikes flat out down the straights at around 140mph before slewing their machines sideways to scrub off speed into the corners. The nearest European equivalent is speedway, but speedway bikes are far less powerful than the big 750cc American flat-trackers, personified by Harley-Davidson’s legendary and enduring XR-750 V-twin machine – the same bike Evel would later use in his jumping career.
    Having gained his national racing licence from the AMA (American Motorcycle Association), Bobby headed out to California to try his hand at dirt-track racing. Borrowing all he could from his ever-supportive grandparents, Knievel was still extremely poor and his accommodation at race meetings, as often as not, was the back seat of his car, usually with Linda and Kelly along for the ride. On many nights the young family would camp out under the stars and wash themselves in rivers or creeks, all so Knievel could pursue his dream of becoming a professional motorcycle racer.
    Knievel did meet with some success in the racing world, but the prize money was poor and barely enough to keep him going to the next meeting. He also found his six-foot frame put him at a disadvantage next to the smaller riders. ‘When the AMA put us on 250s, the little guys who didn’t weigh anything would go past you like a rubber band,’ he complained. It was during one of these races in May 1962 that Knievel achieved something of a landmark in his life: he broke his first bone. It was his collarbone and it was to be the first of many bones he would shatter; enough, in fact, to earn him a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the man who had broken more bones than any other. The 1972 entry for this, however, is laughably inaccurate. It states that in that year alone, Knievel fractured 431 bones. As Steve Mandich correctly points out in Evel Incarnate: The Life and Legend of Evel Knievel, that would average out at 1.2 bones being broken every single day of the year, a feat which even Knievel would find hard to admit to with a straight face.
    But back in May 1962, apart from being a month memorable for breaking his first bone, Knievel had good reason to celebrate as his second son, Robert Edward Knievel, was born on the seventh day of the month. He would become known to the world as Robbie Knievel, the world-class motorcycle jumper, but his relationship with his father would be stormy in the extreme. But right now, Robbie was just another mouth to feed and his father was still not earning any money worth talking about. Bobby knew he would have to try harder to support his family.
    His interest in racing and bikes in general had become such that by late 1962 Knievel made his first attempt to earn a proper living from motorcycles. Having been disillusioned with the carinsurance business, Bobby borrowed as much money as he could from his grandmother and