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DELIVERED FOR EVEL
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Stuntman Eddie Braun prepares to climb into the “Evel Spirit” Friday at the Snake River Canyon near Hansen.
Braun fulfills Knievel’s dream
The life and times of Evel Knievel
MYCHEL MATTHEWS
Oct. 17, 1938: Robert Craig Knievel is born in Butte, Mont. July 9, 1967: “Evel” Knievel soars over 13 autos in a demonstration at Lewis County Fairgrounds near Centralia, Wash. Dec. 31, 1967: Knievel vaults his motorcycle 141 feet over the fountains of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and crashes spectacularly. He suffers a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist, and both ankles and a concussion. October 23, 1971: Knievel sets world indoor record by jumping 14 cars at Portland Memorial Coliseum; fractures his left hand. Sept. 8, 1974: Knievel makes
TIMES-NEWS
mmatthews@magicvalley.com
TWIN FALLS — Forty-two years ago this month, Robert “Evel” Knievel Sr. famously failed to launch himself over the Snake River Canyon in a steam-powered rocket. On Friday, Hollywood stuntman Eddie Braun fulfilled Knievel’s Please see DELIVERED, Page A4 MATTHEW GOOCH, TIMES-NEWS
Watch the jump online:Go
to Magicvalley.com to watch a video of the Evel Spirit’s launch over the Snake River Canyon near Hansen.
‘Return to the Snake River’ team members ride on a trailer carrying the ‘Evel Spirit’ Friday after Hollywood stuntman Eddie Braun successfully launched the rocket over the Snake River Canyon near Hansen. Standing at the front of the trailer is stunt coordinator Gary Davis, Evel Knievel’s own stuntman.
Twin Falls the center of the universe for a day by attempting to launch his X-2 Skycycle, designed by Robert Truax, over the Snake River Canyon. May 26, 1975: Knievel jumps over 10 single-decker buses in London’s Wembley Stadium. Oct. 15, 1975: Knievel clears 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island theme park in Ohio — the longest successful jump of his career and with no injuries. 1980: Knievel is forced to retire; tells reporters that he is “nothing but scar tissue and surgical steel.” Nov. 30, 2007: Knievel dies at age 69 of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in Clearwater, Fla.
Redemption: Truax vindicates father’s rocket design MYCHEL MATTHEWS
mmatthews@magicvalley.com
HANSEN — Scott Truax was all smiles late Friday afternoon. Truax, 48, led the “Return to Snake River” team to recreate Evel Knievel’s attempt to jump the
Snake River Canyon — but with a successful landing. The Evel Spirit carried stuntman Eddie Braun over the canyon to safety 42 years after Knievel’s failed attempt. His father, Robert Truax, who died in 2010, designed and built
Knievel’s steam-powered “Skycycle.” The rocket’s only parachute deployed early — before the rocket had left the ramp. “My dad was a good man and a smart man,” Truax said in January at his home in Twin Falls. “Sadly,
If you do one thing: Celtic rock band Young Dubliners will perform an out-
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this brilliant rocket scientist is best remembered for a failure.” He vowed to change that. Truax began studying his father’s designs in 2008. He knew he had to redesign the steam-powered rocket’s parachute system
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and reinforce the nose. He teamed with Twin Falls resident Scott Record to build the rocket and planned to launch it for the 40th anniversary of Knievel’s Please see REDEMPTION, Page A4
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dream by propelling himself over the canyon in a replica of Knievel’s X-2 Skycycle, built by Scott Truax, the son of Knievel’s rocket designer, Robert Truax. In the decades since Knievel’s failed attempt in 1974, numerous daredevils — including Knievel’s son Robbie — talked about recreating the jump. Several years ago, as the clock ticked close to the 40th anniversary of Knievel’s jump, a handful of rocketeers vied for the opportunity to use Knievel’s dirt ramp, still piled on city-owned property on the canyon rim, to do what Knievel couldn’t. But only one team, called Return to the Snake River, ever came close to pointing a rocket over the canyon. That rocket, the Evel Spirit, stood Friday afternoon with its nose to the sky, waiting for commands from inside the “supervan” where the team prepared for the stunt of Braun’s lifetime — flying three-quarters of a mile through the air at 430 mph. “Mad Mike” Hughes, who calls himself the “King of the Daredevils” and had pitched his own jump of
Redemption From A1
infamous jump. After missing the opportunity to launch their rocket from Knievel’s dirt ramp on the canyon rim near Twin Falls, the duo negotiated with Jerome County and landowners Kelly Klosterman, Chuck Coiner and Karen Lindemer for launch and landing sites. The duo chose Braun to pilot the rocket. They planned a four-day event and hoped to bring in 25,000 people. They obtained a mass gathering permit from Jerome County. Then Braun bought out Record and took control of the project. That’s when things got serious — and personal. The Return to the Snake became a private event to vindicate both his father and Knievel. “This event is to clear my dad’s name and clear Evel’s name,” Truax told the Times-News in 2014. “It is to cure history.” Braun named the rocket “Evel Spirit,” paying homage to his childhood hero.
the canyon to the Twin Falls City Council, doubted Braun would succeed. “I wish him the best, but this is beyond scary,” Hughes said Friday morning. “I wouldn’t blame the guy if he walks away before the jump.” Hughes launched a similar rocket — the X-3 Skylimo — 1,374 feet in January, 2014, near Winkelman, Ariz. Braun needed to fly 1,600 feet to cross the Snake River Canyon safely. Texas daredevil “Big Ed” Beckley, whose unfulfilled plan to jump the canyon from Knievel’s dirt ramp cost him $1.7 million, still harbors feelings of resentment toward Twin Falls and the Idaho Department of Lands, but had kind words for Braun Friday morning. “I pray that Eddie will be successful and healthy,” Beckley said. Beckley obtained a landing site by paying nearly $1 million to the state for a two-year lease along the canyon rim in Jerome County. The lease, he said, was contingent on his receiving the required permits from all other agencies, including the city of Twin Falls. Twin Falls eventually pulled out of Beckley’s jump, which was scheduled for September 2014. “Idaho needs to give me
my money back,” Beckley said. Where it all started Evel Knievel made a living defying death. So does Eddie Braun. But that’s where the similarities between the two men end. Knievel, a motorcycle daredevil, was larger than life. And when he announced that he would attempt to jump the canyon in 1974, the quiet town of Twin Falls, at the time population 22,000, would never be the same. “Bobby Knievel took our breath away. Our innocence soon followed.” TimesNews columnist Steve Crump wrote on the jump’s 20-year anniversary. Knievel wasn’t a newcomer to Twin Falls; he’d been hanging out with locals off and on for years. He had one eye on the Snake River Canyon long before he got the idea to jump the Grand Canyon, an idea that was quickly squelched by authorities. Knievel lived in Boise in his early 20s and hung out with the biker crowd. Boise biker fan Alan McIntire gave him the nickname “Evel.” Before his failed canyon jump, national reporter Geraldo Rivera declared Knievel “more popular than Ted Kennedy, David Cassidy
Times-News
or John Lennon.” afire 200 portable toilets “Evel Knievel was the and the cross at Shoshone Please see DELIVERED, Page A5 ultimate showman — a superhero, cape and all,” said the 54-year-old Braun, a September Birth Stone is Sapphire 30-year veteran of film and Come see our television. “Knievel inspired S p e c i a l i z i n g i n J e w e l ry ry Repair seleCtion of Ceylon a generation. I wanted to be sapphires and Create him.” your one of a kind pieCe of jewelry But the town’s enthusiasm turned to shock when Knievel came to town, fol1688 Kimberly Rd Ste lowed by some 25,000 — 5 Twin Falls mostly unruly — fans. (located by Quale’s Electronics) Bikers hijacked a Twin 1 Carat Ceylon Sapphire set in Mike Nielsen - Goldsmith Falls firetruck and took over 208-410-9372 the police station. Fans set 14 Karat White gold w/ 7 Diamonds
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Falls, tipped over a beer truck, and stole 2,600 cases of beer from the Jaycees. An Akron, Ohio, man, in town to watch Knievel jump, made his own dive into the Snake River prior to Knievel’s fall into the canyon. Tom Rauckhorst, 21, leaped from rocks 200 feet above the river, crushing three vertabrae when he hit the water. Rauckhorst swam to shore and climbed the canyon wall, where he found two campers who rushed him to the hospital on a motorcycle. Many came to town to watch Knievel succeed or die. He did neither. The Skycycle’s chute deployed on the ramp and dragged Knievel into the canyon, disappointing fans and the 100,000 closed-circuit viewers who had paid to see it. The stunt was “an exclamation without a point,” the Times-News editorialized. When Knievel and the rocket disappeared into the canyon, about 1,500 bikers broke through the safety fence and rushed the canyon rim. One woman went over the edge but fell only 10 feet to a ledge below. “Knievel’s jump was, quite simply, the damnedest thing Twin Falls had ever seen,” Crump wrote. Picture-perfect launch Evel’s daughter Alicia
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Stuntman Eddie Braun embraces a child after successfully jumping the Snake River Canyon in a steam-powered rocket Friday, Sept. 16, 2016, near the Snake River Canyon in Twin Falls. Knievel Vincent of Butte, Mont., saw the Snake River Canyon for the first time on Friday. “I was just a twinkle in my dad’s eyes” in 1974, she said as she shared some of her family’s memories of the jump. “Dad was terrified,” Vincent said. “He truly thought he was going to die, but he was too far into it and
couldn’t back out.” Braun, on the other hand, was calm and collected. He and Scott Truax kept Friday’s launch under the radar to prevent a reccurence of the 1974 fiasco. “Eddie’s heart’s in the right place,” said Chuck Coiner, who watched the jump from his nearby shop. “He didn’t want a spectacle.”
Sunday, September 18, 2016 | A5
The Evel Spirit floated down on land Braun leased from Coiner, a former state senator, and Coiner’s sister, Karen Lindemer. “It was a good event,” Coiner said Saturday, “something we can be proud of.” Coiner and Lindemer donated much of Braun’s payment to the Hansen School District. When the city of Twin Falls first backed Beckley’s jump over Braun’s, his team said, “Let’s go get our own land. That’s what Evel would do.” That’s when the Braun quietly secured land about 7 miles upstream from the Knievel’s ramp. Many of Knievel’s cronies were part of Friday’s launch. Gary Davis, Knievel’s own stuntman, was the stunt coordinator. Stunt engineer Craig Adams was also part of the 1974 attempt. Knievel’s widow, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel, and many of the Knievel family came to support Braun. Braun idolized Knievel when he was a young boy, and even broke his arm jumping his Schwinn bicycle over garbage cans imitating him. He met the daredevil when he was 12. “I have the chance to fulfill the dream of my hero,” he said, holding back tears. “When I say I’m going to do something, I do it.” And do it, he did. The launch itself was flawless. Knievel’s autograph with the message “Happy landings” went over the canyon with him. So did a vial con-
taining the ashes of Todd Swayze, one of Knievel’s biggest fans. Tamara Swayze, from Calgary, Alberta, said her husband met Braun at Evel Knievel Days in Butte, Mont., about 4 years ago, and they became fast friends. He was to help Braun with the launch, but Swayze died of cancer in February. When Braun returned to the launch site after the jump, he was greeted by
cheering friends and fans. He told Knievel’s daughter-in-law Shelli Knievel that he blacked out from coming off the ramp, but he came to shortly seconds later. “I realized I was still in the rocket,” Braun said. “At that point I told myself, ‘I got this.’” “Were you scared?” asked one of Knievel’s young grandchildren. Braun replied simply. “Very scared.”
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