Weather postpones young Knievel’s Grand Canyon stunt

Michelle Rushlo

Friday, April 30, 1999 | 9:18 a.m.

GRAND CANYON WEST, Ariz. - Wind, snow, fog and near-freezing temperatures proved too great a risk even for daredevil Robbie Knievel.

At the last minute Thursday, he decided against jumping a portion of the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle, saying the frigid weather prevented him from getting needed practice and made the ramp conditions too hazardous.

"There's a lot of little kids out there," Knievel said of the roughly 350 spectators. "I don't have a death wish. I'm going to come back and do this right."

The stunt was rescheduled for May 20 in the same location on the Hualapai Indian Reservation.

The jump was to be televised live on Fox for East Coast viewers and tape-delayed for the rest of the country. The special ran but without the jump.

Ideally, Knievel wanted 75-degree weather for the 200-foot-plus jump at a speed of at least 100 mph.

Knievel sought to break his world record of 223 feet. Failure to clear the canyon would have sent Knievel plunging as much as 2,500 feet.

Knievel, 36, planned to make the jump with an ordinary 500cc motorcycle and refused to wear a parachute, saying it would create too much drag.

Rick Konop of Green Bay, Wis., flew into Las Vegas and then rode a motorcycle to the canyon just to watch the jump.

"As a Knievel fan, I gotta go. It's just part of being a fan," he said.

Konop's friend, Paul Hirst of Green Bay, said the event was "like the Super Bowl of motorcycles."

Both said they would return next month for Knievel's next attempt.

"It wasn't a waste of time. We didn't come out here for a funeral," said Konop. "We want to see him make the jump."

Crews spent weeks building ramps and removing as many obstacles as they could. Cactuses, shrubs, snakes and other wildlife were moved for the jump but will have to be returned as part of an agreement with the Hualapais.

Knievel gained notoriety in April 1989 when he jumped the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, a stunt that nearly killed his father 21 years earlier.

Evel Knievel, who recently underwent a liver transplant, had talked about jumping the Grand Canyon but never got National Park Service officials to agree.

Evel tried to sail across the Snake River Canyon in Idaho using a rocket in 1974, but his parachute deployed too early and he failed to make the 1,800-foot jump. He suffered only scrapes and bruises but had to be fished off the craggy bottom by helicopter.