Friday, May 5, 2006 | 7:37 a.m.
Three days before he was to take a flying leap into the trivia hall of fame or a bed in a local triage unit, I asked Mike Metzger, the rad motocross dude with the tattoos and bravado up to here, about the technical aspects of launching himself into the air in the manner of a Saturn rocket, flipping backward like one of the Wallendas and sticking the landing a la Kerri Strug - the three
components of his attempt to jump the fountains on a motorcycle at Caesars Palace on Thursday night.
In 1968, when Evel Knievel tried a similar stunt and failed almost as badly as one can, all a guy needed was a ton of guts, a few ounces of loose nuts and bolts in lieu of brains and a shot of Wild Turkey, which would have been Knievel's drink of choice, even if Red Bull were around in those days.
That was the era when astronauts splashed down instead of landed. So nearly 40 years later, I figured Metzger would use computer models and simulations and a phalanx of technicians in spotless white lab coats to show him the exact spot where e=mc2, or, at the very least, point him in the general direction of where the rubber should meet the road.
Not really, Metzger said.
"Basically," he said almost sheepishly, "it's just a lot of guesswork."
At 6:20 p.m. on a warm spring night in front of a national TV audience and a live crowd estimated at 10,000 that came to witness this most spectacular convergence of man and machine, the man from Menifee, Calif., apparently guessed right.
He sped up the takeoff ramp, did the backflip and landed safely on the other side, proving once again that what goes up, must come down, although I don't think Sir Isaac Newton ever could have imagined this application of the theory.
Metzger might as well have just wet his finger and twirled it in the air. It was - or at least he made it look - that easy.
The record for the longest backflip was 100 feet. Metzger went 125 feet and probably could have gone 225, if the Forum Shops weren't in the way.
"I tried to make it not so complicated," Metzger said after slapping palms with his biker dude friends, most of whom wore shoes, and mugging for photos with Caesars Palace executives, all of whom wore shoes.
If only he had told his mom and wife it would be that easy.
Sharron Metzger, Mike's mom, seemed to be doing fine as the tension became palpable during the final half-hour of the buildup. Then ESPN showed Knievel's wreck for the 14th time.
She happened to look up at the giant video screen just as the Evel one was flipping over the handlebars and bouncing, limbs akimbo, in the general direction of the Dunes, which, like the daredevil's knee cartilage, no longer exists.
You could literally see Sharron Metzger's knees get weak. They folded under her as she slumped to the ground in front of a TV production truck, shielded from view of the spectators, and, more important, that darn giant video screen.
There was a camera around her neck. Had she clicked the shutter, she would have marked the most momentous evening of her son's freestyle motocross career by taking a photo of her kneecaps.
She didn't watch. She never does.
After Metzger flew through the air with the greatest of ease, I asked Sharron if she was more relieved or proud.
"I'm always more relieved," she said.
Then Sharron Metzger smiled for the first time since I laid eyes on her. I looked at my watch. It was 6:37. Or a full 17 minutes since her son had dropped back to Earth with that Downy-soft landing.
Her daughter-in-law had a similar experience, although Mandi Metzger, Mike's wife of eight years, did a pretty good job of keeping her anxiety in second gear. She watched Metzger jump while holding their 3-year-old son, Myrie, tight. Real tight.
"I guess you couldn't see me shaking then," she said when I noted how composed she looked, at least compared to her mother-in-law.
Ted Metzger, Mike's old man, at least in a manner of speaking - he looks young enough to be his brother - said his concern wasn't that Mike would make the jump and set the record, but that he would set it by too much.
Had he traveled a few more feet down the landing ramp, Mike Metzger might not have had enough runoff room to stop before stuffing his Kawasaki into the barriers.
But Ted Metzger said he noticed his son back off the throttle just a smidgen while in midair, putting him well within the comfort zone for a safe landing, which as in most forms of air travel, is the biggest part of the equation.
Ted Metzger pointed to his head.
"It's a lot more upstairs now," he said of his son's approach, which became less hellbent and more heaven sent with the birth of his daughter, Michaela Rose, five years ago. "He's more of a family man now. He doesn't just pin it and let it fly."
That's what the guys in the expensive suits and tasseled loafers were counting on. Although this seemed like the quintessential Las Vegas event for what is still the quintessential Las Vegas setting (sorry MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay), the Caesars Palace executives looked almost as relieved as Sharron Metzger. Almost.
They broke into wide smiles, too, knowing that the only thing the maintenance crew would be scraping from the pavement at the end of this evening was a river of spilled Mountain Dew.
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