Crashing For A Living

I left the ramp, looped it over, and kicked the bike away. I landed on my back, and of course, in the shot, Evel's supposed to get hurt terribly.

I couldn’t just slide to a stop on the ramp, so I dug my heels in, and boy, the wreck was on then. I started flipping and chasing the bike, and I ended up in a crumpled mess. I put my arms in all contorted directions so I looked all screwed up on impact at the end, and there was a bunch of extras with cameras that ran in as the news media.

In the meantime, the producer was yelling cut at the other end, but none of us could hear. The extras were trying to do their bit, pretending to take pictures and talking to each other, so I just lay there. I apparently panicked everybody. They thought I was dead, but it worked out well.

We filmed Viva Knievel! in 1976, and Evel insisted I do all of his riding for him. In the movie, I had to crash twice. For the first, I was jumping over lions and tigers in open cages. I had to loop the bike over and land on my back on the other ramp. When it came time to shoot, they had six cameras rolling. I was getting nervous, trying to take big breaths. Finally, they said, "Action!" I was almost to the ramp when the producer jumped out in front of me. I skidded to a stop, and he said, "Yeah, one of the cameras jammed." I went back and they told me to kill the motor.

Then I became religious. I was sitting there going, God’s telling you not to do this. I was making myself sicker and sicker, and I was just about to turn to the production assistant next to me and say, “Listen, they had their shot. I’ve worked myself into a frenzy.”

By the time he got to me, they were screaming on the radio, “Action! Action! Action!” It spooked me so much that I started the bike right away and just took off.

Give it everything you’ve got.

One of the greatest stuntmen of all time, Carey Loftin, taught me that if you don’t think you can do a stunt twice, don’t do it the first time—but if you think you can get it done, don’t weaken. Even though the stunt basically went right, it was still a crash. I’ve never been hurt on a motorcycle. I’ve done gnarly-ass wrecks, but motorcycles have been good to me.

You have to be all in. If you doubt yourself, chances are you’re not going to give it your all, and if you don’t, there’s a chance that something’s going to go wrong.