Plain And Simple

Some of you will remember motorcycle stunt man Evil Knievel. During his career, Knievel attempted more than 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps, some ending in spectacular crashes. When asked to describe his work, Knievel who claimed to have broken virtually every bone in his body said, “Let me put it this way. Try falling off of a motorcycle going 70 or 80 miles per hour on asphalt. Believe me, nothing equals it.”

Knievel’s best known stunt was his heavily promoted 1974 jump across Idaho’s Snake River Canyon — in a contraption he dubbed the Skycyle X-2 steam rocket — which in reality, bore little resemblance to a motorcycle. Earlier in his career Mr. Knievel (not is real name, of course) cleared 19 cars in a world record-setting 129 foot jump that went unchallenged for the next three decades.

It seems for more than a few, there’s something about breaking a world record that is impossible to resist, no matter how crazy or reckless it may…