Jalopnik has a nice one: Remembering Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel, Jr.
Growing up in the 70′s and begging my parents for a motorcycle was due in no small part to Evel Knievel. He was bad. He was cool. He was Evel!
I had the wind up toy Evel and motorcycle. I had the Evel Snake car you could jump canyons with. I was in front of the TV anytime he appeared on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. I have scars from the bicycle jumps that didn’t go quite right… He was my hero.
In the old days they, the promoters, wanted more and more from me. They wanted me to jump or spill my blood and break my bones. Every time they wanted me to jump further, and further, and further. Hell, they thought my bike had wings. ~Evel Knievel
Sad day for all of us that were children of the 70′s. My own post about his death: http://blog.robwilkerson.org/blog/index.cfm/2007/12/1/Evel-Knievel-Dead-at-69
Nice, I had the same toy! Wish I still had it, it would probably be worth a pretty penny now :D
I remember vividly dousing mine with cigarette lighter fluid – lighting him up and doing the ultimate flaming leap… In hindsight it would probably fetch a pretty penny on E-bay. Oh well – it was fun at the time :)
LA Weekly article here:
http://www.laweekly.com/la-vida/a-considerable-town/evel-knievel-and-a-shit-named-joe-eszterhas/17820/