LAS VEGAS — He was a natural-born daredevil who managed to achieve something even his father couldn’t — which is saying something, considering that dad was perhaps America’s most famous stunt performer, the adrenaline gland incarnate known as Evel Knievel, a man who was to a motorcycle what a cannonball is to a cannon.
On April 14, 1989, Robbie Knievel successfully jumped the fountains at Caesars Palace, completing a feat that the elder Knievel attempted in 1967, but came up just short, crashing into a safety ramp, rendering his body a painful series of stress fractures.
“That was for you, dad,” Robbie said as he hugged his father upon landing the perilous jump in front of 30,000 spectators on the Strip and myriad more TV viewers.
