Robbie Knievel vs. the Mirage volcano in Las Vegas

By Bill Foley of The Montana Standard - 01/06/2009

Bill Foley, Tap 'Er Light sports commentary

Yosemite Sam has always been one of my heroes.

While he never seems to get his way, Yosemite Sam never lacks the initiative to try anything.

For example, when Fearless Freep and his sensational high diving act was delayed a day by a storm, Sam takes out his Six Shooters and tries to force Bugs Bunny to make the 500-foot leap into a bucket of water.

"I paid my four bits to see the high-divin' act," Sam says, "and I'm a gonna see the high-divin' act." Of course, Bugs defies the law of gravity and tricks Sam over and over, forcing Sam to make the 500-foot leap himself.

But at least Yosemite Sam tried. As they say, he went down swinging.

I felt a bit like Yosemite Sam when I realized Kaptain Robbie Knievel's jump on New Year's Eve was something of a fraud.

Oh sure, it wasn't fraud on Robbie's part. He did exactly what he said he would do.

The fraud was FOX's fault because they said Robbie was going to jump the volcano outside The Mirage hotel-casino on his motorcycle.

Robbie, a Butte native who is the son of the late, great Evel Knievel, didn't jump a volcano. He jumped next to a volcano.

That's a big, big difference.

And, get this, it wasn't even a real volcano.

Still, in the buildup to the jump, FOX shows us these cute little cartoons of what could happen to the Kaptain if something went wrong on his jump. That was for the benefit of those people who didn't already know that crashing on a 200-foot jump was a bad thing.

One cartoon shows the volcano erupting at the wrong time, sending our Butte boy flying through the air on fire.

Another shows Robbie landing in the volcano ... that can't be good.

I was really hoping neither of those would happen because, despite a reputation that precedes him, Robbie is a really nice guy.

Oh, he's clearly crazy — crazy enough to actually jump a real volcano — but nice nonetheless.

Robbie was one of my heroes when I was a kid, and when I finally had a chance to meet him, he was cool. He even seemed to be genuinely interested when I told him the highlight of my childhood was seeing him jump a car in the Fourth of July parade when I was 6 or 7.

Apparently, Robbie couldn't jump the fake volcano unless the casino was willing to clear out some palm trees and disrupt the valet parking service in front of the hotel.

He wasn't afraid to jump the volcano, it just wasn't logistically possible.

Robbie isn't afraid of anything, except maybe being boring.

After all, Robbie jumped the fountains at Caesar's Palace — the ones that almost killed his father.

He jumped on an aircraft carrier when he knew he had to crash-land, and he once jumped more than 160 feet from one 13-story building to another 13-story building without a safety net.

That goofy Australian Robbie Maddison wouldn't even think about doing that.

Robbie Knievel also jumped the Grand Canyon on a bike. Well, sort of.

As my buddy Joe Little, a long-time Knievel roadie, once told me, "The kid has guts." Robbie's jump on Wednesday night was still cool because it was 200 feet and fire was involved, but FOX should have been up front with it in its coverage.

Lying to all the viewers of the jump doesn't seem fair or balanced.

Sure, the FOX lie wasn't quite as big as the one local radio man Dave Levin pulled off a few years ago.

Levin advertised that he was going to jump a bike 100 feet, or something like that, outside the Met Tavern one day.

As the crowd gathered around Levin's ramp, Levin rode his motorbike back and forth trying to put on a Knievel-esque pre-jump show.

Then Levin went around a corner and reemerged on a pedal bike. He hit a smaller ramp, jumping over a small box that contained 100 pigs feet, or something like that.

The joke was on the crowd, which included my brother, Bob, who suggested taking the Yosemite Sam approach and making Levin get back on the motorbike and pull off the jump he skipped church to see.

"Someone's gonna do that death-defying jump, Dave, and that someone's gonna be you." That's probably why Levin is no longer in town.

Robbie never let anybody down like Levin did. In fact, I'd argue that he overcompensated for FOX.

As the great John Hiatt sings, "Just when you think that you've been gypped, the bearded lady comes and does a double back flip." Likewise, Robbie, 46, completely made up for FOX's fabrications with his quote in the newspaper the next day.

"Like Keith Richards, I'm going to keep smoking, drinking and jumping in my fourth decade," he said in a way only Robbie Knievel can.

That's just Robbie being Robbie, and he never disappoints.

Oh sure, there are better role models out there than the notorious drug-using guitarist for the Rolling Stones, but Robbie got his point across.

Besides, Robbie must have figured Yosemite Sam was already taken.