A Stuntman’s Leap of Faith
After thirty years as a professional stuntman, Eddie Braun is ready for his most daring feat yet: completing Evel Knievel’s failed 1974 Snake River Canyon jump.
On September 17, Eddie Braun will slide into the cockpit of the Evel Spirit, a retro-slick steam-powered rocket nearly identical to one Evel Knievel sat in forty-two years ago. The stuntman will wait as the water in the rocket’s tank is superheated to 700 degrees, producing a high-pressure vapor capable of propelling the craft forward. He will initiate a countdown, say a quick prayer, and fire the ignition. Within a few seconds, he will be traveling at a blistering 400 miles per hour, 3,000 feet in the air.
Then, if everything goes as planned, he will be on the other side of Snake River Canyon, a 500-foot-deep, quarter-mile-wide chasm in southern Idaho, having completed the stunt that Evel Knievel couldn’t. When Knievel attempted the very same jump on September 8, 1974, his parachute deployed prematurely, sending him careening into the canyon.
“In less than three or four minutes, the stunt should be over one way or another,” says Braun. “If the parachutes fail, it’ll be over a lot quicker than that.”
A documentary film crew has been following Braun for the past three years as he prepares for this moment — and on September 17, they will have their ending. Whether it’s a triumphant climax or a tragic one, Braun told the crew, “either way, finish the documentary.” The filmmakers have come to Kickstarter in order to show those electrifying three or four minutes, and all of Braun’s meticulous preparation, to audiences everywhere.
If he successfully completes the feat, there will be no victory lap, Braun says. He perceives this career-defining moment as deeply bittersweet. After a professional career spent largely behind the scenes — a career, Braun emphasizes, of which he is extremely proud — this stunt will be his legacy. “Which is kind of sad. If I succeed, I’ll just be known as the guy that crossed the canyon in a rocket. And if I fail, I’ll simply be known as the guy who tried to cross the canyon in a rocket. My career of thirty-plus years won’t matter at all. That five minutes on September 17 will define me one way or another.”
“If I succeed, I’ll just be known as the guy that crossed the canyon in a rocket. And if I fail, I’ll simply be known as the guy who tried to cross the canyon in a rocket.”
As Braun tells it, his whole life has been spent preparing for this moment. Braun met Evel Knievel as a child and was so inspired by his idol’s daring and showmanship that he pursued a career as a stuntman. Over the last three decades, Braun has raced (and crashed) cars and motorcycles, fought and fallen and feinted, and performed just about every other feat imaginable in films including Transformers, the Rush Hour trilogy, and The Avengers, and on television shows such as the original Dukes of Hazzard.
Now, as his career winds down, he wants “to pay homage to the great man who inspired me to be everything I am professionally.”
To build the Evel Spirit, Braun teamed up with Scott Truax, the son of late engineer Robert Truax, who designed Knievel’s original rocket. He financed the endeavor on his own, even sending Truax a five-figure check before ever meeting him, just to prove he was serious. The rocket is so faithful to the elder Truax’s original blueprints that all of its 6,000 pounds of thrust and 10,000 horsepower is contained by a valve made out of a dog-food can lid.
“Because I am a stunt coordinator, and I’m also not a foolish person — I want to do this stunt and walk away from it — I had the engineers add a couple of safety bars inside so my legs wouldn’t be crushed upon impact,” Braun adds. “And we did change the parachute system a little bit, because last time around it didn’t go so well for Evel.” (Even so, on some of their first tests, the parachute deployed early and was promptly blown to shreds by the rocket’s thrust. Braun is pretty confident they’ve worked out the problem since then.)
The Evel Spirit’s sheer force is “brutal,” Braun says. During a static thrust test, in which the rocket was fired off while bolted and welded to a support structure, “the power and the thrust was such that it bent everything. I mean, the ramp barely held it.” Put simply, Braun says, the rocket is “a pressure cooker” rigged to explode.
Despite all the time and money and effort he has poured into the stunt, and despite its ability to quite literally make or break him, if Braun successfully rides that pressure cooker to the other side of the canyon, he feels that triumphant moment won’t belong to him — not really. “There’s a reason I named my rocket the Evel Spirit and not the Eddie Braun,” he says. “This is not about me. It’s about Evel Knievel and the generation of people he inspired.”
Braun speaks with the same modesty about being the subject of a documentary, practically deflecting his role in it. “There’s a really good reason I’m a professional stuntman and not an actor. I’m not very charismatic,” he says. “I’m the face you never see. I’m the nondescript guy you see in Starbucks, waiting in line next to you for coffee. My day job just happens to be a little different than yours.”
“This is not about me. It’s about Evel Knievel and the generation of people he inspired.”
So when Eddie Braun climbs out of the Evel Spirit on September 17, on the side of Snake River Canyon that Evel Knievel never reached, he will not be thinking of the cameras. He will close his eyes. He will take a breath. “My thought, if I stand on the other edge of the canyon, will be one of humble reflection and thanks to the man who inspired me to do everything that I did,” he says.
Thoughtfully, he adds, “I wonder if, when Evel put his arm around that young kid and gave him an autograph and some encouraging words, he could ever have imagined that that kid would finish out his dream someday.”
The Evel Spirit documentary project is live on Kickstarter until August 25.
Written by Rebecca Hiscott, a writer and engagement specialist at Kickstarter.
