Evel made his first jump in 1965. Evel was 27, and had became co-owner of a motorcycle shop in Moses Lake, Wash. To attract customers, he announced he would jump his motorcycle 40 feet over parked cars and a box of rattlesnakes and continue on past a mountain lion tethered at the other end. Before 1,000 people, he did the stunt as promised but failed to fly far enough; his bike came down on the rattlesnakes. The audience was in awe. “Right then,” he said, “I knew I could draw a big crowd by jumping over weird stuff.”
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