The Greatest Daredevil Jump That Never Happened
When I was in college in the mid-1980s, I had a friend whose roommate, Harold, owned an exceptional collection of action-oriented videotapes, ranging from Blaxploitation movies like Dolomite to martial arts films so obscure that today I can hardly remember the titles of more than a handful of them. But his Holy Grail was an obscure movie called The Devil at Your Heels, a documentary about an insane Canadian named Ken Carter and his dogged quest to cement his legacy as the world’s greatest daredevil by using a rocket-fueled Lincoln Continental to jump across the one-mile-wide Saint Lawrence River, which separates northern New York from southern Canada. I have no idea how many times we watched it. At least 50, for sure.
What mostly fascinated us was the innocent and naive determination of Carter, who grew up in Montreal in poverty and didn’t get beyond the fourth grade. He broke into the stunt field as a teen, performing low-level barnstorming tricks, eventually graduating to the motorcycle and car jumps over buses that were the typical racetrack fare of the day. As the documentary opens, he has bestowed himself with the — pretty accurate, actually — title of The Mad Canadian, attempting stunts that he readily admits couldn’t possibly succeed. We see Carter and his crew busting apart a junkyard clunker with crowbars and hammers in order to make it “safer.” Among other things, someone places a bit of duct tape on the hood so it won’t fly off and hit the driver in the head, which Carter, the driver, admits “could be a problem.” Like many, this jump fails miserably, but Carter shows little surprise and is clearly more determined to “keep ’em coming back.” While lying on an ambulance stretcher with a broken ankle, he grabs a microphone and announces to the crowd that he’ll back again, “tomorrow night.” And so it goes, and so it goes, and so it goes.
Although extremely, well, odd, Carter was a likable, pudgy performer who earnestly strived to entertain his “fans” with his overly ambitious performances. He claimed to have two distinct personalities, the first being the rational Ken Carter, the one who understood the recklessness of his career choice; the second was Ken Carter the Mad Canadian, who went full out “all or nothing” in everything he sought to achieve. While it’s a bit hard to determine exactly where one Carter morphs into the other, you do have to give him credit for his passion.
The heart of the film is Carter’s endless struggle to achieve the Saint Lawrence River jump. Preparing for the stunt took more than five years and more than a million dollars (not his money) to create a 1,400-foot-long takeoff ramp that went up some 85 feet on a 50-acre plot of land. It also took years to “perfect” a vehicle that could reach a speed 270 mph needed to make the gag work It’s unclear exactly who calculated the precise dynamics necessary for the stunt’s success. For one thing, given its bulk and bricklike design, perhaps a Lincoln was not the wisest choice for the stunt. Also, it’s a vehicle with a rather heavy engine … located in the front, which really isn’t ideal for a 4,000-pound device converted into a high-flying projectile.
The attempt was plagued on many levels.
Initially ABC’s Wide World of Sports backed it with the thought that a live attempt of this magnitude would draw millions of viewers and more than 100,000 on-site gawkers. Then it rained, and the car had problems. Examining the set-up, ABC correspondent Evel Knievel, fresh off his own failed Snake River Canyon stunt, concluded on-air that it couldn’t possibly succeed. ABC backed out. The same thing happened again and again, for years, with weather and technical problems always stopping the jump. Then in September 1979, with everything seemingly good to go, Carter donned his helmet and climbed into the vehicle, finally ready for his moment to shine. Then it started to rain, hard, and once again it was off. A distraught Carter retired to his motel room, where he remained for nine days, waiting for another opportunity to try the jump. However, the exasperated film crew, who were also the financial backers of this leg of the stunt, convinced that Carter had lost his nerve, dreamed up a scheme to finally get the job done. They decided to convince Carter’s friend, Ken Powers, to attempt the stunt as a “Carter” by proxy.
Powers, an experienced daredevil in his own right, shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?” After all, he was the one who had designed the ramp. Again, despite their ambitions, none of these guys were actual rocket scientists. Without a second thought, Powers jumped into the car, hit the gas and took off toward the ramp. But the path, damaged by the severe rainstorm, was choppy with ruts; the rocket car bounced along, hitting potholes and small ditches. Powers was knocked under the dashboard where he couldn’t possibly use the gas pedal to accelerate the vehicle to achieve the necessary speed. The car began to break apart before it even reached the end of the ramp, went a few feet and then completely shattered, sending scattered pieces of fiberglass and tin paneling into the river. Floating down with a comically inadequate parachute, Powers remained strapped into the surviving bits of the rocket’s chassis, breaking only his back. For the seventh time. But the captured video of the failed jump is spectacular. Viewed on its own in the four-minute YouTube clip, it comes across as the most amazing dumb-ass stunt in history.
Although furious at Powers’ betrayal — Powers not only crushed his dream but also wrecked his really expensive rocket car — Carter remained ever the optimist. He pushed on, determined to one day finally triumph. Reduced to eeking out a living in the only profession he ever knew, he regressed to having to once again jump junk cars at C-list racetrack fairs before audiences that grew smaller year-by-year. And as his prospects for success diminished, his girth expanded. His end came three years later when a crappy Pontiac Firebird, which he was jumping over a fairly small patch of vehicles, missed the down ramp by some 30 feet, flipped upside down, and landed on its roof. Carter, at the age of 45, was killed instantly.
September will mark the 30th anniversary of his curious quest. And while there are several daredevils who periodically say that they want to perform a successful version of Knievel’s famous Snake River jump, so far none have come forward to announce their desire to grab Carter’s brass ring.
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