It was in the summer. I can't remember the exact date, but it was quite some time ago... 40 years?
I would come home on the weekends and there'd be news reports complete with video about the event...
Some guy had offered a cash prize to anyone who could jump a motorcycle across a lake.
News crews were having a field day and everyone seemed to be having a great time. Fun-loving guys would buy some old beater motorcycle and come racing down the road to a ramp leading to the "goal", but would fall short and get wet. Divers would retrieve the bike so it wouldn't pollute the waters.
There was a party atmosphere...
It was hot. Everyone was in bathing suits... probably a lot of alcohol being consumed.
My recollection is that this went on for several weekends with the same result...
Entrants would race down a road to the ramp and end up in the drink.
Then it happened...
An entrant finally used a motorcycle capable of accelerating fast enough in the short distance available to reach the other side. He landed at the "goal", the bike came to an instant stop in the mud, and the rider's body violently collided with the stuck motorcycle. I remember seeing photos of the handlebars bent straight downward as the rider landed with extreme vertical force, breaking his back and paralyzing him for life.
But he got the cash prize...
I think it was something like $10,000.
And that MAY have paid for his first week in the ICU at that time.
Anyone recall the details?
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23 comments:
All I got is....why are men so stupid?
I'll second that motion, Rita.
Ferdy
Excuse me but why were THOSE men so stupid. Probably because they were drinking and so were the "friends" (men and women) they were with. But as John Wayne once said, "Life is tough but it's a lot tougher if you're stupid" it's just that I'm not sure that one gender has the corner on this attribute .
Sorry GB but I don't remember this one!
not today thank you
lol Anon. Yeah, there are all kinds of stupid, but usually the crazy stunts are the men. Women typically are another kind of stupid.
Rita, Gotta agree / usually the really dumb stunts are the men, I guess it's a guy thing.
dj
GB and VK's;
Clint and I heard about this exciting attraction "back in the day" and made tracks to go watch. Clint says the lake was located close to Greenfield and at that time they were doing motorcycle racing there; he thinks it's a campground now. We DID NOT participate, I do remember alcohol present and it being very hot; but it was the most exciting thing to watch some guy try to make it accross the lake.I remember suspecting at the time that if anyone hit the bank it wouldn't end good...scared me too. No one made it the time we attended. Thank the Good Lord we were not there when the guy hit the mud bank.
Those were wild and crazy days!
Bo
Bo: Hmmmm, sounds like it might have been right in my own back yard. Of course it wouldn't have been my back yard back then.
And it anyone needs examples of stupid men "tricks" I can tell story after story of my own brother doing stupid stunts and not learning from them.
OH, not you CnC, must be my other brother, who did a 180 off his bike over a car without a helmet or ID or just a couple months ago again riding his bike to the CARDIOLOGIST when he had already been told he needed to go to the hospital because his heart was out of rhythm. No, wait......nevermind.
I thought this motorcycle jump was a place called Mann Hill, over on Mann Road on the south west side. I never did go but I thought that was the location. Crazy guys trying to impress the young ladies.
So Hawk, you agree it's mainly the men doing the stupid physical stuff????
I kinda suspect you, like my husband and my brother Mike aren't really into the proving the manhood thing stupidity.
I could be wrong, I'll have to ask Mrs. Hawkeye.
An interesting point of view, Rita.
To what do you attribute your hatred of men?
Did your father, in an act of macho madness, force you to eat bleu cheese when you were young and vulnerable?
I can see how that would drive you into this state of confusion!
Oh Boy, this will get ugly. With that said, no one, male or female, has exclusive rights to stupidity.
That's a good one GB, you have me laughing this morning.
Actually my dad, along with my mean older sister Cissy convinced me to eat an ant once by telling me it would turn into bubble gum, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with my hatred of men. lol.
I was hoping we'd get CnC to stop by and try to defend himself but he's probably out trying to do something else I'll have to yell at him about.
Anon, I hope you realize this is all just in good fun. I know GB is one of the safety first guys, with good reason, but it's pretty fun getting him riled up. Now if we could only get TwoDogs to join in, it would be a party.
Hey TD: This Chocolate Port that I'm having for breakfast sure tastes good.
Hey VK's...More info for the battle of the minds. Clint remembers motorcycle hill climbs on Mann Hill. Clint watched a guy try to ride up Mann Hill backwards on his motorcycle. Clint doesn't think "Mr. Backwards" ever made it to the top of Mann Hill but he did try several times. Mr. Backwards was killed in a motorcycle accident racing on a flat track.
Bo
Ok, time to weigh in on this subject. Yes Rita I believe it is a guy thing doing stupid stunts. I remember playing on the swings at the Community Center and swinging as hard as I could until I reached the apex of the swing and launching out to see how high and far I could fly until I hit the ground. I also remember walking across the very top rail of the old trestle bridge next to our house. I even tried jumping off that bridge with a homemade parachute. When I was a teenager working construction walking 2 story 2X4 top plates didn’t bother me a bit. Now the thought of jumping off of a 2 foot stepladder with a knee that has had 2 surgeries scares the hell out of me. Also the shoulder operation makes me feel even more brittle. Before the motorcycle wreck I felt like I could avoid mistakes made by other careless drivers. I used to take a lot of stupid chances when I was younger, but like I said, I just feel a little more brittle these days.
I wanna know who hijacked my brother's computer and posted a reasonable response.
This post just brought another shining moment of my early stupid adolescence to mind. This wasn’t me this time but one of my old running buddies, Randy. One of our friends, Raymie had bought an old on/off road Honda, don’t remember the year or model. I just remember how we kept trying to kill ourselves on it. We would find a different stupid stunt to do with the bike and we would all keep trying till we all did it. We found a very steep creek bank and the stunt would be we would fly down one side of the bank thru the creek and gun the hell out of it and try to climb the other side that was almost straight up and down. The trick was to not fail to climb the other side because the other guys would laugh and call you a pussy and you would slide back down the bank and wreck in the creek. We had all made it across after many attempts except for Randy. Now he was being howled at with extreme prejudice. Randy, very muddy at this time climbed back on the very muddy Honda. We all stood on both sides of him calling his manhood into question loud enough to be heard over the revving of the engine. Though his gritting teeth he kept saying I’m gonna make it , im gonna make it. We all scrambled up the other side of the creek to get a birds eye view on the mayhem . when we all got into position, Randy twisted the throttle back and popped the clutch. He shot down the far side of the bank, spashed thru the narrow creek, never letting off the throttle he hit the money side of the bank, roared straight up, and up and up. He cleared the bank no problem, but he just kept climbing till we were looking straight up in the air! The back wheel of the bike was well above our heads and he just kept climbing, without the bike. We figured the back wheel of the bike was about 10 feet high, the bike almost straight up and down, and Randy now was free of the bike about 3 feet above the bike with his back to it. He and the bike fell back to earth in a crumpled heap. We ran to him thinking oh shit we killed Randy! We got to our buddy to administer Last Rites and we heard him mumbling something over and over. “Randy what? What did you say”? Finally we understood what he was trying to say to us, it was “ I made it, I made it. I made it” ! Nothing broken and his manhood definetly intact. Once we knew we hadn’t killed our buddy, we couldn’t stop laughing for an hour and relived that jump over and over. Randy was no punk! None of us were and we would never have to prove our manhood again, well at least for that day.
Cnc:
All I got is....why are men so stupid?
i wish i had a comeback
oh i got! Rita it's a guy thing, u wouldn't understand. How bout it guys give me my propers!
I think it simply shows that men are more willing to test the limits of what is "possible". If we depended on women to further our research into physics we'd still be in the dark ages...
Men would still be clubbing women and dragging them home by the hair, "Alley Oop" style!
And another thought...
Men's "stupidity" means lower insurance rates for women, and what thanks do we get for that?!!
OH GB, you really want to defend CnC?
It's this simple.
Men are physically stupid.
Women are emotional stupid.
People that believe we are all the same simply defy logic.
we compliment eachother
Mrs,Hawk here, No my husband is not the dare devil type. He is more the, "let's see we wanna get over that creek and up the bank" type of guy. Now, he would draw up a design for a bridge, go get materials and begin the build. Weeks later, he would drive his self over this bridge.
I have a son just like Hawk! He is a design engineer, also a husband and daddy. Proud of them both. Although.....they used to be into driving go-karts and had lots of fun...but no air driving, just circuts.
Mrs. Hawk
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