Eddie Braun seriously has some guts. He owns a 10,000 Horse Power rocket called the Evel Spirit that uses steam as its only form of thrust – and, despite the pretty traditional fuel source, it goes from 0 to over 400mph in just three seconds, firing him up in into the air and over a canyon.
He says there is a chance he’ll black out, but if he doesn’t, he’ll be able to pull his parachute and save himself from crashing to almost certain death. He’s not the first person to have this idea, either. Evel Knievel wanted to try this back in his day, but owing to a parachute malfunction, he nearly died when he began spiralling down between the walls of the canyon.
Eddie thinks he can recreate that ‘jump of the century’ as the media called it then, and do it successfully. A network was originally going to fund his effort, but when they decided that it was too unsafe, Eddie thought that Kickstarter would have his back instead. Now, he’s raising money to launch himself off a cliff in a rocket on September 17th.
There’s only just over a month to go and he has already raised a massive $40,999. It’s pretty impressive so far but there’s not much time left to triple that amount and make sure this canyon stunt happens.
A world record
Not only will this be super fun to watch, Eddie is filming a documentary about the event and will be attempting to secure a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for him and his team, bringing a journey of over three years to an end.
His team have created the event and the rocket from scratch, and it all started from a conversation between Scott Traux and Eddie Braun
If this entire endeavor wasn’t enough for you to contribute, Slash (yes, that slash) was approached to to see if he would be willing to participate in someway with the Kickstarter campaign.
“I approached the rock icon Slash, who I knew to be an Evel Knievel fan, and asked if he would be interested in being involved with my rocket project. He gave us the most awesome gift we could ever dream… a theme song! Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators got permission from Sir Elton John to re-record his 1972 hit song “Rocket Man”, produced by Mike Clink, specifically for our project. Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators suggested we include the song with every reward so every single backer of our Kickstarter campaign gets it. So that’s what we’re doing! I’m so honored to have been given the most epic theme song, by the most epic guitarist of all time!”
Head on over to his kickstarter where he outlines the blueprint of his amazing machine, the history behind the stunt and why he’s doing this. Even if you don’t donate, it’s pretty exciting to read and watch. Let’s hope he lands safely!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1049979832/evel-spirit-completing-evel-knievels-jump-over-sna