For this rocket reboot, Braun enlisted Scott Truax, the son of Robert Truax, Evel Knievel's original rocket engineer for the 1974 jump. For those who are old enough to recall that jump, the rocket went off as planned but the parachute deployed early, leaving the rocket to fall to canyon of the Snake River, like a toy rocket descending to earth after being shot to the sky with a rubber band. Luckily, Evel Knievel survived his fall into the Snake River, but many viewers over the years have blasted the ill-fated stunt as a firecracker dud, as the Snake River was never fully "jumped". Braun, who has idolized Evel Knievel since a kid, has desired to "right" the bad jump that happened to his hero over 40 yrs ago.
Will Eddie be able to pull a rabbit out of a desert hole in Twin by sometime Saturday? His Kickstarter campaign says they are definitely going to launch, although the funding campaign was pulled over 3 weeks ago with only about 1/3 of the original $150K funded...The Kickstarter website says to check for updates at Evelspirit.com, which is a non-working url...and that link just redirects to the same Kickstarter page. Eddie Braun's twitter account has some new hopeful postings within the last 20 hrs, so maybe there is some last minute push to really make this happen.
Slash, of Gun's and Roses, even got in the game and re-recorded the Elton John song '"Rocketman" to help promote and further the Evel Spirit jump and cause. I haven't heard Slash's version yet but assume its an instrumental, as he doesn't sing...but I can hear Slash's guitar jamming in melody with the faint Elton John vocals still playing in my head..."I think it's gonna be a long long time...." (boy who cried wolf syndrome)
Editor's note: Eddie B. and company: I'm not the naysayer type so I hope you all prove me wrong! If you do blast off in Twin, very safe travels and God Speed to the other side!