Joe P: 0:01

Hey, howdy. It's good to see you again. I know we don't talk very often, but I think about you a lot and I want you to know that I know that you're up to great things. I appreciate you taking the time today to take a tour with me because I promised you a long time ago we were going to get to see the bare bones of this building that we're moving into, and today is the day field trip.

Heather: 0:27

Evel Evel Knievel inspired millions of us with his courage and perseverance. We're building a museum so you can relive those memories and be reinvigorated with that spirit of bravery.

Evel Knievel: 0:40

My name is Evel Knievel. I'm a professional daredevil Along the way, we meet people involved in the life, the times, and the legacy of the King of daredevils Here with their stories is your host, Joe Friday.

Joe P: 0:59

Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. Here we are at the Mission Linen Building. Mission Linen was an outfit that would pick up and deliver linens, right? That makes sense. Towels, uniforms, napkins, tablecloths for the casino and resort industry here. They've since packed up and moved, but it's a 31,000 square foot building. We started with a shell, so when I say the Evel Knievel was moving from Topeka, Kansas to Las Vegas, Nevada, it is so much more than that. We accidentally took on a huge construction project and took it down to the very bare bones, which we get to see today. When you arrive at the museum as a guest, when we're finally done with all of this, maybe you'll be able to ride the Las Vegas loop, which is being constructed as we speak by the Boring Company. These are the tunnels that Elon Musk is building throughout the town Teslas go down in there, and right now there are four stations, the Encore Resorts, world Convention Center, and Virgin Hotels. They're adding onto it all the time and scheduled this year is supposed to be an airport stop. Eventually it will link Fremont to the strip and then to the airport. It's a really beautiful idea. There are no stops between destinations. You'll get in a Tesla and arrive at your destination just a few minutes later. It's ingenious, there is a map online of where the stops will be, and one of them is right in our parking lot. So who knows? Maybe you'll get a Tesla coming up, a big blue ramp with white stripes on it, emerging to see the mission linen building.

Speaker 7: 2:59

For now though, you probably take an Uber. We are about two minutes from the strip and one minute from the Fremont area. We're tucked in between the Strip and Fremont. What's called the Arts District, so this is a vibing place. If you know where the Pawn Stars Show is recorded, we are about two blocks west from there. I just went on a police ride along not long ago, to check out our new neighborhood, we did a 12 hour shift on second shift, took a lot of calls and I had to ask them if we could drive by my building. So there were no calls in the Arts district on my ride along, at least in the patrol car that I was in. It's a nice, safe area. You'll feel very comfortable Without any further ado, let's just go check it out, shall we? Here we are at the entrance, and this is where you will check in. At a kiosk, or you'll probably have your tickets downloaded already onto your phone. They're a timed ticketing system, so you'll have a window that you should arrive at, and there's a little flexibility. You don't have to be just on time, but we want to make sure that we have enough staff planned to take good care of you while you're here. If you haven't bought your ticket. You'll find a kiosk here where you can purchase one. This is also the gift shop where we'll have everything you would expect, but just know that the quality of our offerings are so much better than your just typical, I don't know, Disneyland or Knoxberry farm or whatever. A lot of thought has gone into these gifts, and we'll have everything available in the shop that we have online. By the way, the online store's opening pretty soon from here. We can take the stairs or the elevator since there is no elevator yet. This is a bare bones tour. Just so you know, this is not what the museum's going to look like when you arrive, but I did want to give you a taste of how much work we're pouring into it and how much thought we're putting into this process. There will be an elevator at the entrance, which will take you to the second floor. The whole process starts on the second floor. Today, since there is no elevator, we'll take the stairs. You'll enter the queuing area. In this queue area, you'll get your first glimpse of these phenomenal designed panels that we've done starting with the history of Baby Knievel, Bob Knievel, Evel, Knievel, et cetera, there's the Chitwood inspiration, you know, um, getting married to Linda, insurance salesman, hockey team, motorcycle shop owner. So there's five different displays in this area. The queue should be less than 10 minutes. We have a small theater where you'll be introduced to Evel Knievel in a seven minute clip or so, just an introduction to the museum and the life and times of Evel Knievel. Then as you exit, we enter what we call a timeline. It begins in 1965 with his first jump and as we progress through the whole place, it's basically going to go through his whole career in order, we did that at our old museum, but with this space we have, we'll be able to do it a lot, little more efficiently, and we have a lot more space. We show the jumps, we show his career and some of the important events. Uh, then also Snake River was separated out of the timeline in Topeka, so it just didn't jive. And here we'll have it inside the timeline in its correct spot. So historically that's a big improvement and we're excited about that. As you enter the first room, you'll see the Honda Scrambler from what we call Evel Knievels First jump. It wasn't really his first stunt at all, but uh, he jumped over a box of rattlesnakes and then you'll see the storyboards of how he began. You'll see pictures of the Hollywood daredevils and videos. We have lots of, many, many videos and directed speakers. And sort of tells the story of how that circus that he invented ended and he began his solo career. Then you'll see the Caesars display is next. We've got. Ford Econoline van. If you look at old photos of that jump on New Year's Eve of 1967, you'll notice that there's a Ford Econoline van. We got that chopped in half, tucked up underneath the ramp just as it was back then. We've got a section of his real ramp. Did you know Evel Knievel used the same ramps through his entire career? That these things traveled around the world and have now found their home here in Las Vegas. Of course, we'll have the tar up motorcycle, we'll have the Caesar's Palace leathers, his authentic helmet that he used that day, and that's a neat treasure to see because if you look at all the scratches where it's been damaged, you can see the yellow underneath with the red, white, and blue on top of it. You'll continue on to his days at Ascot. You'll see the American Eagle, Carson City jump. What else? la Carlsbad. We've put together some display cases with his leather, so we can put a full sized mannequin in there, and you can walk around those 360 degrees and look at that from the capes, the rabbit's feet, and the star spangled stripes on his trousers. Now on these display cases. We made those in our fabrication shop and they are just beautiful. and it wasn't, because there are no other display cases available. There are just no display cases available up to our standards. So we've been to. A lot of other attractions around the world to look at other museums and see what they have to offer. So we use museum quality, MDF boards and museum quality, clear acrylic or what you might call plexiglass. In the 1970s, Harley Davidson began to sponsor Evel Knievel. So he rode on an XR 750. There will be panels showcasing jumps at Las Vegas and Dallas, Cincinnati, union Grove, Providence, and then we'll have some pop culture items that are also featured, like the lunchbox and the toys, how those began in the early seventies. Continuing on to Portland and Canada, Fremont, Tulsa. I don't need to list all of them, but the amount of detail in each of these panels is incredible. You can just walk through and look at pictures. You can walk through and just watch videos. If you read every sign of every panel throughout the museum, it might take a couple hours, maybe. 90 minutes or so if you're planning to do anything else the rest of the day, maybe you're going to go to a show, maybe you're going to go to dinner. Just set aside about 90 minutes to go through this museum. Around the corner is the Snake River experience display that is the real deal. X2 homemade Wiley Coyote rocket that Evel Knievel launched over Snake River Canyon and, spoiler alert, ended up at the bottom of a canyon. So we have that there and it's surrounded by authentic gravel. I'm telling you, these curators went to great lengths to provide a real authentic experience for you, the guest. They collected rocks, dirt, tumble, tumbleweeds, and even Olympia beer cans, which were from the event. The event was just kind of abandoned, left behind for years and years, and Latham and Mike went and gathered those items for your viewing enjoyment. Around the corner is Wembley Stadium with the XR 750 and Leathers and helmet there. That was a seminal point in Evel Knieval's career as he was using to launch. From a US-centric star into an international star. He had booked 13 dates in Europe, starting in London. And here that is showcased. I won't tell you the whole story or what happened, but all we've got is Wembley. I'll leave it at that. Then he goes on to a world tour later and there's some Seattle jumps, uh, King's Island with that. Harley Davidson motorcycle, which is absolutely gorgeous. There are some Robbie's leathers there. Then his last big star studded jump. This last jump of any consequence really, that was on national television, which was his shark jump That was his jump in Chicago where he jumped over a pool of live sharks in 1977 when even us boys out there on the planes were scared to get in a bathtub because of this Jaws phenomenon. And of course. The museum would not be complete if it weren't for a showcase of,, some of the licensed products, Bicycles, toys, slot machines, a lot of other things. And, uh, some of his wardrobe from pop culture when he was on the Donny and Marie show some of his golf outfits and his hee haw overalls. We have a A MF trike and many, many other artifacts. our timeline ends basically at, uh, his baptism which was shown live on, The Hour of Power with Dr. Robert Schuler live from Pasadena, California.

Speaker 9: 14:16

That's it for the second floor. So we'll just stop here at this landing, because we will just skip the bathrooms and the janitor's closet, but you get the gist of it. There's going to be offices in the rear corner along with a podcast booth. Oh, speaking of podcast booth, I need to tell you about the space. They gave my daughter an internship there so she could get some experience in showbiz. Before working at an entertainment company in Las Vegas that manages residencies, that's concerts to the rest of the world except here. The performers are not on tour. The audience is. But the space is an event center and they put on a variety show called Monday's Dark. Local performers come to party on their day off. The theaters on the strip, like Broadway and West End are, they're shut down on Mondays. These performers get to let loose with their talents that they brought with them. By local performers. I mean, the guy that plays Cher all week, for example, might have an opportunity to come Belt Out, show tunes. Who knows what you might see at Monday Star. It could. It could be a ventriloquist. Comedians. Jugglers. I've been there when Tony Orlando popped in once. Members of the Little River Band, the Righteous Brothers, the thrust of the whole thing is to raise$10,000 per show for local charities. It's completely unpredictable. Entertaining and you will feel good about your$25 price of admission going towards a good cause. The people at the space became like family. I don't have a place to record this podcast while that permanent studio is being built out for us. And the people at the space just opened it up. They were like, whatever you need, just let us know. And I said,"Well, I do need a space to record my podcast." So they opened up the podcast studio to us. Which is a super luxurious, nice professional place to meet guests. I just wanted to give a special shout out to the space because they were so gracious in bringing us into their facility and providing the technicians and the equipment, the fixtures, and the furniture, way more than I could have asked, which is what I could say about most people around here. These people are swinging hammers, trying to make it happen. The people are genuine here and kind. They really wanna make this happen for the Arts district and the community at large. We plugged in right away with mothership coffee because hey, it's a high priority for newcomers to find coffee. Well, color me. Lucky. The best roaster in town is moving to our building. Too there are rumors of a restaurant activating next door, and I've been brainstorming with lodging partners, so you'll have a nice, comfortable place to stay when you get here. It's all been so exciting and I just feel really blessed to have neighbors like this. Now, let's head downstairs.

Speaker 7: 17:26

As you exit the second floor, there's a catwalk that opens up into a grand ballroom. From the top of the stairs you'll see Evel Knieval's ramp cover that we just recently obtained just last year. That is a canopy over the VR motorcycle jumps. We have VR motorcycles, where you'll strap on virtual reality goggles and headphones. There are fans to blow this way when you're returning left, this way when you're right and you are launched over 17 police cars. It's an amazing. It really gives you a feeling of how daring Evel Knievel was. That jump was done by Doug Danger, and we strapped GoPro cameras all over his helmet, stitched that all together so that you can freely move your head left. And see the bank on your right and see the government buildings, forward and see this launch ramp, or down and see your lucky rabbits foot. It's a blast. That's under a mezzanine. And then we haul the stunt and crash car as featured in Marvel Comics and Viva Knievel, the movie from 1977. We've got, oh boy, Cadillac. We've got the Wheelie Car and the jewel in the crown is Big Red, a 1974 Mack truck that's been fully restored. He used this not only to haul his equipment in the very rear trailer, but also as a dressing room and sort of makeshift press room where he would grant interviews. The inside of the carriage is vintage paneling, so it smells like grandma's house and inside the cab it's an automatic truck and it's outfitted with vinyl stars and stripes. Very patriotic looking. There were two sky cycles that were launched over the Snake River Canyon. One was a test rocket, the other was the real deal. We've got both of them. One of them is downstairs and on that one we've set it up at the exact. Angle that the launch t ramp was so that you could get a feel for how steep that was. It's not like a motorcycle ramp. It really is a launch pad. And we have little vignettes about his different vehicles, the yacht, some of Evel's equipment stories from the road. Then interactives. On the interactives we've got four different playful items. One is called Bad to the Bones. You'll be able to look at a computer image of Evel Knievels body, skeleton, and you can point to, say, the knee, the elbow, the skull or maybe you point to his left hip. Click that and it pulls which crash would you like to see where he broke his left hip. And it also has the x-rays on there, so it's a lot of fun. Younger folks really like that one. Also, the jump timeline. Many people spend a long time looking at that jump timeline. It's fun to see where Evel Knievel jumped. If he jumped into your hometown. Which one was the nearest, what date that was? Did you go? Then a jump simulator, which is like a video game where you control the angle of the jump, what you're jumping over, whether that's sharks, buses, cars, and what speed you go. Let her rip. So much fun. So much fun. You'll probably be thirsty. So we do have a snack bar there available for you where we will have beer. Uh, I can't say we'll have beer and whiskey because I don't have my liquor license yet, but, Hmm, someday we will. If you come early, uh. If you come later, you'll enjoy some ice frosty beverages. But either way, we'll have something cool for you to drink on those hot days. A few tables for sitting around, and of course, the ultimate gift shop. We've been able to reuse a lot of things from the old museum, but we have added so much more. I can't even list how much more. If you have not been to the museum before, you know it's all new. If you have been before, it's probably half new. We have been moving for, I don't know, it seems like years. Yeah, it's probably been a couple years since we closed the old location in preparation of the move So we packed up the canes, the capes, the helmets, the artifacts, all the paperwork so much, the vehicles are filled to the brim and they're going to go out on different trucks. It's been fun even loading them onto the trucks and thinking about the history, even our own history with these artifacts, not even Knievels, but where Lathan found them or where Mike procured them or the different stories contained within. When I worked at the museum, I would find something new every day that I worked. There's so there was so much in the museum and packing up. Same deal, like small details. Oh, this letter said he wanted to open up an exhibit at the Maxim in Las Vegas. Oh, this one said he wanted to open up an exhibit in the Circus Museum in Wisconsin. So it's been a lot of fun. The thing that I've missed most about the process of moving is seeing you. I really enjoyed giving tours when we were open before, and it's been super quiet. I mean, it's great to get to know the other guys from Oz Hogs who have been a tremendous help in loading everything up and doing the heavy lifting. And uh, also, you know, Mike and his son Jackson, who will be in Las Vegas. Of course, I'll be there to see you and greet you, I hope. Now listen, this is the end of our first season. I've gotta take a break. I did 15 episodes I'm sorry it took me so long to get you this Bare Bones tour, so I apologize for being so late with this, for taking so long to get to it. I know I promised you on the very first episode that we would give you construction updates and, you know, if intentions count at all, I had the best of them. I just got distracted once we started this show. We started with, the chief's mascot and how he nearly died in a horrible stunt that he tried to do. Then we talked about Jay Sarno with a local historian, David G. Schwartz, who has an amazing book out there called Grandissimo. Pick it up if you haven't. Somewhere in the middle of the move we got called away to Chicago to go pick up the motorcycle that cleared Caesar's Palace fountains. So we'll have that in the museum. You can hear the whole story on previous episodes. We talked to Danny Coker of Counts Kustoms, Brandon Powers, who made Evel Pie and other cosmic creations, along with starting the rave. Then I went down a rabbit hole about it until-- I'm telling you, I'm so easily distracted. Oh, squirrel. Oh, the Liberace collection. If you have time when you're in Las Vegas, go see the Liberace collection. And then Ryland Grant came out with a comic book. So we interviewed him about what that would look like and John Katsilometes about the business of attractions in Las Vegas and now finally your bare bones tour. But there it is. And that's the last of the Bare Bones tour. That is the first and the last of the bare bones tour that you will see because I need to take a little time off and get some more interviews in the can and work on this construction. It is so much more than I had anticipated so many years ago when we started. Again, thank you so much for joining in, and I will see you in Las Vegas.

Joe Friday: 26:32

All right.

Speaker 11: 26:33

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. It's our mission to preserve and present the legacy of Evel Knievel. So if you have an idea for an episode or a guest or have a suggestion to improve our show, just drop us a line at Joe at Thrill. Show.

Evel Knievel: 26:51

Like I just think the Evel Knievel way.

Heather: 26:57

We leave you with the encouraging words from the book of Deuteronomy. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified for the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you or forsake you. Until next time, happy landings.

Joe Friday: 27:28

You like to fly to the seat of your pants. It is where you belong.