Gary Wells is best known for his 1980 crash landing at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas during ABC’s taping of a “That’s Incredible!” episode. He missed the landing ramp and collided with a concrete wall, and the accident was so horrific it was never used by ABC.
Gary Wells PR
Wells, now 57, will intentionally skip the landing ramp on Friday in a 150-feet jump at Colorado National Speedway — and hope that he doesn’t collide with the track’s wall.
“Nobody else does it without a landing ramp,” Wells told me Wednesday while making promotional appearances in Denver. “It’s like jumping off a two-story building and landing on your feet.”
So why do it? Wells still loves to put on a show. He will don his trademark tuxedo in Friday’s jump over 12 semi-trucks that will be made available a local truck driving school. Wells said it will be his second jump in Colorado; he was 14 in 1971 when he said he made a 14-car jump at a local drag strip.
“It was before I started using tape measures,” he said, forgetting the venue’s name that could have been at the former tracks Century 21, Thunder Road, Continental Divide Raceway or the existing Bandimere Speedway. “This town was nothing in ’71. It was just a spot on the map. Whole different world.”
Friday’s jump during intermission of a special late models race — featuring the three generations of Robertsons, Odie, son Jerry and grandson Darren — is approximately 50 yards. “About half a football field,” Wells said. “I know everybody loves the Broncos so I’ll add that in.”
Wells pays strict attention to distance — and he wants everyone to know about it, unlike, he said, other more glamorous names from the past. He considered the late Evil Knievel, as well as his son, Robbie Knievel, as “a three-ring-circus act” with no official measurements of their jumps. Wells says he’s not a “daredevil,” but rather a “motorcyclist extraordinaire.”
Wells says his autobiography “Closer” and accompanying movie about his life are in the works, and will disclose more about his dislike of the Knievels.
Wells, who said he also won a motorcycle championship at the 1995 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, insists that his age is not a concern in making a 150-foot jump.
“Not even,” he said.
