Luxe Life Blog

Exclusive Interviews, Part II: It’s Robbie (Maddison) vs. Robbie (Knievel)

Posted December 28, 2008 • 9:00 a.m.

Two daredevil drivers will stare down death in about three days now with two mind-blowing stunts on the same live TV show from Las Vegas. It’s ESPN’s Red Bull-sponsored New Year No Limits. Both motorcyclist Robbie Maddison and truck driver Rhys Millen know they could die or be seriously injured for life on New Year’s Eve. Both men admit that they are “crazy” -- and both men know exactly what could happen if it all goes wrong. There is not one inch of margin for error.

Their show goes head-to-head with stunt daredevil Robbie Knievel’s Fox TV broadcast. Knievel will attempt to jump 200 feet through the thundering, fiery explosions of the new Mirage volcano. His “dice with death” takes place on the 41st anniversary of his father’s failed leap over the Caesars Palace fountains, which nearly cost him his life in winding up in a 29-day coma. Vegas DeLuxe will have our Robbie Knievel feature here before the Wednesday night dangers on opposite sides of the Strip.

For Robbie Maddison, it’s a personal war with Robbie Knievel! There is no love lost between the two motorcycle mavericks, as you will discover when you read on! Maddison will break all boundaries leaping for the first time in world history to the top of the Arc de Triomphe at our Paris Las Vegas on the Strip -- and then free-falling afterwards to the ground. He broke the Guinness World Record last New Year’s Eve at The Rio with a motorcycle leap of 322 feet over the length of an entire football field and has subsequently followed that with a record-breaking 378-foot jump Down Under in his home country of Australia.

Both ESPN Red Bull stunt stars head into Vegas today for their final preparations starting tomorrow. Both acts of insanity will be broadcast live in HD on the sports cable channel approximately 8 to 9 p.m. our local Pacific time (11 p.m. to midnight Eastern Time). It also will be simulcast on www.ESPN360.com, and tourists and locals are encouraged to watch both jumps, which are free to the hundreds of thousands of New Year’s Eve revelers before our midnight fireworks show.

At age 27, Robbie will have to jump more that 120 feet to land atop the 96-feet-high and 40-feet-wide Arc at the Paris. He’ll do a live TV interview from the top if the jump is successful and then free-fall 50 feet to the netted, ground ramp below. He says: “I believe that the dream that seems impossible will become a reality. I’m confident in my ability. And as I’ve practiced, I get more and more confident.”

Among the sports enthusiasts attending the jump will be Olympic gold medal snowboard king Shaun White and top motorcycle rider Travis Pastrana. Yesterday, we posted our candid conversation with Rhys Miller, who will be attempting to backflip an off-road truck in the parking lots of The Rio -- click HERE for that story -- and now we follow up with our chilling chat with Robbie.

I talked with Robbie on a break from his practice attempts at the Red Bull Compound training facility north of Los Angeles as he began packing up for the trip to Vegas. Our candid but frightening conversation began with the subject of fear!

Robin Leach: Do you know fear, or does the adrenaline rush from the stunt’s speed cover up the actual fear of fear?

Robbie Maddison: I definitely fear 100 percent. I’m fearful of what I do, but I have a means of understanding and dealing with it. I’ve just developed that ability to forget fear during 22 years of riding motorcycles. In advance, though, I have a lot of fear. This jump has already made me physically sick. I actually vomited the day that I was trying to get it through my head that I was about to take this jump. I went weak in the knees and had to bend over and spew. That’s been part of the process of pushing myself to do it -- you know when my head is telling me not to do it, but my heart and my dreams are telling me to do it. And just getting the two to join forces has been a beating itself.

RL: Robbie, tell me, of the two parts of this stunt, which is the most dangerous and why? Is it flying to the top of the Arc de Triomphe or getting down from it?

RM: I would say going up. I mean they’re both terrifying, but going up is the most fearful because no matter how hard I work toward it, a mechanical failure or even a slight mistake on my behalf can make me collide into the building and not make a full height. Or if I fade off to the right-hand side, like I did in practice, there is a chance that I could miss the rooftop altogether and fall all the way back down to the parking lot. The jump up is technically a tough jump, but the jump down, because it’s such low speed, is hard to calculate. Neither have been done before ever. The difference from landing perfectly in the transition and over-shooting and going a hundred feet to the ground is like a quarter of a fold, it’s barely any difference at all.

RL: How does one practice or rehearse for this when you can’t do it in advance on the actual site of the jump?

RM: Well what we did -- it’s actually an amazing structure itself -- we built a scaffolding replica of the building with a fully adjustable roof that I was able to jump at three quarters of its height and then build myself up to the full height. With that, we started to understand what the ramp was doing, we started to make angle changes, as we went higher and higher to give me my projected angle that I would need to land safely on top of the roof. I also had a mathematician with a working math calculation that could give us the full cast of angle of projection and give us a bit of indication where I’d land.

RL: I hate to be blunt, Robbie, but what do you actually have to do on New Year’s Eve to make sure you don’t die?

RM: I have to hit the ramp at over 50 mph; so anywhere between 50 to 55 mph is the speed I’m aiming for. But remember there’s no speedometer on the bike, so it’s a hard thing to estimate. But I wanted to do it this way, because this is how I’ve always ridden a motorcycle; I’ve never looked at the speed. I judge everything off of the feel and down to the engine noise and vibration feel, so I thought I’d keep it like that. So, yeah, I need to hit the ramp at 50 to 55 mph. I need to have a technically perfect jump, as far as my body position on the bike as I approach the ramp, go up the ramp and take off the ramp. Once I leave the ramp, if the technique and the speed are right, the rest is done. I need to fly the motorcycle through the air, I need to pull the clutch in and hit the back break and bring the front end down in the front -- because what will happen is the shoot up on a vertical angle … and if I don’t adjust the bike mid-air, I will land on the back tire and actually fall on the roof, so I need to go up to the top of the building, I need to pull the clutch in, pop the back wheel, which will bring the front end down and make me land on both wheels at the same time on the rooftop.

RL: How long do you spend on top of the Arc -- atop the structure?

RM: I’m not a 100 percent sure. They have asked me if I would jump up and then stay there to have an interview and then jump down after the interview. We’re tossing it up whether or not I’m going to do an interview in between. But I’d say if the TV people get their way, they would prefer it if I do an interview, so I think that’s the plan right now.

RL: You’ve obviously been up to the top of this building at the Paris, right?

RM: Yeah, yeah, I have. I’ve done two different day trips to Vegas and checked it out, and I’ve been up to the top. It’s a frightening sight, particularly now as D-day is just around the corner.

RL: Is this the most ambitious, most dangerous jump that you’ve done?

RM: Yeah, this one takes the cake; this one puts me through a lot of torture. I get in on Sunday, and I’ll watch them start to build the ramp. There’s no practice at that point. It’s just the one-jump deal and whatever happens.

RL: How long will the jump actually take from the moment that you start this attempt of the impossible?

RM: Roughly from the time that it takes me to get off the ground to the time I get to the top of the Arc, probably about 5 seconds of flying time. Yeah, probably 10 seconds from take off to landing on top. And the jump down afterwards is about 30 seconds.

RL: It’s 96 feet high, right? And how high is the ramp off the ground?

RM: Yeah, 96-feet high, and the ramp is 35 feet tall.

RL: So you leave the ramp at 35 feet, and you have to carry the bike with you the remaining 60 feet?

RM: That is correct.

RL: That has to be the longest 5 seconds of your life?

RM: Yeah, for sure. Even in the practice, sometimes I’m contemplating whether I’m even going to make it even on successful jumps. So on the bike, it doesn’t seem like you’re going to make it, even when you are.

RL: How long is this ramp? How much distance is it to get an advanced run up the ramp?

RM: I only have 200 feet; otherwise, I’m out on the Strip, and we couldn’t get access to that so I’m only allowed on Paris’ property. We made the practice area the same length, but it wasn’t long enough. So what we did was, we put a ramp at the start of it, so I actually roll down a higher ramp to get my speed up to initially start my approach on the 200-foot runway. That gets me to the base of the ramp, and then I’ve got the ramp’s length of about 70 feet. Then I’ll probably do the TV interview in the middle, and then drop down into a 50-foot-tall scaffolding structure, land on my wheels and hopefully ride away for a lot of drinks.

RL: Have you ever been asked if you’re crazy, or are you a calculating mathematician?

RM: A lot of people ask me if I’m crazy, but I’d like to think I’m a calculating mathematician for sure. People I grew up with say I’m crazy.

RL: If we cut open your body, are you built differently than other people, in a sense that you don’t know what fear is, or you thrive on adrenaline, or what? Why are you different from the rest of the world?

RM: Well, I have Turret’s Syndrome, and I have a lot of metal inside of my bones already. I guess I grew up with a dream. I wanted to be someone, something, and I was inspired at a young age by Evel Knievel, and I’ve been trying to be like him my whole life.

RL: So how does it feel doing a jump on New Year’s Eve on the Strip when Robbie Knievel is on one end of the Strip and you’re on the other?

RM: I’m disappointed, you know. I went to Evel Knievel’s funeral, where I met Robbie and a lot of the crew, and I asked Robbie Knievel’s stunt coordinator to help me with my jump. And he wound up telling Robbie about this confidential meeting that we had, and they planned this Mirage jump around the same time to ruin my jump.

RL: So it’s a little bit of warfare?

RM: Yeah, on his behalf, in a totally kind of disrespectful way. It was somebody who I looked up to and somebody I would have bent over backwards for. He just lost a huge fan and a good person who he could have had in his life. It turned out to be a bummer.

RL: So, it is really dueling motorbikes on Wednesday night?

RM: I’m going to take him down. My jump is going to be better than his. My stunt is far more adventurous and terrifying than just leaping over a volcano. He’s just doing the same jump he’s been doing his whole life, and all he’s doing is putting a new thing in the middle of it. I mean it’s not too exciting, and I mean if that’s all he’s got, he’s going to look a little silly when I’m jumping onto a building.

RL: Why do you do this? Why do you risk your life? Why do you do something where you could easily die or be injured for life?

RM: This is my life. This is what I love. I want to inspire kids to push the limits and think outside the box and believe that whatever they dream of, they can potentially do if they go about it the right way. For sure, it’s 100 percent dicing with death. But that’s the business I’m in; I risk my life to earn a dollar.

RL: And it doesn’t bother you?

RM: It does, for sure. On some days, I wake up and feel like I shouldn’t ride a motorcycle, and on those days I don’t even try to ride. That’s the little voice inside telling you that if you’re not feeling it, you can’t go outside and push yourself to do it.

RL: So, Robbie, how do you psyche yourself up for this on New Year’s Eve? I mean, you can’t go out and get wasted. You have to be at your height of physical condition.

RM: I just finished an hour workout right now with my trainer. That’s how I pump myself up, you know. I work out. I get up every morning and work out and push my body till I physically make myself sick. And then when it gets to the night, I deserve this, I deserve that exposure, because this is what I work for. I kind of get there and the fear goes away because I work too damn hard to let some little bit of fear talk me out of something that I want to do and have to do.

RL: Is this really you being master over machine?

RM: Yeah, I’d say. I mean, people I’ve grown up with and people who I consider to be a lot better rider than me, turn their head and say to me, “I’d never, ever do that, no matter how much money you pay me.” I have the best mechanic and I think the best machine, so I’m trying to master it all.

RL: What do you think is the most difficult thing you’ve done up until now and why does this beat that?

RM: The most difficult thing is I got second place in the world championships this year in the freestyle motocross competition. This tops it all because this takes all the ability that it took for me to get to the No. 2 spot, it’s taken all that plus every bit of courage that I’ve got from turning myself from nothing to someone. So it’s not just about having everything handed to you on a silver platter. I worked hard for everything I’ve got. And this is the hardest thing that I’ve ever worked for.

RL: When you make this ride on Wednesday night, do you have anything on your body that would be regarded as a good luck charm?

RM: No, I’m not superstitious in any way.

RL: So there’s no such thing as good luck?

RM: There is. I mean everyone who wishes me good luck, I say thank you and I take it with me, but as far as a charm symbolizing it, I don’t have one little charm, because you know that charm I could lose. The good luck comes with the respect that I give to everyone and the good karma that I create for myself.

RL: How many times do you think you would have practiced for this when all is said and done?

RM: Probably a week of practice on a similar structure. And that’s it, I’m done, there is only one jump left to do, and that’s on that night. The night before, Tuesday, I’ll sleep like a log -- perfectly.

RL: And the night after you’ve done it?

RM: (Laughs.) I probably won’t sleep! I’ll be celebrating till the wee hours, but that’s because for the last 12 months, I’ve gone without a drink of alcohol, so there is plenty of making up to be done. I’ll just eat normally that day with a shake in the morning and my normal diet. Now I’ve got some more practice rides and jumps to go do. See you on the night!

All of us at Vegas DeLuxe wish Robbie much success, and here’s to a safe and successful jump at the Paris! We’ll have our photo reports here Thursday morning, so be sure to check back at that time.

Link Share This