Freestyle legend Travis Pastrana is to pay homage to Evel Knievel with a three-hour live event in America this July.

Pastrana will attempt to successfully replicate three of Evel’s most famous jumps, all within minutes of one another.

And, to add some more realism, he’s going to make the leaps on the closest modern approximation of Knievel’s famous Harley XR750, an Indian FTR750 flat-track racer.

The first jump will be over a pile of 52 crushed cars, two more than Knievel leapt back in February 1973 in Los Angeles.

If successful, Pastrana will then attempt to jump over
16 Greyhound buses, mimicking the 14-bus jump Knievel made at Kings Island in October 1975.

As a finale, providing the first jumps work out, Pastrana will attempt to succeed where Knievel failed, and jump the fountains of Caesars Palace casino in Las Vegas.

That unsuccessful 1968 jump, which Knievel made on a Triumph Bonneville before his association with Harley began, led to a 29-day hospital stay with horrifying injuries, including a crushed pelvis and femur, two broken ankles, fractures to his hip and wrist, and serious concussion.

Pastrana, with modern machinery and the technology to plan jumps more accurately than Knievel ever could, is still going into the unknown by using the big Indian V-twin rather than the motocross bikes he usually rides.

“It was extremely important to use a motorcycle similar to the ones Evel jumped,” Pastrana said.

“The Indian Scout FTR 750 is just that, a modern-day evolution of the flat track motorcycles of the past. It has the power I need and handles well, but I’m only going to have a few days to get comfortable on it, not to mention I’ve never jumped a V-twin before…”

The event is being backed by Pastrana’s Nitro Circus and TV channel History, which will broadcast the show live across America on 8 July.

Details of the jump locations have yet to be revealed, but are all likely to take place in Nevada in close proximity to the Caesars Palace fountains so there’s no need to travel far from one jump to another.