Evel Knievel Stunt Cycles dominated the toy shelves in the early 1970s, but there was also a competing biker chick model. Stuntwoman Debbie Lawler was no novelty act. Here, guest blogger Steve Mandich, one of our favorite writers, graciously allows us to reprint his 1998 biography tribute to Ms. Lawler.

(As an aside, The Flying Angel was kind enough to praise this Web site on our “About The Film” page. Debbie, if you are reading this, please get in touch with us at helldrivers@comcast.net. We’d love to give the world a Flying Angel update — are you still addicted to TV reruns of “Sanford and Son?”)

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HELL DRIVER FLASHBACK: THE DEBBIE LAWLER STORY

Debbie Lawler was the most prolific female motorcycle jumper of the 1970s, if not of all-time. She was the third most-popular motorcycle jumper of her era, following Evel Knievel (of course) and Super Joe Einhorn. Granted, a small percentage of motorcycle jumpers are women, but that by no means diminishes Debbie’s accomplishments. In fact, “The Queen of the Motorcycle Jumpers” once broke one of Evel Knievel’s inter-gender jumping records.

With her blue-and-white helmet, lucky orange bra, and pink hearts sewn all over her snug, baby-blue leathers, “The Flying Angel” was often asked why such a pretty girl would perform dangerous stunts. The shapely (35-25-34) yet petite (five-foot-two, 106-pounds), blue-eyed blonde replied, “I like the feeling of freedom. It’s like flying over the highest mountains.”

Debbie was born in Grant’s Pass, Oregon, in December 1952, on Friday the 13th. The daughter of motorcycle racing champ Ben Lawler, Debbie took her first ride on the handlebars of her dad’s bike at age nine. After her family moved to Arizona, she got her first motorcycle on her 12th birthday and began racing at 14. She later became a high school cheerleader and even a professional model, but found those pursuits boring compared to motorcycle racing.

Enter Charles Samples, former manager of Phoenix-based motorcycle jumpers Gary Davis and Rex Blackwell, a duo who comprised the “Astro Jumpers.” Davis and Blackwell eventually quit the Astro Jumpers following disputes with Samples, who then “discovered” Debbie. Samples became Debbie’s manager, teaching her how to jump and carefully crafting her girlish image.

“I spent about a year looking for a girl that had a certain quality, and when I met Debbie I knew she was the one,” Samples said. “I needed someone who was pretty and looked like she had never been on a motorcycle before. We do get a lot of response from people who find it hard to imagine a small girl jumping cars on a motorcycle.”

Indeed, Debbie’s appearance was often a surprise to her audiences. “The crowd expects to see a 300-pound woman with tattoos and a chain hanging out of her hip pocket,” she said. “They don’t expect me.”

Debbie began jumping in 1972 at fairs and speedways across the country, soon earning much more than she ever made as a model. On March 31, 1973, at the Beeline Dragway in Phoenix, Debbie jumped her Suzuki 76 feet over a line of parked cars. An outfit called Motor Sports International declared her feat the “World Record for Motorcycle Distance Jumping — Female.”

Then, on February 3, 1974, ABC’s Wide World of Sports was on hand at the Houston Astrodome to tape the National Championship Indoor Motorcycle Race, and Wide World also covered Debbie’s jump. The 21-year-old earned her biggest exposure to date as she bettered Evel’s indoor vehicular record. Her 101-foot leap over 16 Chevy pickups earned her a spot in the Guinness book (though it curiously referred to her “The Smiling Angel” and “The Lesser Evel,” nicknames not heard elsewhere).

When asked about the new record by WWOS host Jim McKay, Evel derisively replied, “I can spit farther than that.” He reclaimed the record the following month, clearing 17 vehicles at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. Debbie, ever the good sport, was among the event’s 8,000 spectators. She gushed afterwards, “It was a beautiful jump, just beautiful.”

Despite losing the record, Debbie was a sensation. She appeared on the TV game show What’s My Line? and in print ads for Eagle Tires. In response to Ideal’s successful Knievel toys, Kenner released the “Debbie Lawler Daredevil Jump Set,” reasoning that girls would demand a line of stunt toys that they too could identify with. The Debbie doll had a big pink heart on her white helmet, with her golden plastic mane flowing out over her white jumpsuit.

Her cycle was primarily green, with shiny plastic faux-chrome machinery and another big pink heart emblazoned on the side. The toy’s packaging depicted a small girl at the helm of the wind-up crankcase that made little Debbie’s cycle go. The back of the toy’s box illustrated “Wild Rider Action!”, eight positions that Debbie could be mounted on the cycle.

She also received her own chapter in the Joe Scalzo book, “Evel Knievel and Other Daredevils” (Grosset and Dunlap, 1974). “No terrible scars or ugly pavement rash mar her delicate features yet,” Scalzo wrote. “Certainly she is the most attractive of all motorcycle daredevils.”

While Scalzo was merely stating the obvious, also revealed a Debbie previously unknown to her public: her favorite food was fried chicken, and she was an expert water skier and aspiring actress. He depicted this apparent “wild woman” as a sweet, wholesome, old-fashioned girl who loved children and the elderly. She also lived cleanly, except for the two packs of cigarettes she smoked daily.

Scalzo quoted Debbie at length, further exposing her personal side. “All I can say is, I never wear a bra,” she said, except one: “I won’t jump without my lucky bra. I just won’t jump without it. It’s a real dainty French thing. I’m superstitious about it. I won’t jump without it or my manager being right there.”

On the more obsessive-compulsive side, Debbie admitted, “Oh, I’m always taking showers. I seem to spend most of my time taking showers.”

But don’t get the impression she was a complete nut: “I love cooking and sewing. I get up in the morning, take a shower, do my nails, and watch TV. And, I create.”

To wit: “Love is a beautiful thing that comes on wings/ But leaves with tears/ But memory of love is an ever-burning ember.”

Television could sometimes be a distraction. “The first time I jumped, over at Tucson, I’d brought a portable TV along with me,” said Debbie. “But I was sitting there watching Sanford and Son and forgot all about jumping. They had to come remind me.”

Though Debbie might’ve been the Amelia Earhart of motorcycle jumpers, she certainly wasn’t its Gloria Steinem: “I’m no woman’s libber. I like men.”

So, how about those men? “Well, I’ve had trouble as far as dating goes. I have some boyfriends, of course. I like the masculine male. But boys find out what I do, that I jump a motorcycle over cars, and they don’t like it at all. I guess they don’t want to see me get splattered around. Or maybe they don’t like the competition.”

Debbie didn’t like the competition either. “In my mind I recognize no other male jumper. Evel Knievel started it all and as long as he is around, that’s it. My thing is not to compete with Evel at all. Knievel is the king of jumpers, right? Well, I’m the queen. And a queen can’t beat the king — it’s impossible. And I don’t like to compete against men anyway. I’m a girl.”

Debbie’s next jump occurred on March 4, 1974 at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Southern California. This time dressed in pink leathers, she would attempt her longest-ever jump: 104 feet over 15 Datsuns. Wide World was again present, along with 10,000 spectators. Unfortunately, a 30-mph tailwind helped in pushing Debbie 145 feet before her cycle’s rear wheel hit the bottom of the landing ramp. She was thrown from her bike, smashed onto the pavement, and tumbled 150 feet into a concrete wall. She suffered multiple abrasions and contusions and three fractured vertebrae, hardly worth her $5,000 payday.

She spent a week in the hospital, and then on April 5, she was a wheelchair-bound guest on The Mike Douglas Show, where Evel dropped in as a surprise guest. Around the same time, while recuperating in her Phoenix home, she was interviewed by People magazine. “What I’d really love to do is jump my bike over two destroyers,” she explained. “You know, those great big naval boats?”

Debbie didn’t appear again until June 1976, albeit as a color commentator on CBS Sports Spectacular. She offered her insights as Super Joe Einhorn beat Evel’s best-ever jump, clearing 15 buses at Buffalo’s Lancaster Speedway.

This is pretty much where the story ends, as about the only other thing I’ve heard since then was that she supposedly lives in the Southwest and owns a chain of restaurants. Still, there’s no doubt that Debbie Lawler has been an inspiration to the female motorcycle jumpers who’ve followed in her skidmarks, most notably Rena Hart, Teri Kezar, Janet Lee, Debbie Evans, Linda Beckley, Fiona Beale and Jamie Pamatuan. She was also likely the basis for Tracey Butler (a.k.a. “The Lavender Lady”), Evel’s fictional rival in the ‘73 TV pilot Evel Knievel.

Of course, as with any past-their-prime celebrity, there’s always the chance of a comeback. But it’s doubtful.

“I can’t jump cars forever,” she told People in 1974. “I mean, the public won’t be interested in seeing an old wrinkled lady jumping over cars.”

Don’t be so sure, Debbie.

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This article, originally titled “The Daredevil is a Woman: The Debbie Lawler Story,” first was published in Steve Mandich’s ‘zine “Heinous” in 1998. Mandich is the author of “Evel Incarnate: The Life and Legend of Evel Knievel.”

POSTSCRIPT FROM LOU “ROCKET” RE

“It’s funny you guys are writing about Debbie Lawler I was just talking with her last night. First let me say she is a beautiful lady with so much class it’s easy to see why she was such a big star and why everyone speaks so highly of her. I’m very lucky to be able to call her my friend. “The Flying Angel” has a few big projects she is currently working on. I’m not going to reveal any details right now, I’ll let Debbie do that when the time is right. I’ll just tell you, if Debbie Lawler is involved, it will be first class. I’m going to attempt to attach a photo of Debbie and I taken after the services for Evel Knievel last year.”

Woods Hole, arguably the marine biology epicenter of the world, also boasts one of the most fantastic film festivals.

“Hell Drivers: America’s Original Crash Test Dummies” is proud to screen at the 2008 Woods Hole Film Festival and we will be offering complimentary packages of Junior Mints to the first 48 movie buffs who stream into the theater.

Why? Well, because we LOVE Junior Mints and we can think of no better way to express our love to people who support film festivals. Here’s the 411 on our Cape Cod premiere:

HELL DRIVERS @ WOODS HOLE FILM FESTIVAL

When: Wednesday, July 30 — 7 p.m.
Where: Woods Hole Community Hall
Tickets: $7 - $10 Click here to order!
Directions: Click here!

We also love the Woods Hole logo — a fish in a flowing Marilyn Monroe dress. As a special bonus, we will give a second complimentary box of Junior Mints (and free admission) to any audience member — male or female — who shows up to the screening wearing a Marilyn costume!

Given the relative proximity of Provincetown, we will have a few extra cases of candy on hand.

And, we find the fish theme to be most appropriate for “Hell Drivers.” Guard your local pet stores, because stuntmen Crash Moreau and Louis Re are trying to bring back the goldfish-swallowing fad from the 50s!

This might be obvious, but one of the best ways to get that stinky goldfish taste and smell out of your mouth is to chug a box of Junior Mints.

Note: The “Hell Drivers” producers have no connection to Tootsie Roll Industries, the manufacturer of Junior Mints. But we love them and everything they stand for.

This discovery comes from a New Hampshire fireworks retail outlet — the Granite state is a gunpowder-coated island of sanity in Puritan New England.

These stuntman vampire fireworks produce “a red and white glitter fountain, leading up to red and blue and white strobes.”

We’re still unclear on what makes this firework have anything to do with either stunts or vampires, but if you want to buy one, you can find them here.

From all of us here in the “Hell Drivers” crew, a very happy, hearty Independence Day to you and your loved ones!

Over the next few weeks, we plan to share selected interview snippets from some of the most legendary Hell Drivers who ever stepped foot on a racetrack!

This week, we visit with Father Mike Juran, the longtime spiritual advisor to Jay Milligan’s American Thrill Show and Joie Chitwood’s Auto Thrill Show. Juran, also known as the “Flying Padre,” excelled at precision driving stunts and the human battering ram — which involved lying flat on the hood of a car and smashing through burning walls of fire.

It looks like an illusion, but it does give your helmet the beating of a lifetime. Juran had little patience for daredevil wannabes who thought the gig was easy. Watch the interview clips and find out how he took care of those who didn’t take the danger seriously.

Broken thumbs aside, Juran is also one of the few priests we know who will publicly reminisce about the joys of picking up chicks at the racetrack:

“Man in uniform? – the girls loved it. We used to sit at the track before the show, because we were dressed half hour beforehand — and the game that we played is that we would pick out certain girls in the audience while we were having our cigarettes… And the wager was which one would actually come up to one of us.”

As much as we love Rocky Balboa, forget about him!

We’ve got Rocky Hardcore — and he and Crash and Doug and Lou make their big screen debut later this month in the City of Brotherly Love.

Some say the best part of Philly is the Cheesesteak. We’re also big fans of the Water Ice — the odd contradictory name given to slushy treats. The 100th guest at our Philadelphia Independent Film Festival screening will be treated to a complimentary Cheesesteak with a complimentary Water Ice to wash it down (flavor of your choice).

SPOILER ALERT: Or, if you prefer, you can munch on a bowl of goldfish with the daring Crash Moreau.

HELL DRIVERS PHILADELPHIA PREMIERE

What: Philadelphia Independent Film Festival
When: Friday, June 27 — 9 p.m.
Where: The 941 Theater, 941 North Front Street
Tickets: $6 - $8 at the door.

A spirited and irreverent Q & A session with the filmmakers will follow the screening.

As an aside, there was a moment during the Rocky Hardcore tour when the daredevil was innocently called “Rocky Balboa” by a young fan who couldn’t have been older than 8 or 9. It’s all about branding, Rocky!

Take a look at the above picture of Rocky Hardcore in his natural habitat.

The stunt show business on the county fair and racetrack circuit involves a lot of waiting. Hours and hours of highway time that feels like driving on a conveyor belt. And hours and hours of lag time between setting up for stunts and performing them for the crowd.

And it’s been a long wait for the debut of “Hell Drivers: America’s Original Crash Test Dummies.”

We’re proud to be screening “Hell Drivers” for the very first time at the New Jersey International Film Festival on Friday, June 13. For a film about road trip adventures and the working class heroes of the outdoor entertainment biz, Jersey is the place to be. We will not be serving cappuccinos.

If you are even within a 500 mile radius of the Garden State, pack up the camper and bring the whole family! Come walk the red carpet with the real-life Hell Drivers!

HELL DRIVERS MOVIE PREMIERE — SCREENING INFORMATION

WHEN: 7 p.m., Friday, June 13
WHERE: Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ;
Scott Hall # 123
43 College Avenue (near corner of Hamilton Street)

TICKETS: Sold at the door, beginning at 6:30 p.m. $10 general admission, $9 students and seniors, $8 Friends of the NJ Media Arts Center.

DIRECTIONS: Take the NJ Turnpike to Exit 9 and then take Route 18N (New Brunswick direction) and go for 2 1/2 miles to the Rutgers University/George Street exit (immediately after the Route 27S exit; don’t take the earlier George Street exit).

At the end of the exit ramp onto George Street, take a left at the light. Go to the next light and make a right onto Hamilton Street. At the next light, make a right onto College Avenue. Almost immediately on your right, there is an University Parking Lot (#9) which is set aside for the NJ Film Festival.

Scott Hall is adjacent to the parking lot on the right. You can also park in Rutgers Lots #1 (next to Kirkpatrick Chapel) and #16 (next to Murray Hall). Click here for a campus map.

As a bonus, your ticket buys you a double feature. “Spine Tingler,” an offbeat pop culture film about “the last great American showman,” screens directly after “Hell Drivers.”

A Q & A session with a few select Hell Drivers will conclude the formal portion of the evening.

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Oh, and a belated congratulations to Robbie Knievel, who just jumped over 24 Coca Cola trucks at the King’s Island amusement park in Ohio. See those clouds of flame? Our very own Lou “Rocket” Re generously helped out with Robbie’s pyro. We don’t know what Lou gets paid for these kind of consulting gigs, but we suspect he would play with fire for free.

Crappy.

Absolutely unwatchable.

Netflix should strongly consider discontinuing this DVD rental.

Released last August, “Hot Rod” promised to deliver the ultimate film about Hell Driver wannabes. The guy who ignores the “Don’t Try This at Home” warnings, the guy who thinks what Evel Knievel did was “easy.”

It’s another case of the best stuff being in the trailer. You know when you’re watching Saturday Night Live and you keep telling yourself the skits are going to get better as the evening dwindles on — and they never do?

Hot Rod is a lot like that.

Save your two hours for American Idol Rewind or CSI: Miami or a VH1 “I Love the 70s” marathon. Quite frankly, any other use of your time is a better investment.

We feel horrible for the lovely and talented Isla Fisher. What the hell was she thinking?

On a plus note, some of the black and white stunt photos decorating the bedroom of stuntman Rod Kimble (Samberg) are vintage shots of our very own Crash Moreau!

Congratulations on Hollywood immortality, Crash. Here’s hoping your next cameo is in a Mike Myers movie.

Hell Drivers might seem insane and reckless, but there is actually a science to what they do.

Sometimes.

The dirty secret of Hell Driving is what they do is relatively safe — at least safe enough for them to emerge from the stunt still breathing and with all four limbs intact.

Because after all, they want to be able to perform the next night. And tough guy talk aside, ambulances are never much fun.

In the spirit of up-and-coming stuntmen, we heartily present the “Don’t Try This At Home” feature of the Hell Drivers blog.

For legal purposes, that means that WE the filmmakers are telling YOU the audience that we strongly discourage you to do stunts of any kind. Do NOT follow your dreams if they entail potential bodily dismemberment.

Remember: It is much smarter to watch others exercise questionable judgment and then go to your fridge and grab a soda.

Nevertheless, we are always scouting for “Don’t Try This At Home” nominees to shamefully glorify in this blog.

Know of someone who is being just a horrendous role model for the kiddies? Please email your nominations and links to: helldrivers (at) comcast.net or leave a comment below.

THIS WEEK’S QUESTIONABLE JUDGMENT BELONGS TO…

… The Treadmill Rollerbladers (Location Unknown)

PARENTAL ADVISORY: Turn down the sound if you don’t like to hear the F-word, which is the adjective of choice while barreling into the house foundation with a hockey helmet.

Hey Parents, what would you do if these were your kids?

Two stuntman accidents during the production of the new James Bond movie, “The Quantum of Solace,” has fueled media buzz about a 007 curse.

A third accident, which resulted in an Aston Martin skidding off the road and plunging into an Italian lake, actually happened during a promotional event and not during a scene. The London Telegraph jovially reported that the driver sunk to the bottom of the lake but emerged “shaken but not stirred.”

Bond movies have long dipped into their own pool of favorite professional stuntmen. But in the early days of Sean Connery and Roger Moore, the craziest driving was done by the very same Hell Drivers who delighted audiences at county fairs.

Even in this age of special effects, the most impressive Bond stunt of all time remains the infamous Astro Spiral from 1974’s “The Man With The Golden Gun” — a feat that spun an AMC Hornet X Hatchback 360 degrees in the air like a football. The stunt, later performed live at stadiums, was engineered by the brainiacs at Cornell University.

Legendary stuntman Jimmy Canton, a star for four decades with the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show, did not perform this stunt in the movie (his buddy Loren “Bumps” Willert did it with an AMC Hornet). But Canton was one of the most successful stuntmen to pull off this physics miracle. He’s pictured to the left of promoter Jay Milligan at the Houston Astrodome below.

He spiraled in a Javelin, not a Hornet, and sometimes the stunt flopped — even when the driver did everything right. Some of the secrets were a small fifth wheel on the back of the car and a partially collapsible ramp that set the corkscrew effect in motion.

We caught up with Canton during the production of Hell Drivers and captured his memories of the Astro Spiral. Needless to say, when the stunt didn’t work, Canton didn’t blame it on a curse!

Here are a few choice snippets from our interview:

Q: How unusual was this stunt when it was unveiled in the 1970s?

JC: “The first couple of them, they did unmanned by radio control… When they were planning it, the odds were that it would never work.”

Q: What did it feel like inside the spiraling car?

JC: “It put about four to five G’s on you, it spins so fast, it’s just like a barrel roll in an airplane… You sat right square in the middle to get that spiral effect so your weight wouldn’t go to one side.

“Over every wheel had to weigh exactly the same. You had wheel adjustments built into the car and good roll bars. Nothing gave when you hit like that upside down. You’re the only one that gave and it would jar the devil out of you!”

Q: What was special about the ramp?

JC: “A series of events had to happen on this takeoff ramp. Your front wheels would hit the ramp and then you would hit a trip that knocked that ramp down so the back wheel wouldn’t hit it — that’s what would start it in a spiral.

“One side of the ramp was I think about seven feet high and the other side of the ramp was real low. So that gave it the final twist.

“As a driver, you had to hold that speed and listen. When that ramp dropped off from underneath the rear wheel, they had a little steel wheel half way from wheel to wheel underneath the car and it rolled on a steel plate on this ramp. When you heard that wheel hit and start to spin, that’s when you had to get off the throttle.

“If you didn’t, it would spin too far. There was a lot the driver had to focus on. You had to be mentally thinking every second.”

Q: Anything else you had to focus on?

JC: “The driver had to be within a half a mile an hour and you had about an inch on each side (of the ramp) for clearance. You had to be right dead on the money!”

Q: The stunt sometimes flopped?

JC: “All this stuff had to work perfect. I missed three times, one of them in the mud. I just couldn’t get the speed. Another time, the car went halfway and that’s where it landed (on its roof).

“You weren’t sure each time whether it was going to work or not. I did four of them four nights in a row in Hamburg, New York and that’s the only time my wife Shirley and the kids ever saw it. And all four of them worked.”

More important than impressing fans at the Astrodome back in its heyday (when it was dubbed the “Eighth Wonder of the World,”and hosted the Bad News Bears) was impressing Mrs. Canton.

Shirley, who yawned as her hubby got shot out of cannons and escaped from bone-crunching crashes for decades, told us that the Astro Spiral blew her away.

“The first time I saw it, I couldn’t believe that he really did that,” she marveled. “I couldn’t believe that it really happened because it was really fast. And they put a priest sitting beside me the first time I saw it. That made me a little nervous. It was a great act, a great stunt!”

Apparently, the Indian Army has its own stunt cycle unit!

The snapshot above is reportedly of an Indian soldier from the infamous Jammu Kashmir Light Infantry regiment. His April 5th stunt is part of the “Diamond Jubilee” celebration near Srinagar, India.

It looks like the Indian cyclist is crashing through a wall of fluorescent lightbulbs, which would make Al Gore very angry. Unfortunately, we cannot find out any more information on the stunt.

Nor can we determine if the Srinagar Fairgrounds might be a suitable facility for the Doug Danger Thrill Show.

Some of the fans are even dressing like demons. Wonder if they do crazy dances in the stands with hopes of seeing themselves on the Jumbotron?

Not all the locals are thrill show fans, however. One angry Kashmir blogger says stunt cyclists are “evil.”

And he doesn’t mean it in a complimentary Knievel kind of way.