Robbie Knievel's jump at King's Island 5/24

[Joshrzmeup]

For those who don't know, Robbie Knievel was going to jump over 24 Coke Zero buses at King's Island, to beat his father's record previously set at King's Island in the 70's when he jumped over 14 greyhound buses.

It was a semi-warm day, and boy, was it crowded!!!!! Due to the jump and festivities taking up one half of the parking lot, we had to park on the grass past the waterpark and walk. To the waterpark, it was maybe half a mile walk, but to the main gates of the park, it was a good mile if not more.
We started out at the waterpark, since my parents hadn't seen it before and we walked around there. Then, we took the train to the main park, walked around there (the lines for the rides were so long, we didn't bother), took a few pictures of the new ride construction, took the train around again, then walked out to where the jump was going to be.

Once we got out hand stamped (since the parking lot was outside of the park), we went out. There were booths giving out coke zero and Chick-fil-a was there, as well as the Navy and the Marines. One booth was giving out 'Get Smart' movie posters to anyone who walked by.

It was really crowded so we had a hard time finding a spot to take a few pictures and then finding a spot to stand where we could at least see something happening.

Once we were mushed in the crowd, I handed the camera to my dad, since he's over 6 foot so that he could take the pictures and have a better view.
By this time, it was about 7pm, which is when the jump was supposed to take place, but they didn't say that all the festivities were going to take place starting at 7 and the jump itself, not until 7:45 (unknown to us who had already been standing squished for over an hour). Some announcer guy talked (I think, the sound system was really poor, so we could hardly hear a thing), then Knievel's daughter sang the National Anthem (and screwed up a few of the words from what we could hear), then Knievel talked. Then he rode around on one of his bikes to get the crowd pumped, etc.

Then, when he got up to the ramp, he did a few practice speed runs down and back up, and people had cell phones and cameras out waiting for the moment he would actually do the jump.
There were fireworks on occasion, scaring the crap out of us because we were right next to them, and then the flames shot out on occasion (making this one little kid VERY cranky, he was howling and wailing every time a firework went off.)
Two teenage boys nearby us were providing running commentary on what was going on in the crowds and such, a real hoot.
The jump was completed successfully, but of course, none of us had any idea when he went down the ramp until he flew over us and onto the ramp.


The ramp he went down. The pictures is blurry because we were so far away, I had to use mega-zoom)




Part of the flyover they had.


Robbie taking the Mic to talk.




To get a small idea of our part of the crowd.


Yes, they had an ambulance on stand-by.


At the top of the ramp, waiting to go.


Nice shot!

The one thing that was not expected, is that he didn't jump over the tops of the trucks, he jump over the front of them. Is that what his father did?

Some ride construction updates:








In an interview, Robbie said this was going to be a coaster, but that's about all that is known by the public.