GRAND CANYON WEST -- OK, so he really didn't jump over the Grand Canyon.
It was just 150 feet between the two ramps over a drainage ditch of the big hole, not even important enough to be given a name on local topographical maps."This is barely a wash in this country," chuckled Hualapai tribal member Allan Smith.
And Robbie Knievel wouldn't have plunged 2,000 feet to his death, as breathless Fox network broadcasters told a nationwide audience as Knievel revved his motorcycle's 500cc engine for the big moment. Maybe 75 feet and change.
Nonetheless, Knievel showed some major intestinal fortitude as he broke 80 mph down the takeoff ramp, soared 40 feet in the air, flew well over 200 feet and came down hard, laying the bike down.
He went skidding into cactuses and bales of hay before coming to a painful stop.
After five nervous minutes, friends helped Knievel limp gingerly back to the ramp. He gave a weak thumbs-up to cheering supporters.
"I'm a little dingy in the head," he told reporters as Fox television cameras rolled. "I don't know what's going on. Thank you, Jesus, I'm still alive."
Then, another smile.
"Hey, Robbie -- white man can jump!" yelled Dean Wilder, a tribal security guard at this isolated visitors center and airstrip on the Canyon's south rim.
Knievel grimaced and was helped slowly to the ground. He was loaded onto a stretcher and flown by helicopter to a Las Vegas hospital. Jump sponsors refused to talk about his medical condition.
But actor Dan Haggerty, of "Grizzly Adams" fame, a close friend of Knievel's who rushed to his side, said his injuries are nothing major.
"He yelled, 'Oh, man!' because that grade beyond the landing area was so rough. And he went tumbling away from his bike," Haggerty said. "He told me he thought he had pulled some muscles in his back and maybe sprained his ankle."
About 1,000 people came to the site at the far west end of the Canyon, about 80 miles southeast of Las Vegas as the crow flies. The only access is on a rough, narrow, winding dirt road through a forest of Joshua trees.
David and Jan Murphy, who drove up from Corpus Christi, Texas, said it was definitely the coolest thing they'd ever seen.
"I give that man more than a 10, especially on style and technique," David Murphy said. "It was just fantastic."