[Land-speed] Non Land-speed In Memoriam

[Ed Van Scoy]

The "Great Escape" jump is still considered the greatest stunt in
movies........ Bud received a whopping $1000 for that stunt.
Ed

>-----Original Message-----
>From: ifixmgs at cox.net [mailto:ifixmgs at cox.net]
>Sent: Tuesday, October 9, 2007 06:28 PM
>To: Flowbench at aol.com, drmayf at mayfco.com, land-speed at autox.team.net
>Subject: [Land-speed] Non Land-speed In Memoriam
>
>I remember that this guy was a featured guest at an ISDT event innorthern
California in 73 or 74 and I watched him leave all us youngbucks with hung
jaws - he made a borrowed bike do stuff that inretrospect was not that much
different than what you might see on anepisode of "Superbikes Meets
Supercross" only he was riding dinosaurtechnology and was an "old man" in his
40's.
> Bud Ekins, a pioneering off-road motorcycle racer best known forhis work as
Steve McQueen's stunt double, died at his Hollywood homeSaturday, October 6.
He was 77. For years, movie fans thought McQueenjumped the barbed wire fence
in 1963's "The Great Escape" and poweredthe Mustang through San Francisco in
1968's "Bullitt," but it wasEkins, who never spoke of it. Ekins was a
successful off-roadmotorcycle racer, winning four gold medals and a silver in
theInternational Six Day Trials in the 1960s. He held the #1 plate
inCalifornia for seven years and founded the Baja 1,000. Later in life heowned
up to 150 vintage motorcycles, 54 of which were separate Americanmakes.