Richard Hammond Meets Evel Knievel

Richard Hammond meets his childhood hero, the legendary stuntman Evel Knievel just weeks before he died in 2007. Travelling to Montana in the mid-west of America, Richard discovers that Knievel's home town of Butte stills celebrates the achievements of its number one citizen with a bizarre stunt festival held in his honour. Richard spends four days with the ageing seventies icon and comes to the realisation that there's a high price to be paid for a life lived dangerously. His hero has broken 40 major bones, fractured a further 400, has had a hip replaced, a liver transplanted and suffers from lung disease. Evel talks to Richard about the major events, motorbike jumps and crashes that shaped his life. Together they watch the extraordinary film archive of his attempt to jump over 13 London buses at Wembley Arena in 1975. Richard also meets some of his hero's stunt rivals, including Debbie Lawler, known as the Flying Angel, who managed to beat one of Evel's records. But, Richard's attempts to get his hero to talk do not always go well. When faced with difficult questions, Evel prematurely ends one interview and in one hilarious scene Richard resorts to chasing him in a golf cart to get some final questions answered.