Happy 45th, Robbie!

Robbie Knievel hit the big four-five yesterday. Here he is in 1988, when he teamed up with stunt driver Spanky Spangler for a head-on jump at the Astrodome. The two simultaneously launched their respective vehicles directly at one another, synchronized so that Robbie sailed over the top of Spanky's car a split-second before it smashed into Robbie's takeoff ramp, reducing it to splinters.

I've seen Robbie perform three times: at the Kingdome in 1976 (he was 14, I was 7), at the Chinook Winds Casino in Lincoln City, Oregon in 2003, and at the Nooksack River Casino in Deming, Washington in 2004. His old man's final jump was at age 42, but Robbie's still going fairly strong, with a jump scheduled next month in Wilmington, Delaware. That's cool, but this guy says, "He is Highly over rated and is a straight up Biatch!"