Sold by Nat DesMarais Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Association Member:
AbeBooks Seller since April 4, 2012
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Original album with twenty-four photographs of Gary Wells at various racing or jumping events. Each measure 10 x 8 inches. They are laid in one to a page in an older style album with sticky backing. We pulled one off to check for any information but the only thing found that were handwritten dates. Seems highly likely that this was his personal album as the first pictures shows on a motorcycle at about age 13 out in the California desert and the last picture shows him popping a wheelie and wearing his daredevil outfit (likely for the disastrous jump at Caesar's Palace). Excellent condition.Gary Wells (b. 1957) started racing Go-Karts at the age of 3, winning three state championships, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah, before retiring to begin a motorcycling career at age 10. He continued racing championship motocross and flat-track during off weeks after his inaugural jump at age 14. Perhaps, Gary's maiden voyage into jumping could serve as evidence to the excitement, professionalism, and courage this young man would display throughout his career. This set the stage for a nationwide tour of forty-eight stops in thirty months, including of the Houston Astrodome, the Canadian National Exhibition, and the Iowa State Fair, to mention a few. Gary has been featured nationally on all three major networks. (CBS Sports Spectacular, ABC That's Incredible, NBC Late Night with Tom Snyder, Mike Douglas, and Dick Clark Special, etc.)In 1980 Gary broke his own World Record in Melbourne, Australia with a 176' 4" jump. In the time period between January 1979 to April of 1980, there were six attempts by six other jumpers (four English, two Australians) at this distance and all were unsuccessful.After that jump the media deemed him "a legend": one hundred and ten World Record jumps and only one accident. This accident being at the infamous Caesar's Palace Fountains in Las Vegas, September 15, 1980. This jump was not as far as the one he had made just a couple of months prior but it was met with disaster; He missed the landing ramp and crashed into a concrete parking structure and suffered a ruptured aorta and fractures of the pelvis, thigh and lower leg. Fighting the toughest challenge of his life, Gary Wells completely recovered from the catastrophic crash (which would have killed a lesser man). The Motorcyclist Extraordinaire, like the mystical Phoenix Bird, re-emerged from his ashes, and made his inaugural comeback jump five months after the accident, with a nationwide tour followed by a performance in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during the Formula One Grand Prix. Since those early days, Gary had continued to tour throughout Latin America, amazing a whole new set of fans. He died in 2020 in Arizona.
Seller Inventory # 75163
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