Heavyweight - #13 Kenny

Episode Date: November 16, 2017

Ken Carter was a Canadian daredevil who dreamt of performing the biggest stunt the world had ever seen. He wanted to jump a rocket car one mile over a river. For 5 years he prepared, only to have his dream hijacked at the very last moment by the very last person he ever expected. Thanks to the National Film Board of Canada for their use of audio from The Devil At Your Heels. You can watch the movie here: https://www.nfb.ca/film/devil_at_your_heels/ Also check out Aim For The Roses, a musical docudrama based on The Devil At Your Heels: http://www.aimfortheroses.com/ Credits Heavyweight is hosted and produced by Jonathan Goldstein. This episode was also produced by Kalila Holt. The senior producer is Kaitlin Roberts. Editing by Jorge Just and Alex Blumberg. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Risky Rick Cruz, Cody Glive, John Bolton, Freddy Sibley, Anna Sosnowski, Lee Fortenberry, Adam Symansky, Lou Ann Leonard, Dick Keller, Harry Simpson, Gordon Katic, Saidu Tejan-Thomas, Blythe Terrell, Jessica Weisberg, Devon Taylor, Chris Neary, and Jackie Cohen. The show was mixed by Kate Bilinski.  Music by Christine Fellows, John K Samson, and Steven Page, with additional music by Michael Charles Smith, Hew Time, Blue Dot Sessions, and Y La Bamba. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by Haley Shaw. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello? I have a medical related question. Okay. You know my toe ring? I think, I think maybe... You don't have a toe ring, John. Yes, I do have a toe ring. You've never had a toe ring. When was the last time you saw my bare feet?

Three years ago? Since then, I've gotten a toe ring. Why? I was drunk. Some people get tattoos. I don't like paint. How can I help you, John? I can't get it off my toe.

And it really... You just don't give up. Did you not take a Hippocratic Oath? John? John? Fine, I know. Bye. I just hung up on myself.

Or is it hanged up? From Gimlet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Kenny. Like most, when I hear the words, Tale of Betrayal, I think of Judas, narking on Jesus, Brutus, icing Julius,

Satan, cucking the Lord. But recently, I heard a story of treachery that not only ranks among those, it might surpass them. While those stories merely have devils, this one has something far better. Daredevils. This story of betrayal takes place in the 1970s, a time when brave men and women mounted motorcycles or got behind the wheels of cars to jump anything in their field of vision barrels chuck wagons cement mixers Stegmaier beer trucks pits of rattlesnakes and dens of mountain lions this was a time when jumping a shark

didn't mean jumping the shark it was a time when daredeviling was not only a viable career path it was something your parents could be proud of. I grew up in the 1970s in a neighborhood fully infected with daredevil fever. The older kids would lay us younger kids down on the sidewalk and jump us with their bicycles. All of us, from the older kids with bath towels tied to their necks like capes, to us younger kids with tire tracks across our backs, we all wanted to be Daredevils. And the Daredevil we most wanted to be was Evil Knievel. We ate from Evil Knievel lunch pails and played with Evel Knievel dolls.

Evel Knievel was Elvis, Captain America, and Liberace all rolled into one. It seemed like everyone in the world wanted to be Evel Knievel, but there was one man who wanted more than that. He wanted to surpass Evel Knievel altogether. That man's name was Ken Carter, a.k.a. the Mad Canadian. Before he was the Mad Canadian, Ken was a grocery boy with a grade school education. Ken was a grocery boy with a grade school education. His dream, to beat Evel Knievel at his own game,

is captured in a 1970s Canadian documentary called The Devil at Your Heels. The movie opens at a local Halifax racetrack. The crowd's here to watch Ken Carter jump 18 cars. It's nighttime, and the crowd cheers wildly as Ken Carter barrels towards a ramp in a souped-up hardtop convertible. Ken doesn't make it. Instead, he lands with a crash flat on top of the last car in line. A man runs over to pull Ken from the car. with a crash flat on top of the last car in line. Get an ambulance! Get an ambulance! A man runs over to pull Ken from the car.

How far did I get? How far did I get? An ambulance crew arrives, and while being carried out on a stretcher, Ken waves to his fans. Okay, take me over to the microphone, please. The paramedics carry the stretcher over to a microphone, and while lying injured on his back, Ken makes an announcement.

Believe me, we'll be back here tomorrow night. At 8 o'clock sharp, we'll be back here tomorrow night. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Rub on a little Bengay, soak the Tootsies and Epsom salts, and hit it again the next night. For three nights. Every week.

This is how Ken Carter makes his living. But he has plans to change all that. Ken had been watching Evil Knievel on TV for years, and he wanted what Knievel had. Adulation, respect, and a lot more money. Up until this point, Knievel's biggest stunt was over the Snake River Canyon, a distance of one-quarter mile. Ken Carter's plan was to jump the St. Lawrence River, a distance four times that length, a full mile.

By applying a little Canadian elbow grease, Ken Carter was going to drive a rocket-powered Lincoln Continental off a ramp in Canada and land in the United States. Watching the movie as a Canadian, the idea of flying through the air in a Lincoln Continental while listening to Gordon Lightfoot on the 8-track player for one mile and landing in America without so much as a Canadian passport nor written attestation as to whether

my rocket car contains fruits or vegetables felt noble. This is my dream. I don't care if I never jump again, but this I'm going to do. This is my dream. Nobody ever jumped a car a mile., but this I'm going to do. This is my dream. Nobody ever jumped a car a mile.

That's what I'm going to do. But right from the jump, there are problems. Over and over, a date for the super jump is set. And over and over, things go wrong. The crew building the 10-story ramp miscalculates the measurements. I know Ken is deeply disappointed. He was dialed in to, as he says, he was dialed in to do it. There's unexpected rain that turns the ramp to mud.

The crew tries to dry it off, using a helicopter. You know, I'm just coming to the end of my rope. On another occasion, an hour before the jump, the crew decides to strike, demanding $27,000 in cash before going back to work. I got a budget here. Fuel tanks explode. Repeatedly. Holy Christ, man, what are we doing? This goes on for five years.

Again and again and again, the jump is cancelled. Over a million Canadian dollars are spent. Investors back out and new investors are found. Countless problems are allayed. Doubts are assuaged. Gotes are grown and gotes are shaved. Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. But then, Ken's luck turns.

ABC's Wide World of Sports wants to air Ken's super jump on live television for its millions of viewers. Before making the deal official, the network needs to send an inspector over to the jump site to report back on the stunt's viability. And the inspector they send is none other than Evil Knievel. Once Evil Knievel gives it the go-ahead,

ABC will air the jump. And once ABC airs the jump, Ken will become an international star. And kids will play with Mad Canadian action figures and carry Mad Canadian lunchboxes. Kind of reminds me of the canyon. How much higher is this ramp going to be? Another 30 feet, people.

It should be noted that while Evil Knievel sports the sideburns of an outlaw, Ken Carter sports the goatee of an assistant professor. And while Evil Knievel looks like a rough-and-tumble movie matinee idol, Ken Carter, at the moment wearing a leather jacket and a gold chain around his turtleneck neck, looks like your best friend's weird uncle in a turtleneck. This looks like a dangerous jump to me, boy. You got no elevation.

You got no room for error. Later, ABC airs Knievel's verdict. He delivers it while seated atop a bulldozer at the jump site. I don't think I'd attempt to try this stunt. I think the time and preparation that's been put into it is much too little. This is maybe a daredevil stunt

that might end all daredevil stunts. Evel Knievel is essentially saying that if Ken goes through with this super jump, he'll end up killing himself live on national television, and in doing so, completely ruin the daredeviling industry for everyone. Ken, sitting on his living room couch, watches as Evel Knievel tears up his dream on TV. I've been saying it for years. I still believe that Evel Knievel

is the second best daredevil in the world. And I say that because I feel that I'm number one. But I also feel that if you don't think in terms of win, you do not win. ABC was out. This was a blow, but not a betrayal. The actual betrayal was yet to come. Without the promise of a live televised event,

Ken's investors drop out. Desperate, Ken turns to a group of Hollywood producers who offer to fund his super jump with a stipulation. A safety net, if you will. They would distribute it as a pre-recorded special. In this way, the whole huge event would take place without an audience. A traumatizable, blood-splashable, we-want-our-money-backable audience. Which meant Ken's dream of grandstands filled with cheering crowds and tables selling Ken Carter onesies, beer cozies, and go-take-homes would not come true. All there'd be was a lonely ramp, a small crew, some cameras, and Ken.

Months of delays follow, and finally, a new date for the super jump is set. And once again, it rains. But the new investors don't care about safety. They have limited funds and just want the jump to happen. The scene opens on the jump site. We see the ramp, a group of journalists, a man holding out a boom mic. And then, the camera moves in on a man wearing a yellow jumpsuit and a cowboy hat. All right, the lights are green, let's get ready and go.

I want to go. The man in the yellow jumpsuit is not Ken Carter, but he poses on the ramp and gives quotes to reporters about the jump he's about to make. I always like the state of New York, so I'm sure I hope they like me when I get there. The man has the same goatee as Ken Carter, the same style of hair, but he's shorter, younger, and brasher. All right, guys, my advice is get off the ramp. You don't want no tire tracks on you.

As I watch it all unfold, I grow increasingly confused. Where's Ken Carter? Had I missed something? Was some key scene accidentally cut? Finally, the voiceover informs us that this yellow-suited man is Ken Carter's longtime understudy, Kenny Powers. It turns out the investors had begun to suspect that Ken Carter had lost his nerve, that some excuse was always going to pop up, and he would never make the jump.

So they came up with a scheme. Simply put, ditch Ken Carter and place Kenny Powers behind the wheel of the rocket car. Have him do the jump instead. But first, they had to get Ken out of the way, so they invited him to a fake business meeting at a hotel an hour from the jump site. With Ken Carter out of the picture, Kenny Powers steps up, and Kenny Powers really seems to be enjoying the attention.

The countdown was too long. I think it was too long. Ten-second countdown. That's all I need. If I'm not ready in ten seconds, I'll never be ready. And I'm going to give it hell. Kenny warns the people of America to get ready. Staring into the camera, he instructs them to clear off their breakfast tables, because when he crashes down on their roofs, it might rattle the dishes. Do it! Do it! Now!

Kenny Powers gets behind the wheel of the rocket car. The name, Ken Carter, emblazoned along its side. And then... Come on, faster! The car blasts off, races up the ramp, and is airborne. Let's press pause here to consider what's happening. The idea of jumping a mile in a rocket car is completely insane. But as the car soars into the air, so soars my heart.

It might only attest to what hopeful creatures we humans are, but in this moment, as the car reaches top velocity, it seems that Kenny Powers, that humanity, might maybe, somehow, possibly make it across. But of course, this isn't to be. Almost immediately after leaving the ramp, the car plummets into the river.

Debris flies, parachutes open, someone screams. During his nine-second flight, Kenny Powers made it a total distance of 506 feet. For our Canadian listeners, that's a lot less than a mile. Give him some air! Because the car was built specifically for Ken Carter, Kenny Powers was too short to reach the gas pedal, so he never gained enough speed before leaving the ramp. Several members of the crew trudged through the water and pull Kenny Powers from the driver's seat. As though the spinal injury has yet to be invented, they carry him from the river atop their shoulders,

bar mitzvah boy style. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Ow, ow. Later, he'll learn he's broken eight vertebrae, cracked three ribs, and fractured his wrist. After the jump, as Kenny Powers lay bandaged up in a hospital bed, the film's director showed up outside Ken Carter's hotel room door to tell him what happened.

Ken, what the hell do you want? But Ken already knows. I just want to talk to you, Ken. Get the f*** out of here. Eventually, Ken pulls him into the room. What? The camera crew remains in the hallway, recording audio through the hotel door.

Did you know about this, Borges? What did you know about this? We fade to black. Then, a title card appears on screen. It reads, One Year Later. Ken is shown sitting at the base of the ramp. He promises he'll make the jump someday. And that's it. The credits roll, some song about the power of a man and his dream starts to play, and the movie ends without ever addressing the craziest detail in this whole

crazy story. As it turns out, Kenny Powers, the man who hijacked Ken's car and his lifelong dream, wasn't just Ken Carter's understudy, Kenny Powers, the man who hijacked Ken's car and his lifelong dream, wasn't just Ken Carter's understudy. Kenny Powers was Ken's best friend. Ken Carter and Kenny Powers have both since died. So I called Bob Fortier, the film's director, to see if I could find out more.

When I asked Bob why Kenny would betray his friend, who'd ruined the dream Ken had spent so many years chasing, Bob mentions a drinking problem and rumors that Kenny had gotten himself into some sort of trouble down in Florida and was desperate for a way to pay his legal fees. For Bob, the reason for this betrayal is as classic as they come. Money. The backers offered Kenny a lot of money to betray his friend, and Kenny took it.

That's just the kind of guy he was, Bob says, someone who'd betray the guy who'd been supporting him for ten years, right at the last moment. After the movie wrapped, Bob never spoke to Kenny Powers again. Kenny Powers, he says, isn't the kind of guy you want to keep in touch with. After the jump, Kenny Powers was effectively run out of Canada. One stuntman website even refers to him as, quote, Judas in a cowboy hat.

And Ken Carter? He went back to his old life of racetrack jumps. About a year after the St. Lawrence River jump, Ken Carter died attempting to jump a pond. He never achieved the legacy he'd hungered after, all because of his supposed friend, Kenny Powers. I watched the failed super jump over and over. And I'm not the only one to be transfixed by it. On YouTube, that one scene from the movie, which has been retitled, Destroyed in Seconds

Jet Car Daredevil, has over a million hits. Before that, the jump was immortalized in the gruesome Faces of Death 2, a movie composed of boxing ring deaths and failed stunts. Ken Carter had spent years training for his stunt, meticulously planning out every last detail. As a professional stuntman, Kenny Powers had to have known the risk of just jumping behind the wheel like he was dipping out for drive-thru chicken nuggets.

Even for all the money in the world, he had to have known that trying to fly a rocket car across a mile-wide river with absolutely no training was a death mission. In a bid to better understand the daredevil psyche, I bravely jump down a rabbit hole of daredevil subculture. I watch stunt video after stunt video and even learn the distinction between daredeviling, stuntmanning, and thrill-mastering. I read about important industry figures like Spanky Spangler and Spanky Jr., Lucky Teeter, Calvin Scarecrow Shirk, Big Ed Beckley, Jim Crash Moreau, Thank you. Doug Danger, Earl the Squirrel, Nicky Mighty Aphrodite Mick Burnett, Don Snake Prudhomme, Levi the Kamikaze Kid Troutman, and Snooks Wenzel.

It's while watching my stunt videos that CEO and Gimlet Media founder Alex Bloomberg sneaks up behind my desk and asks what I'm doing. Research, I say, pausing a video of a flaming station wagon falling from a drawbridge. I close the browser window and open up a TED Talk on how to do business, and Alex smiles approvingly. I know, folks, you're wondering, why do you allow Alex to walk all over you like this? But I've got a wife and child now,

and podcasting into a chicken drumstick on a Canadian breadline is the last thing I need. At home that night, a one-room cold water flat with a screaming baby in a second-hand bassinet, I continue my research. And somewhere around 3 a.m., I stumble upon a video that defies explanation. He is known to auto thrill seekers across North America, the Mad Canadian. And your madness, I guess that's the way to call you? Well, I'll tell you what, you know...

The video was shot just a few months after the failed super jump, and Ken Carter is back to working race tracks. Here he is being interviewed before his stunt. There's a lot of kids out there watching who look at Evel Knievel, look at guys like yourself as heroes. This is where I spot something unbelievable. Strolling in the background, right behind Ken Carter, is the man who betrayed him, Kenny Powers. Kenny stops, turns to Ken, and just watches him, smiling. And then, he walks out of frame, and is gone.

I rewind the moment several times. Who look at evil Knievel, look at Gosher. Who look at evil Knievel, look at Gosher. Who look at evil Knievel, look at Gosher. And there Kenny is, as clear as day, a warm smile on his face, watching Ken Carter admiringly. By all measures, Ken Carter should have hated Kenny Powers, should have been trying to hunt him down and beat him up. But there they were, happily spending a day together at the Speedway.

A betrayal as grand as the one we see at the end of the documentary isn't the kind of thing you get over, especially not after a couple months. And so I hop down a new rabbit hole and search for whatever information I can find about Kenny Powers. According to the Internet, Ken and Kenny remained friends after the jump. Not only that, but to quote the internet, Ken and Kenny remained friends after the jump. Not only that, but to quote the internet,

Kenny Powers carried around an 8x10 photograph of Ken Carter, taking it everywhere he went, right up until the very end of his life. Why would Kenny Powers carry around a photograph of Ken Carter, the man he betrayed? I promise to answer this question and possibly other questions if you promise to patiently sit through these messages from our sponsors.

Steve? Yeah. To help make sense of Ken and Kenny's relationship, I reach out to Steve Belock. Steve knew Ken Carter and Kenny Powers from the very beginning. For years, he spent countless hours with them on the road. You're in your car right now. It's all hands-free, so I'm good.

Steve also toured in the Mad Canadian stunt show as a mechanic. Back then, he went by the nickname Super Wrench, named after, I assume, the tool that professional mechanics use and not the feeling of sadness caused by a painful parting. Because I had limited time for our phone call and wasn't looking for drama. At first it was just me and Ken for the first two years going around the country, jumping ramp to ramp, and he was stubborn. He was fair, but he was stubborn. Steve proceeds to pull back the curtain

on the version of Ken Carter we see in the movie. According to Steve, he put a lot of pressure on his crew, often requiring everyone to sleep in the same school buses they jumped over. He aggressively booked shows miles apart, and while his team was forced to drive for days on end, Ken would fly ahead, arriving at the events in a helicopter. But in spite of the cushy travel arrangements and his Mr. Macho Man image,

things were getting tougher for Ken. He was only in his late 30s, but in daredevil years, Ken was old, his bones more brittle with each passing year. Ken fractured his ankles several, several times. That's why I walk funny. One jump in Tulsa, he landed past the ramp and split his sternum in two when he hit the sternum column. When Ken was really hurt is when Kenny Powers would step in.

When Kenny Powers joined the show, he was a young guy in his 20s. So as Ken spent more and more time laid up with injuries, Kenny would step in to perform for him, to the point where he was doing more jumps than Ken, but still getting none of the credit. I wondered if on the day that Kenny got behind the wheel of that rocket car, he saw it as a chance to emerge from Ken's shadow and show the world that he was the better stuntman.

Because, Steve says, even when Ken was in top form, for a stuntman, he was surprisingly cowardly. Ken Carter was never really into speed, okay. He did not like going fast. Yeah, you know, there's a scene in the documentary where he's taken into that rocket car for the first time, and when he steps out of the car, you could see that he kind of has his stomach is just in his throat.

He probably had to change his underwear. I don't know if you can say that on radio, but... Lucky for us, we're not on the radio. We're on a podcast. And so, we could do all the cussing and the fussing we like. Butter tart licking, sugar crotch kicking, spam dagger dork and squacker poo-poo platter with a heinous, that's right, rhymes with anus,

case of the trots. That's just a few of the things I can say here at Gimlet Media. He probably shit his pants, to tell you the truth. He was scared. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind. Even when we were in the ramp truck together, he did not want me driving over the speed limit whatsoever. He just did not like to go fast.

You'd think that a need for only the legally acceptable amount of speed would be a liability for a daredevil. Not only that, but according to Steve, Ken was even scared of water. He never learned to swim. So driving off a ramp at almost 300 miles per hour over a deep, fast-moving river seemed like an odd career move.

I don't think Carter had the cojones to do it. So you think that Kenny Powers had more cojones? I do. Steve says that Ken Carter was never going to attempt that jump, that it was all an act, nothing more than showmanship. I can't believe any other way. Only because of being in the same hotel room with Ken Carter for three and a half years,

knowing the promoting that he did, knowing him as well as I did, I just don't think it was his intention to get into that Lincoln. I don't think it was. According to Steve, Ken must have asked Kenny to do the jump for him, knowing that Kenny would do whatever Ken told him to, just like he always did. So to my question of how is it possible that Ken and Kenny made up and became friends again, Steve's answer is simple. They were never not friends in the first place. And I can just see the conversation going on. Ken is standing there going,

Kenny, you're going to sit in that seat. Do you think you can do it? And Kenny's saying, yes, I think I can. And I truly believe that Kenny Powers did this just out of the love of his heart for Ken. The idea that Kenny had attempted the stunt not out of hatred, but out of love, explains everything. Is what I thought for all of two minutes before realizing it made no sense at all. Don't get me wrong, I believe in love and have plenty of it.

If a friend asks me to pick him up at the airport, while I never do it, I do make a point of apologizing profusely. Really scrunching up my face as though my refusal is causing me as much agony as it is them. I'd even go so far as to say that this is because my mama raised me right, but we all know she hasn't. But even if she had, going off a ten-story ramp only to plummet to my death because I wanted to do a pal a solid?

For that, I'm afraid, my heart as well as my cojones are far too petite. When I asked Steve about the photo of Ken that Kenny carried around with him, he didn't know anything about it, but he says that daredevils share a special bond. While I could of course imagine the love that unites a Spanky Spangler and a Spanky Junior, or even Evel Knievel and his La Verda Eagle motorcycle, this felt deeper somehow, and more complicated. Kenny nearly died for Ken. What was the power that Ken exerted over Kenny?

What made Kenny so loyal that he was willing to speed off a ramp and into oblivion just because he'd been asked to? To find out, I phoned Beverly Powers. Let me give you the landline where I am, because I'm in the mountains right now. Oh. 4454. Sorry. landline where I am because I'm in the mountains right now. Oh, sorry. Hello. Beverly?

Yes, let me turn off the television. Oh, great. Okay, the television's off. Beverly is Kenny's widow. She grew up in the same South Carolina town as Kenny and knew him back when he was the star halfback on the school football team. When I was in the sixth grade, Kenny was a senior in high school. And I had a crush on him then,

but, you know, he didn't know I existed. Years later, after Kenny had already been married seven, possibly eight times, no one seems to be too sure, they found each other again. Kenny asked Beverly for a ride home one day and then asked her if she wanted to stay for Jambalaya. Oh, he was a wonderful cook.

And he was a barber in the Navy. He cut my hair better than anybody has ever cut my hair in my life. He should have just stuck to barbering instead of stuck manning. If he had, says Beverly, he'd have avoided alling instead of the stuntman. If he had, says Beverly, he'd have avoided all the pain of the super jump. All that he received in compensation for his jump was his paid medical bills. And that was it? There was no profit? No, Kenny didn't make anything, no.

Why do you think, you think he chose to remain relatively in the background with Ken Carter as the main... That has always been a mystery to me because Kenny had a type A personality that was totally out of character for Kenny to stay in the background. While there's a lot Beverly still doesn't understand about Kenny, like Steve the mechanic, she's certain that Kenny attempted the jump not to betray Ken, but to protect him.

In Beverly's telling, the investors were out of money, and they were getting threatening. Kenny and Ken should have never become involved with these men. But what do you mean? It's not something over the phone that I could discuss. You just think about that for a while. And so I thought about it for a while. You're talking about, if I can say over the telephone, the MOB? I won't say you're wrong. So Kenny Powers knew someone had to make that jump.

And he also knew that because of his youth and physical condition, he stood a better chance of surviving it than Ken. That's why, according to Beverly, Kenny decided to step up. But unlike Steve the Mechanic's version of the story, Beverly says there was no secret plan, no plan at all, just Kenny deciding on his own, spur of the moment, to help his friend. And if that's true, Ken's getting angry back at the hotel might have been less about having the jump stolen out from under him and more about being scared—for Kenny—and angry that Kenny would just up and try something so impetuous. In the documentary, when we first see Kenny posing beside the ramp, the voiceover explains

that Kenny always wears his back brace when making jumps, but that day he'd left it behind. When I first saw the movie, I chalked it up to vanity, that, as he enjoyed his moment in the spotlight, he wouldn't want the brace visible under his tight jumpsuit. But thinking on it now, how last second the whole thing was, he probably didn't even have time to put it on. Ten-second countdown, that's all I need.

If I'm not ready in ten seconds, I'll never be ready. If Kenny had taken any time to consider the insanity of the jump, he probably wouldn't have been able to do it. Kenny Powers, standing alone on the ramp in his yellow jumpsuit and cowboy hat, must have been terrified. Beverly says that Kenny's relationship with Ken was more complicated than just the special bond between stuntmen. For Kenny, she says, the story begins much earlier. He was always an injured soul because of his abusive upbringing. He never could escape that. As his father was a binge drinker,

his father was often very abusive to him. He talked about his father swinging around by his testicles once through the air. I think that one incident was pretty traumatic for him. Do you know how old he was? It must have been before he was eight years old. I think he might have gotten things from Ken Carter that he never got from his father that he really needed emotionally. Just spending time with him is showing him affirmation and teaching him things and helping him to grow as a person and as a professional and making Kenny feel good about himself. when the car was floating in the water,

even with a broken vertebrae, he was getting his self out. And the first thing that he said, did I do well? Are you pleased? He wanted to please people. Beverly says that after the failed jump Ken visited Kenny in the hospital and that they made amends and the thing about the photograph

that Kenny carried around an 8x10 picture of Ken for the rest of his life Beverly says that not only is it true but that she gave Kenny a special leather portfolio that he used to carry it around in everywhere he went. He had a briefcase before then, and he used it, but he started using my leather portfolio. Were there other photos in there that he had?

No. Just Ken Carter's? Yes. Why do you think that was? I guess true love forgives. Kenny never quit loving Ken. Who loved Ken? But in the end, all that love got Kenny Powers was the role of Judas in the Ken Carter life story. But while most stories of betrayal begin as love stories, this is the rare tale that ends as one. It takes guts to risk your life for glory, but it takes even more guts to risk your life

for someone else, knowing that risk will only lead to obscurity and shame. A jump that big needs to be fueled by something bigger than money or the spotlight. The greatest leaps always do. After the failed super jump, Kenny continued performing stunts on his own, but he never achieved even a fraction of the fame and respect that Ken Carter had. In 2009, Kenny died and Beverly planned his funeral. Everyone ate hot dogs and watched videos of Kenny's stunts. And of course, they traded their craziest Kenny Powers stories.

Kenny could be hilarious. You never knew what Kenny was going to do. stunts. And of course, they traded their craziest Kenny Powers stories. Kenny could be hilarious. You never knew what Kenny was going to do. Like, Kenny had a load of dynamite, and he drove up into a horse barn of one of his friends, and they made him get it out real quick. You just never knew what Kenny was going to do. You had to be there. A lot of Kenny Power stories end this way. You just had to be there. For the time he snuck up behind a friend at the urinal and kissed him on the lips. Or the time he wore his best suit to visit the dogs at the town dump. It's while listening to one after another of these stories that something occurs to me.

It's a crazy thought, but one I'm compelled to share with Beverly. Did you ever see this TV show called Eastbound and Down? I did, and this is interesting. You asked me. You cannot tell me the writers did not know my Kenny Powers. Eastbound and Down was a comedy series on HBO. The main character is a brash, foul-mouthed, and washed-up athlete from the South. And his name?

Kenny Powers. Woo-hoo! Yeah! Kenny fucking Powers! Come on, raise it up! Woo! Come on, there you go! Two at you! Let me hear fucking more! All right! Cool! Okay! Okay! Okay! Shut the fuck up! But it's not just that his name is Kenny Powers. The TV Kenny Powers macho swagger is eerily similar to the real Kenny Powers.

And so is his physical style, right down to the goatee. There's so many things that he said in that, it's just exactly verbatim what Kenny used to say. Do you remember what those moments were in the show? I don't think I can repeat it. Oh, please, go ahead. After all, it is a butter tartan podcast. I don't talk this way.

Like, I need to say, Kenny motherfucking Powers is the example. Kenny could use the F word as a noun, verb, adverb, conjunction, adjective, all in one sentence in every sentence of the paragraph, quite effectively. I'm not kidding. I'm fucking in and you're fucking out. Now get the fuck out of my chair. Konnichiwa, bitches. I'm Kenneth Williams. You know, after Kenny died, my son and I used to sit and watch it and laugh. It was like, Kenny, Kenny.

It was hilarious. It really brought comfort to me. The idea of Beverly sitting on a couch in the days after Kenny's death and taking solace in the antics of possibly one of the crudest, most offensive characters in the history of television was enough to warm my heart and my researching fingers. I'm looking at the Wikipedia page for Kenny Powers, the character from Eastbound and Down. Okay. Yeah, it has all of his nicknames here. The People's Champion, the Shelby Sensation, the Man with the Golden D-I-C-K, Dr. C-O-K. Some of these I can't even say.

Even a podcast has its limits. But as I continue to read, I see that Wikipedia supports our theory. The name Kenny Powers, it says, was inspired by a real-life American automotive stuntman in the 1970s by the same name. But there's no citation, no way to confirm whether it's true. So before getting off the phone with Beverly, I promise her I'll deploy all of my journalistic learnings and all of Alex Bloomberg's bitcoins to track down the truth.

Eventually, I get a hold of an executive at the production house that makes Eastbound and Down. He forwards my question about the Kenny Powers character onto the show's creator and star, Danny McBride. The executive says that Mr. McBride, quote, wants to take the time to formulate a good answer. For the next few weeks, I send emails checking in to see if there's anything I can report back to Beverly. Even a simple

yes or no would be fine, I say, but I never get an answer. In the end, I decide to take Mr. McBride's unusual response to mean that the real Kenny Powers did receive a legacy after all. For what greater homage can a person be paid than to be immortalized in a hit TV show, in such a way that there's just enough ambiguity to avoid possible litigation over the non-consensual use of their identity and or likeness. I'm Teddy Powers! I don't mean to offend you, Wayne. You have fucking pissed me off, so I'm gonna go ahead and go.

But I'm not gonna stop yelling because then that'll mean I lost the fight. I love y'all very much. Peace out! So maybe, somehow, possibly, Kenny Powers did land that jump into America, after all. Thank you. Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage deposit Take this moment to decide The Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me, Jonathan Goldstein, along with Kalila Holt. I'm sorry. Tony Azamacopoulos, Adam Szymanski, Lou Anne Leonard, Dick Keller, Harry Simpson, Gordon Kadic, Saeed T. John Thomas, Blythe Terrell, Jessica Weisberg, Devin Taylor, and Jackie Cohen. The show was mixed by Kate Balinski. Music by John K. Sampson, Stephen Page,

and the amazing Christine Fellows. Additional music credits for this episode can be found on our website, gimletmedia.com slash heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records and our ad music is by Haley Shaw.

You can watch the wonderful National Film Board of Canada documentary The Devil at Your Heels at nfb.ca. Follow us on Twitter at heavyweight

or email us at heavyweight at gimletmedia.com. We'll have a new episode in two weeks.