Bell Is One of the Few Truly Authentic Brands Left in the World
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BELL IS ONE OF THE FEW TRULY AUTHENTIC BRANDS LEFT IN THE WORLD. ITS ROOTS ARE REAL AND DEEP. BORN IN A GARAGE. FUELED BY GREASE AND WILL. GUIDED BY PURE INTENT… TO ENCOURAGE THE WORLD TO LIVE,BellBrandBible_DL_ DRIVE, RIDE AND THRIVE. WE BELIEVE STRONGLY IN BELL AND ARE INSPIRED TO SPREAD OUR TIMELESS VALUES. IT’S SOMETHING WE THINK THE WORLD NEEDS MORE OF RIGHT NOW. WE WILL RECLAIM OUR RIGHTFUL PLACE INSPIRING AND ENABLING RIDERS AND DRIVERS TO NEW HEIGHTS. IT’S THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. SO THIS IS THE WAY, THE BELL WAY. A LEAP FIELD GUIDE OF EVEL FAITH Evel Knievel leapt into the national spotlight In 1974, Knievel tries a 1,600-foot leap over New Year’s Eve 1967, jumping the Caesars Idaho’s Snake River Canyon in a steam- Palace fountain in Las Vegas. His 151-foot powered rocket (he’d wanted to jump the leap is spectacular—he clears the fountains, Grand Canyon, but was denied permission). a virtual caped superhero—but loses control The Sky-Cycle never made it in test runs, but DNA landing, and ragdolls 165 feet into a brick wall. Knievel straps in anyway. He doesn’t make it It’s a horrific wreck, replayed in painful slow- and fails, before 12,000 spectators and a live —UNLIMITED motion nationwide, endlessly. He spends TV audience. The chute deploys early, dropping the next 29 days in a coma, then emerges Knievel on the same side of the river as the KNIEVELa national hero, America’s Daredevil. launch platform. His successes were huge. His failures even more spectacular. After breaking his pelvis and back in a 1975 attempt to clear 13 London buses “I’M A JUMPING in Wembley Stadium, he stood and waved to a roaring crowd of 90,000 before walking out. SON-OF-A-BITCH. It was a defining moment. Failure made him famous, but we loved his I’LL JUMP tenacity and cheered his success. He showed ANYTHING.” that to the determined, failure isn’t permanent. Coming back from injury is the toughest thing an athlete faces in a career. Evel Knievel made that his career, landing in the Guinness Book of World Records with 433 breaks for “most bones broken in a lifetime.” The jumps got bigger. The wrecks, too. There was no computer model to guarantee success, much less show they were even possible. It came down to him, his motorcycle, and having the guts to lay everything on the line. And we loved it, spending millions of dollars on Evel PGS. Knievel action figures, lunchboxes and toy motorcycles to make him one of the biggest 1- 2 franchises of the 1970s. FIELD GUIDE BUBBA SHOBERT—MOTORCYCLE HALL OF FAMER PGS. 3-4 CRAIG FIELD GUIDE Being fast was not good enough for Craig Breedlove, he needed to be the fastest. In 1964, he became the first man to top 500 mph in his jet engine powered “Spirit of America.” Twelve days later, his record was broken. Not fazed, Breedlove installed a larger, 15,000 horsepower jet engine into the “Spirit” and blasted across Bonneville at a record-shattering 600 mph one year later. MAT HOFFMAN The next step is usually obvious. The trick DNA is figuring out how to get there. In 1987, every pro BMX ramp rider wanted to land —UNLIMITED the first 900 aerial in action sports. It was the holy grail. Riders questioned whether it could be done. In 1989, 16–year-old Mat Hoffman landed it (10 years would pass before Tony Hawk landed the first 900 on a skateboard). At the 2002 X-Games Mat made history again, this time spinning THE a no-handed 900. NORTH SHORE SHIRLEY In the early 1990s, wooden ladder bridges, teeter-totters, skinnies and other man-made features MULDOWNEY began appearing on the mountain The first woman to race Top Fuel never wore hearing bike trails north of Vancouver, both protection, believing it prevented her from hearing the upping the degree of technical subtleties of her engine, which rumbled at deafening difficulty and helping to mitigate levels. Miraculously, she avoided permanent hearing the perpetually wet conditions loss. Shirley Muldowney pursued winning without PGS. of the Pacific Northwest. In the compromise and made it pay—she was the first process, it changed not only how three-time Top Fuel world champion and the 5-6 trails were constructed but it fastest woman on wheels. redefined the sport. FIELD GUIDE RICHTER MADE HIGH DNA PERFORMANCE ACCESSIBLE —FUELED BY PURPOSE TO EVERYONE. It’s 1946, and Roy Richter’s just lost another Richter became the ultimate speed merchant, friend in a racing accident. He decides to presiding over an empire that included Bell do something about it. Auto Parts, Bell Helmets (Bell-Toptex) and It’s a visceral time in auto racing. Rules Cragar. He was instrumental in founding are almost non-existent, and anyone can SEMA, the Speed Equipment Manufacturers participate. It’s also a deadly time. It’s the Association. But he was most proud of his automotive equivalent of 1970s punk rock, work at Bell Helmets, and its legacy. and Richter is one of the central figures as In a 1967 letter to Snell Foundation founder owner of Bell Auto Parts, the world’s very Dr. George Snively, Richter thanks him for all first speed shop. Which means Richter has he’d done. “I know they were not performed the resources, and the influence, to make as a personal favor to me, but more for the a difference. betterment of mankind, but inasmuch as the RACING’S The first Bell helmet—the 500—debuts in man in the street or the average race driver 1954. Richter’s friend Cal Niday is first to won’t say thank you I thought at least I should.” LIFEGUARD use one at the Brickyard, in the 1955 Indy “I have never had a project that presented 500. He crashes out. He’s racing again in the challenge and offered the personal a few months, despite sustaining a skull satisfaction that I received in my association fracture, and credits his Bell with preventing with you on this Helmet thing.” ROY more serious injury. The 500 is now proven. Roy Richter changed how the racing game Race-tested. was played. He made high performance Bell’s helmet sales skyrocket. But when the accessible to everyone. And he made it safer, 500 doesn’t come out on top in the first-ever giving racers and daredevils freedom to push Snell Memorial Foundation helmet test, the limits, redefining what’s possible. PGS. Richter immediately suspends production for a redesign. The result is 1957’s Bell 500- 7-8 TX, the first Snell-approved racing helmet, establishing Bell’s now longstanding policy RICHTERof never settling for second-best. FIELD GUIDE DON BURT GARLITS MUNRO Don Garlits, the first person through the “impossible” Burt Munro personifies single-minded pursuit. In 1920, 200 mph barrier in the quarter-mile, lost part of his he bought a new Indian Scout. His lifelong obsession DNA right foot in a horrific drivetrain explosion in 1970. was making it fast, a goal he pursued for nearly 50 years. He built everything himself, even casting and —FUELED BY PURPOSE It would’ve been career-ending for anyone else, but DNA quenching his own pistons (he developed his own not for Big Daddy. He returned with Swamp Rat XIV, alloys by mixing fragments of broken-up automotive —UNIMITED ushering in Top Fuel’s modern era with the first rear- pistons). He set three world records on his Indian, engine rail, putting the driver in front of the engine one of which—183.59 mph—is still the standing and out of harm’s way. record for a sub-1,000 cc motorcycle. An airplane drop tank is lightweight and aerodynamic. And for $35 surplus, it’s affordable. Hot rodder Bill Burke turned one into the ultimate pre-fabricated lakester body in 1946, stuffing a Mercury flathead V-8 into a surplus P-51 Mustang drop tank and hitting 131.96 mph on the salt. The belly tank racer had arrived. PGS. PGS. 17- 18 9-10 THE FOUNDING FIELD GUIDE FATHER The Big Bang moment for BMX is the intro sequence tech to BMX, notably aluminum fabrication. But FMF of 1971’s On Any Sunday, where kids pretend their was just the prototype for Breithaupt’s next brainchild, OF BMX Schwinn Stingrays are motocross bikes. 13-year-old SE Racing. As BMX spread internationally in the 1980s, Scot Breithaupt was well ahead of that intro. Six months it was Scot’s frenzied energy that put SE at the forefront. prior to the release of the film factory Yamaha MX rider, SE’s core products and team were the icons of the era, SCOT Scot lugged his old trophies to the local trails and staged and Scot took them around the world racing and fanning a “peddle-cross” race for 25 neighborhood rats. The next the flames. weekend, 100 kids showed up. Pulled in all directions by the empire he’d created, the Improvising with what was in front of him, in less than Old Man was not able to train the way top competitors five years Scot had created a monster. The only way to were. But he had an answer for that, too. Breithaupt control it was to do everything; he formed the first BMX frankensteined a beach cruiser by putting wider MX sanctioning body, promoted events, built tracks across handlebars on it, creating the first BMX cruiser.