ATV Stunt Entertainer, Henry Rife

photos by Tom Dunlap

On Friday Sept 28, 2008 ATV stunt entertainer, Henry Rife made his life long dream of jumping his ATV in front of millions of people actually come true. Henry was invited to jump seven New York City taxi cabs on the popular Late Night with David Letterman television program. The incredible opportunity gave Henry many lifelong memories, some of which he’ll explain below…

How did you land the Late Night with David Letterman gig?
I did a jump in July and one of the producers from Letterman saw it on Youtube. After some digging around he managed to get my contact info. “Hi I’m Mike. I’m a producer for the Late Night with David Letteman Show. Would you have any interest in coming to New York and jumping some taxi cabs? “Hell yes,” I said.

Were they ATV savvy at all?
The Letterman people couldn’t have been nicer and they were wonderful to work with, but man did they have a lot of questions. They didn’t know what to expect.

Did you have help?
I had a crew of people working on ramps and quads and this and that. It all got a bit hectic but in a very cool way. When I got the word that the show was a definite go, I only had five days to be there so I am lucky that my crew was on top of thing as soon as the original phone call came in.

Henry started jumping at age 6! Tell us all about the journey to New York City.
Before I left my home in Ohio in the middle of the night I stopped and said goodbye to my mom. She asked me if I was ready for all of this. I looked her square in the eyes and said “All my life!” She smiled and agreed. Later she told me that the look in my eye and calmness of my voice made her not have a doubt in her mind.

Anyway on to the trip. My dad and I drove in one truck and pulled the ramps while my right hand man Russ Belt and photographer extraordinary, Tommy Dunlap pulled my quads and tools in another.

A couple of hours into the trip we stopped at a truck stop to fuel up. While I was walking out I heard a group of kids remark about my coat. “Who does he think he is? Evel Knievel?”. I heard them snickering around and laughing. One yelled out, “I’ll give you five bucks for your autograph dude.” I walked over to them and they remarked about the coat. I laughed and said, “next Friday if you watch David Letterman you may stop the laughing.” The cute girl in the truck with them looked around saw the ramps and busted out laughing, “He really is a stunt jumper you morons there’s his ramps you jerks!” It was pretty funny. “Hey can you give me your autograph for real,” she asked. She got her autograph and the guys shook my hand and a bad start to trip had a good ending.

Henry seen here with Evel and Robbie Knievel.Did they put you up in a nice hotel and all?
Holy crap it was a Hotel Dream! It was just a block and a half away from The Late Show. Man this place was so cool. They even had neon under the beds. My dad asked, “All this trouble because you can ride a four wheeler,” I grinned and said I guess so.

Did you check out Times Square?
We sure did! It’s like another planet. A planet full of very hot chicks. Wow! For anyone who has never been to Times Square it’s kinda like a scene from Star Wars; there’s a hot chick here, a business man there, a rapper wannabe here, a cop over there etc. It was entertaining to say the least. I am a small town guy and I like the fact that I don’t have to worry about traffic jams and crime but it was really neat to go there and visit for sure.

Okay it’s jump day. Millions of people are going to watch you either make it or wad it up trying. Tell us how the day went and don’t leave any details out.
Okay here goes…

MORNING…
I woke up and did the shower and shave and all that. I had the most wonderful sleep in the greatest bed I have even been in. I’m telling you I don’t think babies sleep this good.

All the time I began to get my mind on what I was there to do. Up to this point I had (on purpose) kept from dwelling on the fact that what I was doing was a huge deal and I needed to pull this thing off.

Tom, my dad and Russ all at one point or another kind of wondered out loud if maybe this might had been a bit more than I bargained for and had a worry or two that I might get hurt.

So far we all had a great time with the trip and all but now it was time to get to business. We pulled out and minutes later we were looming at the huge sign that said “Late Show with David Letterman”. We noticed the street beside it except for a fire lane was completely closed down for my jump. Man it really hit me at this time. This was really going to happen!

Next we met up with the crew that would be setting up my ramps. They were all union guys. We were to touch absolutely nothing! Tom started taking pictures of them, my Dad and Russ showed them what had to be done. I just stood there thinking to myself what a long strange road my life had been on Five years ago I would have never dared to think I would be setting up my ramps to jump on David Letterman.

I did have to admit I had a huge grin on my face thinking about all the people that said I would never do this and never do that. I felt that no matter what happened as soon as the ramps started to get unloaded, I won. I mean, I was here and I was doing this and this was really going to happen.

My sister and brother would have loved this and been so proud. My sister knew I was going to meet Evel Knievel back in ’98. She was so happy for me. Sadly just a few days she died. It was unexpected and that started me down a road I hope nobody will ever have to go down. A few years later my Dad had a heart attack and that coupled with me going threw a divorce and my best friend – my brother’s death. All this happened the same time. It really showed me that we are only here for a short while so you have to live your life how you see fit and do the things you want to do today because you might not ever get a second chance. This is why I began jumping again.

AFTERNOON..
There was certainly a lot going on in the morning. Since I wasn’t allowed to help with any of it, I was left with a lot of time on my hands to just to sit and watch a bunch of people I didn’t know set up the biggest jump of my life and hopefully not get me killed. Television is a funny thing — it’s never what you think. Everything looks so easy but it isn’t. It takes one person to set up a light, one person to plug it in and another to adjust it. From the time we arrived we had union guys pretty much running the show

My friend Russ Belt he is the biggest go-getter I have ever run into. He is a former VP of the biggest bank in town. He just up and quit that high paying gig because it was no longer a challenge for him.
He’s now a businessman a couple of times over and a mini sprint car driver. I knew no one could handle or understand all of this quite like Russell. He really is a great friend and I was in very good hands. These big city union guys didn’t expect me to bring him and they never knew what hit them.

Tommy my photographer friend gave me a holler. I walked towards him and he lead me through a door beside the Hello Deli, owned by Rupert of Late Night fame. I walked into a modest doorway and all of a sudden there we were in the Ed Sullivan Theater starring at Dave’s desk and the chairs for the stars. How damn cool is this? Tom said in a very quiet voice “I just wanted you to see it because you’ll be pretty busy later.” Just then it really hit me. I was going to be on the frikken Dave Letterman show!

Like a bunch of bees people moved lights and cleaned up the set. There was almost as much activity going on as outside. I had never been there before but I knew every inch of the stage from watching Dave on TV at home. I spent a moment or two just standing there drinking the atmosphere in.

“Are you Henry?” I heard a voice ask as I walked outside. “Yes I am,” “Great I’m Mike, the Producer for the show how is everything going?” I told him everything was going great then gave him a rundown of what was going on in detail. We then went over times for practice. “Can you be ready to go by 1pm?” “Yea, no problem — wheels up by 1:05!” “You hear that fellas? Wheels up by 1:05,” Mike said into a walkie talkie. “Great! Henry I have to say we’re all really looking forward to this. I want to wish you the best of luck and stay safe!” I said, “I will do the best I can because it hurts me a hell of a lot more than it’ll hurt you.” Mike smiled and remarked how calm I looked. He then got a call on his cell phone and had to tend to something else.

12:30 PM
As I was pulling on my black and red Thor jersey Mike came back and asked someone working a camera if the assistant director was here. They wanted to look at the outfit to see if that was what he wanted. “Do you have anything lighter?” he asked . “Yep I sure do how about white and blue?”

While I was waiting I asked Russ if he could get us permission to go to Broadway with the quad
and take some pictures. I heard a voice on Russ’s radio, “Go ahead. If anyone says anything you tell them I said you could.” I asked Russ who just gave us permission. He stood there smiling and said, “That was just the police chief of New York City!”

We both smiled and pushed Bubba (that’s what I call my favorite quad) up the street and had Tommy snap pictures along the way. Those New Yorkers looked at us like we were aliens taking pictures in full armor sitting on the quad. It was very cool.

I went back to the trailer and changed into the white outfit then walked out to hear a noticeable murmur going on and I asked my dad what the hell is going on. I guess they just noticed Evel Knievel was closer than they thought. It was true. When I was in the black outfit no one noticed, but once in the white gear a crowd started to gather. “Henry we are ready when you are. Good luck kid!” said the Assistant Director of the show.

Bubba glared at me like a bull waiting on the next cowboy. As I walked closer to my trusty 450R, I was thinking about what my dad said about Evel Knievel being in the house he really was and it wasn’t me. The aura of Evel still lingers and I’ve seen it before but not like this. I think it was the white and blue outfit and the threat of looming danger. I swung a leg over Bubba. Bubba is the first quad I bought since my comeback and it is the only one I’ve jumped and done tricks with. It is set up perfect. The power comes on hard but very smooth and with no surprises. I have only wrecked Bubba once and it was just a minor thing. I remember talking to Bubba, “same deal as always dude. I don’t hurt you — you don’t hurt me.”

I realize it is just a bunch of steel, rubber and plastic but I still know this thing better than any other and it acts like a extension of me at times. A few special times there has been a Zen-like partnership so I seem to have a bond with this bunch of steel, rubber and plastic.

Russ and the Producer Mark stood there talking about the gap and taxis. The setup crew had moved the ramps 4 or 5 times before Russ and everyone agreed on a position. There ended up being only about 88 feet of runway before the ramp.

In practice in Van Wert I had done the jump in the amount of space they told me, a total of 330 feet. I had 120 feet of takeoff and 55 feet to stop. The rest was ramps and taxi cabs.

To top things off cops and feds were crawling all over the place with ear pieces and taking into their wrists — the whole bit. All of this was due to George Bush and the President of Iran being just two blocks away at the UN Meeting. In the takeoff area three cops in suits were walking around checking the crowd for any kind of threat. It was pretty tense at times.

With one kick Bubba came to life loud and throaty. The noise bounced off the tall buildings as I blipped the throttle. Bubbba sounded pretty cool in all the limelight.

The noise was a bit too much for some. I watched some people plug their ears with their fingers.

“Henry can you hear me?” a voice spoke in my right ear. “This is Jerry the Director.” “Yea I hear you. What’s up?” I said. “I’m just letting you know. We are ready when you are! Let’s see what you got kid.”

I was used to performing in front of crowds since I was a little kid. It didn’t bug me then and it sure wasn’t going to bug me now. Overhead there was a large boom moving a camera into place.
I cleaned out Bubba’s throat with a flick of the throttle. When the revs returned to idle I heard people whispering behind my back. I stood up swinging both hands in the air telling the crowd it was time
and a large amount of applause broke out, then cheers. It was time to go for it.

Braaaaap, 2nd gear, braaaaa, 3rd then hard on the front and rear brakes right up to the edge of the ramp. Looking across the gap I thought to myself, “Man this is cool!”

I clicked Bubba’s transmission into neutral and coasted backward giving myself enough room to be able to swing Bubba around counterclockwise. “Here we go. Standby,” I heard Jerry through my headset.

I eased the clutch out and Bubba started to move. I short shifted into second gear so as soon as I made my last turn I could pin it and get one quick shift into 3rd and make as much use as I could of 3rd gear before lift off. The second to last turn a cop walked on the outside of me thus cutting my turn by a very important few feet.

As I left the ramp I knew I didn’t have enough speed. Was it the cop getting in the way? Was it the stutter I heard Bubba make as I pinned the throttle? All of that was unimportant at that point. The fact of the matter was I was not going fast enough and I wasn’t high enough to either. All I could do was watch the last Taxi and see the safety apron get closer and closer. I landed, “BANG!” I could hear a big gasp from the crowd. I had visions of old grainy footage of a very young Evel Knievel doing the very same thing in 1967 at his Ceaser’s Palace jump. I had visions of going over the bars and breaking bone after bone like Evil did back then. Man this wasn’t a film this was happening and it was happening to me!

I leaned back, shifted my weight to the rear part of the seat and hung on tight. I somehow landed as short as you can land without crashing. I brought Bubba to a stop and thought “I’m still on! I’m still on!

Bubba was still running. “Let’s do this right this time,” I told myself.

As I found 1st gear and started to roll back around for another try I looked behind me and I knew I hadn’t exaggerated the impact. Both rear tires were flat, both rims were collapsed and the rear axle was bent in the shape of a smiley face – or should I say an upside down frown.

I turned toward the trailer and limped Bubba back to the end where my dad and Russ stood
wide eyed. “How in the F#@* did you stay on that thing?”, they said combined.

My dad just looked at me and said “Not fast enough. Not near fast enough. Are you okay?”
“Yeah damn it!”, I said, but that was a lie. I had re-broken my wrist. I had it wrapped up and in a splint, but I had hurt it again and my whole hand was totally numb. I kept walking toward the trailer and I heard people giggling in the crowd behind me. As I walked closer to the trailer Russ kept checking my eyes like a corner man does a boxer that’s been knocked silly.

I can assure you that the look in my eyes was not one of stunned surprise but more like total and complete anger. I was more mad at myself than anything else, “What the hell was I thinking? I never come up short. Why now?” The needle-like pain shot up in to my forearm letting me know that just a few weeks before I had overshot my landing ramp and broken my wrist. Instead of getting a cast like I should have I chose to baby the arm and hide the injury from all the television people. I snorted to myself as I looked down squeezing the hand tightly together to make sure I could still grab hold of the handlebars. “Good as it’s gonna get,” I thought.

I tore the velcro from the splint I was wearing and pulled them tighter offering as much support as possible.

Russ saw that this wasn’t the time to argue or ask questions he just walked quietly into the trailer to the front of my other quad I call “Howard”. Howard was new to me and I didn’t have much seat time on it at all. I had just bought Howard a few months before. I named it Howard in honor of Howard Stern, the name just felt right since Bubba is named after another radio star “Bubba The Love Sponge”. Howard is a 2006 450R Honda. It’s two years newer than Bubba but all together a different animal. Basically, Bubba is forgiving Howard is not. I have joked and said Howard was a prick. It is mean and unruly but accurate. The first time Russ climbed on both quads he said, I like Bubba. Howard is mean. Howard can out run Bubba in a race about 1/2 a bike length every time in the 1/8 mile. Power was never a problem it’s just not smooth – it’s pipey, twitchy and very very fast. Give me Bubba any day.

I was waiting for Howard to come out and I could hear chatter snickering and outright laughter. All of which succeeded in doing one thing — turning my anger into pure rage!

“Keep calm,” I thought. “Don’t let this rattle your cage.”

“Okay Dan well it looks like he’s done let’s start getting things packed up,” said the director’s voice in my ear. “No, no I’m not done,” I said, but no one was listening. My mic was turned off. While segment producer’s voice barked out orders and the chatter of the crowd got louder, Howard made his appearance. All the noise stopped. “He’s got another one!” someone shouted.

I heard Jerry yell to his crew. The once noisy crowd was as silent as a graveyard. In the quiet I heard the faint sound of Gnarles Barkley singing “My hero’s had the heart to live the life I want to live and all I remember is thinking I want to be like them!” It made a smile come across my face just for a second “Fitting,” I thought to myself. To top everything off Howard had a bad battery. I flipped the switch and turned the key — nothing. I shut the key off flicked it again, hit the button. BAAAAAAAAA! Howard came to life! I thought to myself, “Jeez, I’m gonna have heart failure if there’s any more drama to deal with.”

As I started to roll Howard into position for another practice jump, Mark the Producer stopped me and said “Henry we need to talk.” “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you aware that your safety apron is destroyed?” “Yes,” I said. “And your ok with that?”. “Yep.” “Are you sure?” “Sure am,” I replied. “Henry you don’t have to do this.”
“Yes I do.”
“Your ready to jump?”
“Your damn right I am!”
“Give ’em hell kid!

“Henry, This is Jerry the Director. Can you here me?”
“Yes I hear you Jerry”
“Why should I feel okay with you jumping when your ramp is damaged?”
“Because I”m not going to hit that damn thing again. Not that part of the ramp. That’s for sure.”
“Okay. Go get em kid!”

I was relieved that no one was calling the jump and this thing was still a go. Howard and I rode to the top of the street and up the takeoff ramp. No showmanship this time just 100% focus on the jump. I clicked Howard into neutral and backed down the ramp.

No cops were in the way and nothing is gonna stop this from being a success. Not this time.
Same as before short shift to second, first turn, but more throttle this time.
BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, BRAAAAAAAAAA. Howard sounded sweet! Like a little red bat flying straight out of hell I hit the ramp with Howard in full song
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! T H U M P !

It went perfect as did another practice jump minutes after this one. Howard did his job and I did mine.
My confidence was once again restored. I brought Howard to a stop to and heard a loud applause.

It felt good, but I was still a little bent about my mishap earlier. A huge weight had lifted off my shoulders but this was still rehearsal and there was one more taxi to go into the line for the real thing.
I told Russ the brake needed adjusted. He went to work on them right away. I had six hours to think about the days events and I used all of them. I never changed clothes I never left the area. I just sat there and looked at the jump and ran it over and over in my head. My anger settled down after the second good jump. Hearing people snicker around after my bad first jump succeeded in doing one thing – keeping me completely focused.

Jamie Foxx wishes Henry good luck. I was thinking, what if I did that again for the actual taping of the show? How horrible for everyone to see that instead of a successful jump. That was a crap sandwich and I was NOT prepared to eat for the rest of my life!

As I sat and watched the camera guys doing their preparations, I saw Russ talking to Mark. Both guys were smiling and seemed very happy with the end result of the days events leading up to the big televised jump. I walked up and Mark smiled at me, laughed and said, “Henry you are one tuff guy. Man you scared me out there after that first jump. You just walked up and wanted another 4-wheeler! You weren’t even scared ! You looked like you wanted to kill someone! Then you did the second and third jumps awesome.” As Russ smiled I was busy looking at the ramps with a space for a cab in between the ramp and the first cab. AND a space from the last cab to the landing ramp.
“How many cabs did you guys tell me were lined up?
“6 dude. Why?”
“That’s seven. You know each one of those spaces count!” Russ and Mark both understood what I was saying, and both were equally pale. I just walked away. If there were six cars like they said instead of seven I would have landed right on the mark.

Jimmie Smitts says good luck and be safe. Russ told me to check the brake while I was back there. I did and it felt right. I was more mad at messing Bubba up than getting hurt but I let it all go. I had to. Both guys had so much on their minds and they were just trying to help.

Just then a girl walked up beside me and my dad and with an Irish accent asked, “What are you jumping with mate?” “My ATV right there,” I said.
“Wow! REALLY? Right on Mate!”
She walked away smiling.

Next a huge black man walked up behind me and said “I see that look in your eye my brother. You got it and your going to be alright tonight, but you already know that don’t you?”
“Yep,” I said.
“I know you do. You have that thing all around you man! You are one of those aren’t you my friend?”
“One of what?”
“You’re a doer not a dreamer! You’re a rare one my friend.”
I smiled and leaned over and shook his hand.
“Solomon.”
“Henry.”
“I know, Henry Rife. Now you just go out there and show em who Henry is!”
He smiled and that’s the last I remember seeing him, it was weird, but pretty cool.

“I’ve never jumped any taxi cabs,” the crowd laughed.
“Is this the largest jump you’ve ever attempted?”
“Nah, I’ve jumped bigger than this but the space you guys gave me — it’s not enough to…..”
“It’s our fault? Is that what you’re saying Henry? All of a sudden it’s my fault the street is not big enough for you?”
Paul jumped in “It’s not long enough, Dave!”
“So, when did you start doing this Henry?”
“I started jumping when I was five.”
“Any mishaps?”
“Yea a couple.”
“Any broken bones?”
“Yea more than a couple.”
“Oh my God.”
“But you do it for the fun is that correct?”
“Ah yea I do it for the fun.”
“I don’t want to put words in your mouth but is it true you might be an adrenaline junkie?”
“That’s an understatement, Dave.”
That was the first segment. Mark gave me the thumbs up. He said, “you’re doing great kid!”

In the next segment Dave said, “We understand it’s six taxis not seven?”
I replied,” Actually it was seven, but the last one was a distance the director didn’t like so we put the safety deck on top of the last one.

We did a middle segment where Dave joked with me and I followed his lead. People laughed.
I didn’t think it was a big deal but people seemed to like it.

After Dave tore Paris up he came back to me. “Anything you’d like to say before you attempt the jump?”
“Yea, I want to say all my love to my little boy Ethen.”
“Ah. How old is Ethen?”
“He’s seven.”
“Do you let him do the jumps and stuff?”
“He told me the other day that he wants to be a Kung Fu Fighter.”
“I see. Haha,” Dave and the crowd cracked up.
“Good luck Henry anytime your ready. Take it away!”
“Thanks Dave!”

With that, Mark gave me the cue so I started Howard. I remember thinking “Okay man. Here it is this is the moment you have waited for all your life! D O N ‘ T B L O W I T !”

Up the ramp I went for one last look. I coasted back down and heard people cheering “Good Luck Henry!”

I rode up the street, short shift to second first turn, second turn then nailed it. I gave Howard everything he had. I had it absolutely pinned then shifted into 3rd gear. The cool air was letting Howard make a lot of power .

THUMP, THUMP! I took off into the air. As soon as I left the ramp I knew I nailed it. I just looked at the guy standing in the trailer, I saw his face the look of focus in his eyes. That was a look I had grown to expect to see in every football game and every wrestling match I’d ever been in. I knew he was right there, flying right beside me and I knew tonight he was very proud of his son.

WAAAAAAAAAK! I hit the landing ramp right in the sweet spot and didn’t even feel it. I put my arm in the air looked over and saw my dad grinning and he gave me a thumbs up. I smiled happily, turned around and went back to another camera man. They were clapping and saying “Man that was cool!”
“How did I do?” I asked. “Kid you did great! Were gonna have you back!”

Congratulations to you for making your oldest dream actually come true. And thanks for talking with us about it. So what’s next for Henry Rife?
We’re starting to book more shows for 2008, and there’s nothing firm yet, but the Letterman people want me to come back. You can check what’s new at my page: Myspace.com/pitbullhenry or Youtube.com/atvpitbull. Thanks for having me!

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