Careful analysis of this magazine's demographics and harmonization of those figures with historical records indicates that the most important date in our average reader's life was January 26, 1979. That, of course, was the Friday night "The Dukes of Hazzard" replaced "The Incredible Hulk" on the CBS network schedule.
Dukes is to car guys what "Star Trek" is to sci-fi doofs and "Charlie's Angels" is to chronic masturbators: a television show set in an idealized world where the laws of man and nature have been twisted to indulge our dearest fantasies.
For Travis Bell however, it wasn't enough to watch "The Dukes of Hazzard," he wanted to live it. And this past June 29, he did that by building his own "General Lee" Dodge Charger, filling it with one of the original stuntmen from the show, and launching it 22 feet high and out 139 feet in the same Georgia town where the show was first shot a quarter century ago. We're only three years into this century, but it's hard to imagine anything more magnificent happening in the next 97.
Travis, 30, works as a club DJ in Indianapolis and is also co-president of the North American General Lee Fan Club (www.generalleefanclub.com), which is dedicated to celebrating the more than 300 Chargers that portrayed the General Lee and the stunt crew that launched it every week into prime-time orbit. Where those of us who grew up on the Dukes may have a fond place for the show in our hearts, Bell's heart beats to the rhythm of the show's Waylon Jennings theme song.
"The show came around at just the right time in my life," Bell says, explaining his obsession. "I was too young to be interested in [Daisy Duke's] shorts, but I was the perfect age to be impressed by a big orange, indestructible car."
So impressed, he dug $27,000 out of his not-particularly deep pockets and spent two years finagling his contacts within the Dukes fan and production community to launch his own General Lee as part of the three-day Hazzard Homecoming event in Covington, Ga., where the first five episodes of the show were shot before production moved to Southern California.
The Hazzard Homecoming event itself included tours of filming locations, a car show overstuffed with dozens of General Lee replicas (and even a few interloping Knight Rider Firebirds and Starsky & Hutch Torinos), and a chance for fans to meet stuntmen from the show.
But the highlight would be the big jump. Bell had called stuntman Corey Eubanks (son of game show host Bob Eubanks) on a whim two years ago and invited him to another Dukes event (Dukesfest 2001). It was at that event where Eubanks suggested jumping a General Lee might be appropriate at some future get-together. At Dukesfest 2002, Bell sought out the components to make such a leap possible at the Homecoming.
The car itself was actually the hulk of a '68 Charger located in Washington state and donated by its owners, Bobby and Jamie Smith.
"They donated the car," says Bell. "It had a decent frame and nothing else. But they also lent us a '70 steel crank 440 V8 and 727 automatic transmission, cosmetically converted the car to a '69, trawled on three and a half gallons of Bondo and painted it orange. There was no interior, no side glass, and the grille was held together with zip-ties, but it looked good from 10 feet. But up next to it, Holy..."
The car came to Bell in Indianapolis; he jury-rigged the suspension and exhaust, added the correct American Racing Vector wheels and a "Hazzard County" license plate, and applied reproductions of the graphics and the front push bar donated by www.buildageneral.com. "We built the car for less than $2,000 and even got a correct CB antenna," Bell claims. "The only thing it didn't have was the [Dixie-playing] horn."
The running car was then shipped to North Carolina where Tom Sarmento, who was the mechanic who'd kept the Generals running during the TV production and made it safe to jump, now lives and sells Snap-On tools. Sarmento built and installed a rollcage identical to those he built a couple decades ago. He also built the steel and plywood ramp used to send the Charger skyward above Covington's Legion Field.
While this was going on, news of Eubanks' upcoming jump spread throughout the stunt community in Hollywood and other stuntmen who'd worked on the Dukes petitioned to be included in the show. So Bell also acquired two Dodge patrol cars and a Chevy Malibu "bad guy" car and prepped them to be rolled as part of the festivities.
Rain the Saturday morning of the jump thinned the crowd somewhat, but by early afternoon, the weather had cleared and the Georgia clay shivered under the sound of a poorly muffled 440-cubic inch V8.
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