Evel Knievel Rides Again! Travis Pastrana Completes 3 of Daredevil's Most Famous Jumps

After much fanfare and mounting anticipation, Travis Pastrana successfully honored iconic stuntman Evel Knievel on Sunday, completing three of the late daredevils most famous stunts.

Pastrana — who has won several X Games gold medals for supercross, motocross, and freestyle motocross — performed the stunts during the History Channel’s Evel Live event.

First, Pastrana traveled 143 feet to clear 52 crushed cars on an Indian Scout motorcycle. Next, he flew 192 feet over 16 Greyhound buses on the motorcycle, before clearing149 feet over the Caesars Palace fountains in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Knievel completed the crushed cars stunt first in 1973, but only cleared 50 vehicles. He traveled over 14 Greyhound buses in 1975. The Caesar’s Palace stunt was never completed by Knievel, after a disastrous wipeout during his first attempt in 1965.

Knievel attempted more than 75 jumps on his motorcycle before his death from pulmonary heart disease in 2007 at age 69.

Ahead of the show, Pastrana admitted that though he was both nervous and excited, jumping the fountains and recreating Knievel’s other stunts would be the culmination of a childhood dream for him.

“My dad, he has five brothers and they all had motorcycles and lived by the philosophies of Evel Knievel,” Pastrana told PEOPLE. “Henceforth I grew up learning, ‘be a man of your word, and if you say you’re gonna do something do it.’ Evel knew he wasn’t gonna make the jump at Wembley, but he said he was going to do it, so he went and he jumped it anyway. You only fail if you don’t try.”

He added of the special, “Our main goal is to help promote active lifestyles and basically, action sports. Getting kids off the couch and riding their BMX bikes or their skateboards and help older generations of people to understand these are real sports now. At the same time, we get to honor a legend and I get to step up and see if I can actually fly a tank.”