THE STUNT DRIVER

One man. One rocket-powered car. One mile of open water. And a dream so outrageous that almost everyone believed it could never be done.

In the 1970s, when daredevils turned danger into prime-time entertainment and Evel Knievel became a household name, Canadian stunt driver Ken Carter dreamed of doing something that would make the world remember him.

His plan was breathtaking.

Build a massive ramp beside the St. Lawrence River. Construct a rocket-powered car capable of extraordinary speed. Launch it into the sky. And attempt an almost unimaginable flight across roughly a mile of water.

What was supposed to become one spectacular moment turned into a years-long struggle against engineering problems, financial pressure, mechanical failures, delays, skepticism, and the unforgiving laws of physics.

But Carter refused to surrender the dream.

The Stunt Driver tells the remarkable true story behind one of the most audacious projects in Canadian daredevil history—a story of ambition pushed to its limits, enormous risk, stubborn persistence, spectacular setbacks, and the uncomfortable boundary between courage and obsession.

Inside this gripping account, discover:

How Ken Carter became known as one of Canada's most daring automobile stunt performers
How the daredevil culture of the 1960s and 1970s transformed extreme risk into mass entertainment
Why Carter became determined to attempt a stunt far beyond an ordinary automobile jump
How the extraordinary St. Lawrence rocket-car project was conceived
The engineering challenge of making a heavy automobile fly an enormous distance
The construction of the towering launch ramp that became a monument to Carter's ambition
The money, sponsors, promotion, and publicity required to keep the project alive
The explosions, technical failures, postponements, and mounting problems that threatened everything
How years of determination gradually raised a harder question: When does persistence become obsession?
The astonishing circumstances that resulted in American stuntman Kenny Powers, rather than Carter, driving the rocket car during the famous 1979 attempt
What happened when the machine finally blasted from the ramp
Why failure did not end Ken Carter's appetite for danger
The tragic events of September 5, 1983
How the National Film Board documentary The Devil at Your Heels helped preserve Carter's extraordinary story
Why filmmakers, historians, daredevil enthusiasts, and audiences are still fascinated by him decades later

This is more than the story of a failed jump.

It is the story of what happens when a dream becomes inseparable from the person chasing it.

Was Ken Carter extraordinarily courageous—or dangerously reckless?

Was his refusal to quit an example of remarkable perseverance—or evidence that ambition had become obsession?

Was the St. Lawrence project a visionary attempt to redefine what a stunt driver could accomplish—or an impossible fantasy that should have been abandoned long before the rocket car reached the ramp?

The answers are not simple.

And that is precisely what makes Carter's story unforgettable.

He wanted to be remembered as the man who flew a rocket-powered car across the St. Lawrence.

He never did.

Yet more than four decades later, people are still telling his story.

For readers fascinated by true stories, daredevils, automotive history, extreme stunts, Canadian history, engineering ambition, Evel Knievel-era spectacle, documentaries, and extraordinary people who risked everything chasing impossible goals, The Stunt Driver delivers a dramatic journey through one of the strangest and most compelling chapters in stunt history.

The river was real. The danger was real. The dream was almost unbelievable.

Read The Stunt Driver today and discover the extraordinary true story of the man who built a ramp toward the impossible—and became a legend without ever reaching the other side.