The 1977 season started in February with a benefit jump to raise money for the family of a police officer who had been killed in the line of duty. It was only a few minutes after the jump that the rain started. Although both jumps went well the second was almost canceled due to rain. The promotion was a Grand Opening and she would jump over 60 motorcycles, twice. One of her next jumps would be in a show at a Honda and Kawasaki Dealership. In one of the shows, for Independence Day, she was called the Human Firecracker. The season continued with more motorcycle jumps, bomb acts and car crashes throughout Arizona and Texas. From that day forth she was the motorcycle jumper. She went on to do a Leap of Death, a Suicide Twist and the bomb act (Miss Dinamita in Mexico). Her back wheel landed at the edge of the catch ramp leaving a small dent on the top. At the time for the jump she just went for it. She did practice runs by the jump while someone else, owner of the motorcycle shop in El Centro, rode another bike (with a speedometer) along side her to help her gauge her speed. She may never have gotten into cycle jumping had it not been for this twist of fate.
Much like the rest of the stunts she had done before, she just said “OK”. The jumper had been injured earlier, wrecking the jump bike in the accident, the only bike she had to use didn’t have a speedometer on it. On her return to the baseball field in Mexicali she was informed, with only one hour’s notice, that she would be doing the motorcycle jump. It was a late afternoon show and the crowds had already been waiting for hours as the crew set up for the show, Jan was in the U.S. All of the usual acts were to be done, the motorcycle jump, the human bomb, the leap of death, the suicide twist, the firewall, the tunnel of death, the human battering ram, the t-bone and even a roll-over. On May first the show was to perform in Mexicali, Mexico in a local baseball field to benefit the blood bank. At first the jumps were done by a male jumper, soon, though, Jan would be destined to fly. The 1976 season would be the first time the show carried a motorcycle jumper. She spent as much time as possible in the desert with it becoming proficient enough to start doing stunts. Before the year was out Jan traded a Ford Pinto to Gary for one of his CR 250s. Spent the winter in Phoenix where they met Gary Wells. was born and 17 days later accompanied his mom to Denver for his first show! They finished out the season in New Mexico and Las Vegas, Nevada. The joke was that she would have to “be in labor” before Labor Day or she would miss the show! Finally on August 13th Billy, Jr. Jan was promoted all summer to be in that show to do a Human Bomb Act, a Leap of Death, and a Suicide Twist. A Labor Day Special was planned for August 31st. During the summer, she and other members of the team, at the time known as Janet Lee’s International Daredevils, would drive cars from Albuquerque to Denver doing shows every weekend. For the first 8 and ½ months she was pregnant. Sometimes during that season, there were so many racetracks that they would work 6 nights a week.ġ975 would be a slow start for Jan. Although she still did car stunts, the other stunt people did most of them. The Human Bomb would be her specialty that year. From there the show went east, mostly through Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. In 1974 the first show of the season, in California, she would do her first Human Bomb act. Over the next few months she would be crashing cars, driving through dynamite, being a human battering ram, crashing through ice and even having a head-on crash with another female driver. The first show she appeared in was Jdoing precision driving. Since Billy was impressed by Jan’s willingness to perform stunts in public, he was willing to teach her. The Death riders would be gone the next day.
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Billy was looking for female drivers at the time and would be performing the next few weeks locally. TNT”, of the Death riders, he invited her to join his show. After Billy had heard her volunteer to get into the box to be blown up with Danny Reed, aka “Mr. It was at their third show that she was hired by stuntman Billy Ward, owner of “Billy Ward’s World Champion Auto dare devils, another stunt show. Jan started her stunt career in Texas after watching the Death riders Motorcycle stunt show perform in the summer of 1973.
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