Robbie “Maddo” Maddison has jumped further on a motorbike than anyone else. But right now he is lying face down in the Texan mud, the rear wheel of his crashed bike spinning forlornly as the crowd take a collective intake of breath.

Most of the 20,000 fans packed inside America’s biggest rodeo arena in Fort Worth are used to seeing blood spilt by hapless bull riders. But this time they’re worried because Maddison, the greatest stunt rider since Evel Knievel, looks hurt.

His knee is buckled the wrong way. He hobbles to his feet and the crowd cheer as he stamps his leg back into shape. Then with 10 toes all pointing roughly in the same direction he ignores the stewards who have rushed to the scene, picks up his bike, gingerly sits side-saddle and does a lap of honour around the stadium. The fans go wild.

Wasn’t he tempted to wait for a stretcher? “Ah no, mate,” says the 27-year-old Australian afterwards. “It seemed to click back into place okay.”

Welcome to the world of extreme bike stunts. The most wincingly painful spectator sport in the world — and one that probably boasts more broken bones per meeting than any other. Maddison, the undisputed star of the show, says he has got away pretty lightly over the course of his career: a broken neck, three seizures, two punctured lungs, a snapped collarbone and four broken wrists. “It bloody hurts, mate, but I was born on a bike,” he says. “I jumped 120ft when I was just eight years old.”

Maddison’s speciality is long-range jumps. Earlier this year he landed in Guinness World Records with a mammoth leap of 351ft 11in. It was the sort of distance that immediately invited comparisons to Knievel, the stunt rider of the 1970s who died last year.

Knievel holds the world record for bones broken in a lifetime, and became a household name after attempting ever more outlandish stunts, including jumping over a tank full of sharks and a failed attempt at leaping the fountains outside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

“I spoke to him on the telephone a year before his death,” says Maddison. “He wanted me to go and jump for him at some event, but I couldn’t make it up there. I said I’d go this year instead but now it’s too late.

“I have massive respect for him. He used a bike that was way too heavy. The Harley had pretty standard suspension so there was a massive kick when he landed. It’s no wonder he fell off so much, but what he achieved was out of this world. And his takeoff ramps were too flat, mine are almost twice as steep.”

As well as long-distance jumps, Maddison specialises in what can only be described as aerial displays. Leaping 50ft into the air, he will detach himself from the bike and hold onto the handlebars to perform a series of acrobatic manoeuvres before finding the saddle again for the landing. It was during one of these at the Red Bull X-Fighters motocross competition in Fort Worth that he came a cropper and fell to earth.

Doesn’t he ever get scared? “As I leave the ground I lean forward and look up, but it’s so frightening because the landing point looks far away,” he says. “It’s a totally terrifying experience but a major adrenaline rush too.”

Maddison plans to break his own world record with a leap of 400ft later this year, possibly in China. It is a distance that even his idol Knievel said was impossible. “I try and push things,” he says. “Every jump, I want to take it further than the last.”

He might just make it. While Knievel rode a heavy Harley-Davidson for his attempts, Maddison uses a custom-built 500cc Honda. “The bike’s as light as possible so I don’t even have instruments like a speedo or rev counter. We set up a radar check on the approach and the speed is flashed up by the ramp for me. When I go for 400ft I need to hit around 110mph at takeoff.”

So what is it like to approach a 40ft-tall ramp at 100mph and launch yourself into the sky with nothing but two wheels to cushion your fall? Immediately, I wish I hadn’t asked.

Maddo tells me to jump on the back of his bike. He is wearing just an oversize T-shirt like he often does when competing. “Body armour gets in the way sometimes. A lot of the guys just wear gloves and boots — it’s no wonder their bodies are a mess,” he says, gunning the engine.

He pulls up his T-shirt to show me what he means. There’s a 15in-square plaster on his back where the skin was ripped from his body the night before. I try not to peel it off as I cling on around his waist.

The Honda isn’t designed for two, but Maddison revs to the limit and sends us full speed towards a jump. It’s a rough dirt track and I’m not sure this guy isn’t mad enough to take the gamble with me on the back.

“I block out the crowd as I approach the jump,” he yells over his shoulder. “I’ve really got to concentrate on the noise of the motor, that’s totally how I judge my distance; if the motor isn’t at the correct note it’s goodbye Maddo. There is a point of no return. Once you’re on the ramp that’s it, the momentum will make you jump.”

At the last moment he pulls up short with a skid. My heart is pumping like a piston and I am spluttering in the cloud of dust the bike has kicked up, but Maddo doesn’t seem to notice. “After I take off, well then it’s all about the crowd,” he says gazing around the stadium. “I’m trying to show off as much as I can.”

Red Bull X-Fighters begins on the Dave TV channel on August 10