Event Coverage E.J. Potter at the Gilmore Car Museum's "1/4 Mile at a Time"

I have a motorcycle ch***is dyno he built and sold in the 70s. It uses an (surplus I bet) aircraft generator splined to a jack shaft driven by a roller driven by the rear wheel. The electricical gets fed into some giant resistors that get HOT. To keep the engine under test cool off he provided 3600 rpm motor stuck on a stand made from a big iron plate. There is a wicked 2 blade fan mounted directly to the shaft hanging out in the air with no shroud, but with a minimal wire guard around the blades. The control center is a smallish gray steel box. A single meter reading volts is mounted on the box, along with a lone black knob that controls "something" to vary the load. The type written instructions include a chart to convert the volts to HP. The instructions suggest doubling the resulting measurements to telling the bike owner.

 

edwierd - This what you were looking for?

 

If you jump over to the Jockey Journal and find the VINTAGE FUEL DRAG BIKE topic I wrote a 3 part series of my encounters with "The Michigan Madman". Part one and two is on page 25 and tells of my first encounter in the early '60s. Part 3 on page 28 tells of my involvement in him coming out of retirement in 1999 after 27 years and the tragedy he witnessed shortly afterwards. Maybe one of you can post a link since I don't know how. I posted some pictures of his '99 smokey p***.

 

http://www.jockeyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66727&highlight=vintage&page=28


now im going back to have a read...........

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I got to witness his coming out of retirement in 99 and thanks Frank for convincing him to do it. I will never forget watching the bike leave in a smoke cloud when he nudger it off the stand wide open. That has to be one of the wildest rides in drag racing

 

On one of my first trips to dragway 42 in the early 70's I saw Potter run, Evel set the jump record and the green monster crashed. What a show it was. JC

 

This was his last run back in '99

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUu9P3CKSMI

 

I knew that guy from way back, before he built the Chevy/Harley. At the Stanton drags he told us he was going home and put a Chevy in his Harley. Right...sure you are.
The rest is history. What a guy.

 

Here are some pictures of E.J. I took about 1964 or `65 at Farmington dragway east of Winston Salem NC. He was racing a jet car and he put on quote a show. When I talked to him, he said he changed the throttle cable EVERY time. He told me it stuck one time and he wasn`t going to take that chance again.

 

This is so cool!! I would love to see this fab exhibit some time. Sounds like a nice trad show to attend, If Pov flats and Lady D. give it a stamp of approval, its good. Thanx for the hip post. Danny, thanx for those awesome MoPar pix, monster stuff! ~sololobo~