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todays photo

I

IanC

Well-known Member
OK, so today is bike picture day. This is a photo of E.J Potter on his jet engined bike. His original claim to fame was a bike with a small block Chevy. He was called The Michigan Madman. Not much formal education, but a mechanical genius. Here is a link to the web site, lot of neat stuff. https://themichiganmadman.com/

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He ran that bike once. He ran it off the end of the strip,did a face plant and bent his neck back. The swelling caused him to be paralyzed for a while and he was afraid it was permanent. He sold it to Evil Knievel.
 
nice old picture!Did I hear you say its bike picture day?Im gonna post a picture of my mom again!
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OK, I "borrowed" this off the web site. I do not own the rights to this photo, it belongs to the Potter family. Please visit the web site. https://themichiganmadman.com/
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That one was called Double ugly. Two Allison V1710 aircraft engines. Picture is taken at their family farm outside Ithaca MI.
 
The turbine and compressor rotor would be a high percentage of the vehicle weight. I would suspect the Coriolis effect would make that bike difficult to control in a turn once the rotor was up to full speed. Throttle response might have a long of lag time. He's a lot braver than I am if he he tried to drive that bike.
 
EJ used to bring his wild tractors down to the Berrien County Fair back in the 70's as well. I seem to remember a snowmobile pony motor to start the Allison, tensioned the belt with a idler pulley on a 2X4 and those Allisons threw some fire! I like to think he left the rigs unpainted/crude on purpose.
 
I remember seeing his Chevy engine motorcycle in Hot Rod magazine in the '60's. At the starting line the rear wheel was up on a stand, with the engine revved and the wheel spinning a friend shoved it off the stand and he smoked the tire the whole quarter mile with a top end speed in the 160's. He used some combine parts in the drive train. Darwin must have been looking the other way.
 
This is my Dad probably late 30s or early 40s. When we copied Mom's pictures 6-7 years ago she knew nothing about the picture.---Tee
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Here's a few more. The second one is when he won the national championship. They wanted to disqualify him because he was leaking oil on the track,so he wrapped his rain coat around it. The umbrella was just to really tweak the track officials.
Third one is EJ with his son Jake.
The bike was one of the last Bloody Mary bikes. He built a new one every winter because the frame couldn't take the stress.
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I think that was actually a W24 not two V12s. It was one block with four rows of 6 cylinders.
 
Motorcycles? Sure... I will play. First photo is me on the latest build I did on a 2012 Softail Deluxe. MISS that bike... Second photo is when I drove my 04 Night Train straight through from MN to TX, through the middle of the Moore, OK F5 tornado. Worst weather I ever saw in my life.

So far have built a total of 5. 1970 Sportster XLCH (photo 3), 1971 Sportster XLCH (photo 4), 2007 Honda Shadow (photo 5), 2004 Harley Softail Night Train, and 2012 Softail Deluxe.

Four wheels move the body, but two wheels move the soul.
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Tee ...... maybe your dad kept his bike hidden in the barn (like YT'ers hide tractors from their wives) and the photo was taken when your mom was in town shopping? A guy wonders where that Indian ended up, would be a very valuable unit nowadays.
 
Years ago A good friend of mine called the 800 number to order E.J's book. E.J. answered the phone. It was his home in Fla.and they talked abit.
 

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Couldn't resist this thread. Love racing my Vintage motorcycles. First pic is me on my 74 CanAm. Second pic is me on my 73 Husky. Third pic is me on my 72 Penton Trials bike.
 
Gordo, Thanks for posting the Can-Am picture. I had a 74 250 Mx from 1975 to 2008, that thought it was 500, damn thing ran so good and the engine was rebuilt for the first time in 2008.
 
I saw him run that Chevy engine bike here in town,at New England Dragway.I was probably 14 at the time.I was curious about how he took off with the bike up on the stand.He was pretty nice explaining it to us kids.He had that rear stand guaged to hold the tire a certain distance above the ground.when the lights on the christmas tree started coming down he would start to rev it.When he got to a certain RPM the tire would expand from centrifugal force,and strike the ground.Then he was off.He ran a consistant 160 at that track.He smoked that tire the whole length of the strip.He told us to watch him from the rear also.He didn't go straight,that bike was at an angle from the torque all the way down the strip.I can remember him coming down the return lane,no hands on the bars,pulling his helmet off,and the guy handing him his timing slip as he idled by the little timing shack.He had no clutch so he couldn't stop for it.
 
Bikes like that is why I stopped racing in the 60's. No matter what I did to my Harley 250 sprint, it would never keep up with newer two strokes right of the show room floor. Back then I couldn't justify a new bike, just to brake more bones. stan
 
Ken Christopherson -- I used to ride a bike when young, but never got into the whole biker craze. But when I look at that first pic, it sure does look uncomfortable! I know nowdays, I'd be happy to even GET my arms up that high, much less leave them there. *lol*
 
Did you ever see that contraption he built to replace a pulling sled? He said it would revolutionize tractor pulling. He had it at a pull at Crystal Motor Speedway one Sunday afternoon. It had turbines on it and a pair or 24.5 32 tires. It must have worked something like what they used in the Nebraska Tractor Tests. He had an old ammo box on the back of it and after every pull,they'd open it up and get some digital reading. Trouble is,every pull was a full pull. They'd just go three hundred feet,stop and read the meter. It was about as exciting as watching paint dry.

They pulled a couple of classes with it that day then hooked back on to the weight transfer machine. I know it sure wasn't the show I'd paid to see. I don't know that anybody else cared for it either. I never saw it again. I don't know if he ever took it anywhere else or not. There wasn't even any mention of it in either one of his books.
 
EJ's dad was a professor at Alma College. They lived in town and had a farm. EJ used to have to ride his bicycle out to the farm all the time,so he put a small gas engine on it to make the ride easier. He was laid up one time and got a book from the library that told how to grind valves. It all took off from there.
 
Gordo ..... great pics, I remember a friend of mine had a Can Am that looked much like the one in your photo, same tank graphics. I had a Husky CR390 that I bought from a guy at what I thought was cheap. When I took the right engine side cover off a few weeks later to check the timing, the crankshaft/flywheel nut wasn't there. The flywheel was still on OK, the shaft must have been tapered.d A bit dangerous, the guy was not particularly honest. You probably know that's a left hand thread, the guy that sold it to me didn't know that and he likely used an impact wrench on it and held it on till it came off the hard/expensive way .... ha! I believe I found a crank from a CR250 that fit, is that possible? God that bike was fun to start with the left side kick starter. Best bet was standing on the bench seat of a picnic table on my left foot and start it with my right foot from the bike's left side. And I found out never attempt it without a motocross boot on my foot. I still have one bike left, a '76 Hodaka Road Toad 100 that I bought in '93 for $115 or something like that. Pretty neat little bike, if I wasn't so darned old and decrepit, I would plate it and insure it since it's a street legal enduro-style ride. Actually, it's a decent-sized bike for a 100, not a dinky little thing like some 100's.
 
Wow, The 74 250 MX1 is a rare bike. If you ever want to sell it, let me know. Feel free to email me, right from the forum. I have plenty more pics and enjoy talking bikes as much as tractors.
Always wonder why so many people don't except emails. I get some very helpful emails from this forum, from folks who don't want to post on the site.
 
Back in the sixties if I remember Potter had a dodge station wagon with an Allison aircraft 12Cyl. in it. His seat was way back of the wagon near the rear window.
 
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