Machinations from the Michigan Madman (Part One)

By EJ Potter

EJ Potter, the Michigan Madman, ran this bike at the 1965 AHRA Winternationals at Beeline, Arizona. Photo by Paul Hutchins

Hi, My name's EJ Potter. Never mind what it stands for... You'll only cause yourself to undergo the pain of denial if you ask.

Starting in 1960 I got involved in drag racing, or let's say running on drag strips. What I did was stick a 283 Chevy in an old Hogly-Davidson frame and haul the thing to the local drag strip in central Michigan after the local Gestapo let me become aware that I was not appreciated for trying to operate such a contraption on the streets of the town of Ithaca. Can't say I ever blamed them, I did have a lot of anti-social attitude at that time.

Anyway, having become notorious for constructing this apparatus it was necessary for me to continue the development of the thing so as to avoid the fate of being known as the '60s equivalent of a "turkey."

Eventually I got the thing working and spent 13 years making exhibition runs at tracks across the country, with trips to England and Australia for good measure...

During my so-called career, I saw the corruption of boat racing, stock car racing, drag racing, and tractor pulling. All these initially noble institutions were degraded into a state of prostitution and sleazy phoniness by the corrosive effects of sponsor money. Ironically, most participants of all these motor sports were all knees and elbows rushing pell-mell down the road to hell in a handbasket by their lust for the dollar, the very instrument of evil that would inevitably seal the doom of the sport they all loved to the point of fanaticism.

The evolution of stuff like this goes as follows: There is in the beginning a mechanical contrivance, which evolves from a practical, useful machine, intended to make mankind's work easier. A certain kind of tinkerer can't leave his car, boat, tractor etc. like it is. He has to improve it a little bit. Then somebody sees his work and has to do better. The ensuing spiral generates a vortex of rivalries that escalates all the participants to the point of formal competition or racing...

People like this can never leave well enough alone and eventually someone gets hurt in the process of proving that he is smarter and more daring than the next guy. Word of this gets around, and people want to watch this competition to be on hand when the next accident happens.

Now we need a place for official contests to take place and a promoter to advertise the events and collect the admission fees. So the contestants need to organize themselves to establish rules and standards for the competition, because the promoter ain't the teensiest bit interested in conserving the participants. He wants more gate revenue.

So of course, the smartest and boldest competitors get to be the loudest and most respected when it becomes time to set these rules in stone. By purely natural processes, the rules just happen to fit these guys like a glove, and soon they are winning a majority of the marbles every time.

This gets the attention of the promoters, who are out there beating the bushes for Yankee dollars under and over the table to benefit any sponsor they can find, with publicity.

Of course any money that trickles down the food chain will stop at the feet of the top guys in each class of competition who will consequently become unbeatable and a vicious loop will come into being that will cause any competitor with even half a brain to fade out of competition before he becomes bankrupt trying to keep up with the big boys.

Now we have less guys getting more money and the spiral escalates way beyond the point of sportsmanship and the reason for the sport (fun) is completely lost to everyone concerned.

What? You don't agree? Well, just think about what you saw at the last race you were at. No matter where you were, the pits were full of huge semi trucks with lavish trailers and race vehicles that were mobile billboards for everyone who would give anything to the owners, or even more obscene yet, maybe the giving was done to the promoters or the sanctioning group. The participants had all modified the looks of their creations to please those with the big bucks to throw around in the name of a tax write-off. Artificial environments and garish costumes have denoted the red light district everywhere in the world that I have ever seen. Phoniness and how-can-I-impress-you-now pervade the atmosphere so bad it chokes you.

Anybody connected to motorsports today because he loves engines and wants to see how his mechanical skills stack up is invisible in such a perverted atmosphere of people who have sold out everything for the almighty buck, which is therefore the lifeblood of the community that has completely lost its reason for being.

Ingenuity and originality are completely discounted to the point of being shunned and seen as a threat to the peace and progress of the establishment.

WHAT? Joe Schmerd has made an innovation that lets him win?

• It doesn't cost anything?
• Nobody in California manufactured it?
• No contingency prize money?
• Well to heck with him.
• He's disqualified.
• Who does he think he is, anyway?

Thousands of years ago somebody got famous for saying that the love of money is the root of all evil, and he looks smarter and smarter as time goes by. Since I think I'm so smart, you'll suppose I claim to have some remedy for this situation. It so happens I do, and next month I might tell you what it is. This ain't what I think; it's what I know.

EJ Potter

Part two here: http://www.draglist.com/artman/publish/daily_stories/article_1031.shtml

"MICHIGAN MADMAN" books available at 1-877-A MADMAN

Thanks to Ancel Horton