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Fowlerville Michigan | I remember when he used to pull at our county fair.
http://obit.smithfamilyfuneralhomes.com/obitdisplay.html?id=1066239... |
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Kingston,Mi | I remember reading about his drag racing adventures in the hot rod magzines of the time. Thought he would have been older. |
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Tuscola County, MI | My dad was lucky enough to know him and compete against him. Some of the stories he has told me are so very interesting. |
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Martinsville, Ohio | I remember Robert Holmes talking with EJ back in the good ole days of tractor pulling.
I guess he was known for more than tractors.
http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2006/05/08/ej-potter-michigan-madman/
http://www.mmshof.org/inductees/Potter_EJ.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=pictures+of+ej+potter+pulling&hl=en&qscrl=1&nord=1&rlz=1T4ADRA_enUS421US421&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=tFakT5aTHcji0QGln_iGBQ&ved=0CEUQsAQ&biw=1152&bih=630
Ed |
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West Central Wisconsin | I noticed while reading his obituary it mentioned his "talents and abilities and love for the Allison aircraft engine". Towards the end of the obituary it says he is survived by a son Jack and a daughter, Alison. Joe |
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Chebanse, IL..... | I thought that EdB might notice that EJ built an electric car for the drags that ran 120 back in the '60s. I'm sure it was all lead-acid batteries.
R.I.P. EJ Potter, "The Michgan Madman"! |
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SC KY | We met him once in the pit of a tractor pull, those airplane engines. lol. |
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Mid Michigan | I've seen him pull those tractors dozens of times. He almost always won. Usually would show up by himself and load it all up on an old flatbed trailer with GMC astro pulling the two tractors around. One night at a pull in Ithaca he blew a rod in the old allison so he took it out and ran with 11 cylinders and still won his class. Watched him take that double ugly tractor around the Ionia Free Fair race track one night at about 60 mph in the dark. He got done pulling and they unhooked him and he opened it up around the backstretch on the way back to the pits. Had the whole crowd laughing. I remember seeing him coming through St. Johns Mi. one night at about 2am with that Astro and the two tractors and read in the paper he had been out to LA California with the two tractors and had won the world championship with them. He lived by Ithaca Mi on a farm that had a lot of gadgets out in the fields around the place sitting in the weeds. I've driven by there many times. He sold a friend of mine two of those allison engines. I think he still has them. I guess his latest endevor was building and designing jet powered snow melting machines for municiple use. Defenitely was one smart dude. |
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UP / Thumb of Michigan | My Dad first saw EJ drag racing in Indiana in the late 50's. As a side note, some kid from Florida showed up at the same race with a raggedy looking black dragster. Didn't even have a name painted on it, put "Swamp Rat 1" on it with shoe polish. He did all right as the years went by as well. Anyway, at the time there never was really a class that EJ could compete in, so he'd get paid to show up as an exhibition type deal. And he loved to give everyone there money's worth. I've seen him run his bikes a couple of times. I don't think there are many with enough cajones to sit on top of a V-8 powered bike with poor tires and worse brakes, rev it up, and kick it off the stand to launch it. And hold on.
EJ was brilliant, and had a lot of fun besides. Not a bad combo.
Edited by pat-michigan 5/5/2012 09:54
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Eastern North Carolina | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUu9P3CKSMI
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Tractor pulling legend
