[Steve Barcak]

I built chopper bikes too. I thought the cleanest and nicest looking way to do it was to use a Schwinn springer front end off of a 26" paper boy special. Take this front end and fit it to your 2O" Stingray. It gave a good look and stil handled and steered well.
In 8th grade, went to extremes and designed aa bike with a 12' fork extension. Realizing that that length of fork would put a goofy angle on the bike frame, I had a friends dad, section part of the front of my frame to allow a more forward angle to the fork and keep the bike itself somewhat level. It looked great but, by adding to much caster the bike was not rideable as you could not steer it to keep your balance. Oh well,.

Here is another bike. This one ran an injected little chev on nitro. Note the kick stand lifted the rear tire off of the ground. He would stage his bike, put it on the stand, fire the motor and rev it to the moon and then kick the stand off and he would blaze down the track in tire smoke. Talk about nuts!! ..and he lived through the 6Os too! His name was EJ Potter and his nickname was "The Michigan Mad Man"!

I have video of him running this at Beeline in 1965.

[Deadhead]

He musta had some legs to kick start that bad boy! That seat is something else too. Killer photo.

[68bird400HO]

Originally Posted by Steve Barcak

I built chopper bikes too. I thought the cleanest and nicest looking way to do it was to use a Schwinn springer front end off of a 26" paper boy special. Take this front end and fit it to your 2O" Stingray. It gave a good look and stil handled and steered well.
In 8th grade, went to extremes and designed aa bike with a 12' fork extension. Realizing that that length of fork would put a goofy angle on the bike frame, I had a friends dad, section part of the front of my frame to allow a more forward angle to the fork and keep the bike itself somewhat level. It looked great but, by adding to much caster the bike was not rideable as you could not steer it to keep your balance. Oh well,.

Here is another bike. This one ran an injected little chev on nitro. Note the kick stand lifted the rear tire off of the ground. He would stage his bike, put it on the stand, fire the motor and rev it to the moon and then kick the stand off and he would blaze down the track in tire smoke. Talk about nuts!! ..and he lived through the 6Os too! His name was EJ Potter and his nickname was "The Michigan Mad Man"!

I have video of him running this at Beeline in 1965.

Interesting to see this picture. My brother was big into the bike thing and started tracking down these bikes. About 10 years ago he bought a custom built dragster bike built around 1967 and powered by a 427 side oiler. This bike was featured in some magazines back then. I believe he bought it from Don Garlits. The bike is in as-raced condition and he was going to restore it. He also tracked down two of the widow-maker bikes raced by EJ Potter. These were powered by chevy 350s and later versions of these bikes were renamed Bloody-Marys. I know he has all of these bikes documented. Attached are some pictures of the dragster bike in his basement and of one of the Widow-Maker (Bloody Mary) bikes in my garage when he picked it up in MI. Cool Stuff...