Some folks like to take their time on the can. Not Paul Stender. When the 43-year-old former pit mechanic feels the need for speed, he straps himself into his jet-engine-equipped toilet and roars off, trailing flame. Stender was running superfast snowmobiles on the drag-racing circuit when he saw his first jet-driven funny car. He liked it so much he bought one, and started building his own outlandishly overpowered vehicles: a jet motorcycle, a jet pickup, a jet school bus. Then one day at a show in Texas, he saw a windstorm blow portable toilets across the tarmac, and it was Newton's apple all over again.
Powered by a 50-year-old, 750-pound Boeing jet turbine that Stender bought for $5,000, the "Port-O-Jet" can top 46 mph with a tailwind. "It's not real aerodynamic," he allows. That said, he's beaten buddy Tim Arfons's jet barstool two of the four times they've raced.On Stender's blackboard is a jet-powered beer truck with a 24,000-horsepower F-16 engine. His advice to wannabe jet-engine hobbyists: Be careful. "So many things can go wrong," he says. "You suck in a piece of garbage, it's going to explode—and you're going to go with it." |