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Ole Oleson Evinrude, inventor of the outboard motor was born on a farm outside of Christiana, Norway on 19th April, 1877. One of his earliest memories was on the family’s emigration to America when he was five: he spent almost the whole trip in the ship’s engine room. The family settled in Cambridge, Wisconsin, where young Evinrude abandoned grade school early – because it was too easy. (He much preferred working with farm tools and machinery.) There he met another gasoline-sniffing pioneer, Arthur Davidson, who lived on his grandmother´s farm. Ole was four years older than Arthur Davidson and considerably more worldly. He had worked in machine-shops in Madison, Pittsburgh and Chicago. Nights he studied books on gasoline engineering and soon he began experimenting.

During a picnic on an island with his fiancée in the summer of 1906 he made a 5-mile roundtrip by rowboat in 90-degree heat to fetch his beloved ice cream. That experience made him realize that an automobile was not the only vehicle that could benefit from a gasoline engine. Ole Evinrude finished his first outboard motor in 1907 with test runs being done on Lake Ripley. Although other inventors had experimented with the outboard motor, Evindrude’s was the first commercial success. And even to this day, outboard motors are basically the same: using Ole’s idea of a vertical crankshaft, horizontal flywheels, and set of bevel gears. Today Evinrude motors will propel a boat a bit faster than the ’07 version (150 mph versus 5 mph).

Information from: MIT School of Engineering – Inventor of the week profile Jan. 1999

Additional information from: ( www.lawnboy.com/about/history/index.html )

1921: Ole Evinrude produced a smaller, lightweight motor called the Evinrude Light Twin Outboard, or the ELTO.

1926: The original Evinrude Motor Company was sold to Briggs and Stratton in Milwaukee, a pioneer firm in the field of small gasoline engines founded by Stephen F. Briggs and Harry Stratton.

1926: Briggs and Stratton Directors voted against continuing in the outboard motor field. Briggs, however, decided to remain in the field and formed a syndicate with Ole Evinrude, merging ELTO, Evinrude, and the Lockwood-Ash Motor Company into the Outboard Motors Corporation. Evinrude took the role of President and Briggs was the Chairman of the Board.

1932 The original Lawn-Boy was manufactured by the Evinrude Company and became the first one-handed reel power mower introduced to the American public.

1934 Ole Evinrude passed away and his son, Ralph, inherited the presidency.

The founding father of Lawn-Boy, Ole Evinrude, never realized that his search for ways to improve his chances with the woman he loved back in 1904 would lead to a multi-million dollar business. Neither could he have predicted the appreciation of millions of homeowners.

Harley - Davidson

As mentioned above, Ole Evinrude became childhood friend with Art Davidson and Bill Harley in the early 1880s when the boys (Art and Bill) would come to Cambridge to visit their grandmother. Since 1914 Harley-Davidson has given credit to Evinrude for helping our heroes get a start, usually with their carburetor. Evinrude´s roller tappets and his oil routing system to the crankpin are still used on Harley-Davidson Engines today.

Excerpt from

Myth, Reality, and the Origin of the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle, 1901-1909
by Herbert Wagner Speech from Madison Book Festival October 25, 2003
Shrewdly, instead of attempting to improve what they already had, the boys dropped their crude motor-bicycle project cold and started fresh. First they needed that bigger engine and it appears that they found it in the machine shop of Ole Oleson Evinrude, another gasoline-sniffing pioneer and later of outboard motor fame.

There are so many unique design similarities between Evinrude’s engine of 1903 and Harley’s engine of 1905 that one suspects good-natured Ole encouraged young Bill Harley to adapt the Evinrude engine for motorcycle use. Ole had been building engines for sale since at least 1902 and we also know that Arthur Davidson worked in Ole’s pattern shop around this time. Later “official” histories handed out by Harley-Davidson credit Evinrude with helping the boys, and that help appears to be the larger Harley engine first seen on the market in 1905.

But that larger and more powerful engine created a problem: a suitable frame or chassis to put it in. The boys found the answer to that difficulty in the product of another early Milwaukee motorcycle builder: the Merkel Manufacturing Company. In business since 1901, the Merkel firm introduced a new model with a highly advanced loop-frame in 1903 that in time would become the industry standard. No longer would builders try to adapt gasoline engines to bicycle frames, but instead would build the frame around the engine in a continuous loop. While this new frame type would define the modern motorcycle, it took other builders time to figure that out. Indian, then the industry leader, wouldn’t adopt a loop-frame until 1909. The keen intuition of Harley’s founders is shown in that when the first marketable Harley-Davidson motorcycles appeared in 1905 they looked nearly identical to the Merkel.

Not until April of 1905 do we find the first evidence of complete Harley-Davidson motorcycles for sale. We even know where one of those first 1905 Harleys was delivered: to Peter Olson, a rural mail carrier living a few miles from here in Cambridge, Wisconsin.

For more from this speech (and history on Harley Davidson Motorcycles) go to:

http://www.atthecreation.com/speeches.etc/mad.bk.fest.html

Matt Kenseth

Born and raised in Cambridge, Wis., Kenseth began his racing career at the age of 16, winning his first feature event in only his third race. By the age of 19, Kenseth was racing against the likes of Dick Trickle, Ted Musgrave and Rick Bickle in the Wisconsin late model ranks. With a win in LaCrosse, Wis., Kenseth set a new record for being the youngest winner in ARTGO Challenge Series history, a distinction previously held by his future teammate Mark Martin. Kenseth wins his second consecutive Bristol night race in 2006.

Kenseth took the Wisconsin racing ranks by storm in the early 1990s, winning races and track titles at venues all across Wisconsin, including the Madison International Speedway and Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna. In 1994 Matt became the youngest driver ever to win the prestigious Miller Genuine Draft National championships.

The Kenseth-Reiser tandem debuted on April 19, 1997, at the Nashville Speedway, where Kenseth drove the No. 17 Reiser Enterprises Monte Carlo to an 11th place finish. Kenseth went on to capture two top-five and seven top-10 finishes in 21 starts and finished second in the Rookie of the Year battle.

In 1998, Kenseth’s first full Busch Series season, he finished second in the championship points battle with three wins and made his first NEXTEL Cup start. Substituting for Bill Elliott in the McDonald’s Ford at Dover Downs in September, Kenseth drove to a remarkable sixth-place finish in only his first run with NASCAR’s elite.

The 2000 season was a breakout year for Kenseth as he joined the NEXTEL Cup Series full-time. He captured his first career victory at the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and earned four top-five and 11 top-10 finishes en route to a 14th place finish in the championship point standings. His matchless consistency earned him Raybestos Rookie of the Year honors.

Kenseth, Reiser and Roush Racing made it all click in 2003 as the No. 17 DEWALT Tools Ford team won the final Winston-era Cup Championship with a record-setting performance.

This biography information is courtesy of the Matt Kenseth Fan club – for information on Matt please visit: www.mattkenseth.com

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