The Joe Potts Trophy

I was recently looking through some old files when I came across something I wrote a few years ago for the first time the Joe Potts trophy was presented.

The Joe Potts trophy is presented annually at the Scottish Classic Racing Motorcycle Club’s Bob McIntyre memorial meeting. The trophy is awarded to the best performance by a rider over the weekend, who resides in Scotland. Along with the trophy the winner is given a bottle of Scotch Whisky, because as Bob McIntyre said regarding Jimmy Buchan’s double Manx GP victory in 1956 aboard Joe Potts Norton – “You can’t beat a double Scotch”.

The trophy is not only to remember Joe Potts but also the rest of the ‘Bellshill Beehive’ who worked with him.

The trophy consists of a titanium connecting rod, which was donated very kindly by Summerfield Engineering, mounted onto a Scottish granite base. The Granite base was donated by the Joe Potts funeral Parlour. The base is broadly machined into the shape of a coffin (remember Joe also ran a funeral parlour) and was polished by hand. In the big-end eye of the connecting rod there is an aluminium plug with the JP logo (from the JP cars made by Joe) machined into it. The little-end eye has another aluminium plug which has a Scottish thistle hand engraved onto it. The plate on the front of the trophy is also engraved in hand and says “The Joe Potts trophy, remembering the achievements of the Bellshill Beehive”. The engraving was done by the man who engraves the World Championship Snooker trophy.