Competitor: Paul Stender.

Claim to fame: Built the Port-o-Jet, a jet-powered out house on wheels, in 2001, at Indy Boys, Brownsburg.

Why: Why not? “It seemed kind of different.”

Stender has been in the business of attaching jet engines to traditionally non-jet powered vehicles since 1996. He was at an air show in El Paso, Texas, in 2001, when inspiration struck. A windstorm swept across the tarmac, blowing a row of Port-O-Letscq across the grounds. “They sat upright; they didn’t blow over,” Stender said.

A little more than a week later, he built the Port-o-Jet, a task made easier by the fact that Stender estimates he has “about 20 jet engines lying around.” Stender said that while it was never easy to acquire jet engines, the process was made more difficult after 9/11. “Now you really need to have a lot of friends,” he said.

Jet-powered potties and school buses are fun and profitable for Stender, who makes a living on the air show circuit, but his real dream is to break the world land speed record. He is trying to raise $500,000 — a shoestring budget, he says — to turn a retired fighter jet into a 1,000-mile-per-hour car.

Why? Why not?

View some of Paul Stender’s other inspired creations at www.Indyboysinc.com