BY MATT HELMS
FREE PRESS DRIVING COLUMNIST

Have you seen a huge pothole that everyone ought to know about? A picture of it could win you $250.

The Drive MI Campaign is asking folks to send in photos of tire-killing potholes as part of its effort to get the state to increase spending on Michigan’s crumbling roads.

The competition is already tough.

One Lansing-area contender is “3 feet wide by 3 feet deep — you could lose a small child in it,” said Mike Nystrom, co-chair of the Michigan Transportation Team, a coalition of business, labor, government and road construction industry groups pushing for more spending on roads, including a proposal for a 9-cent gas-tax increase.

The goal of the pothole photo contest is “to increase awareness of the fact that Michigan is in a perpetual pothole season year-round … because our system is in such deplorable condition,” said Nystrom, whose group is funding the Drive MI Campaign.

To send a digital photo by e-mail, go to www.drivemi.org and follow the links. Send in those photos soon. Judging, which is open to the public, lasts through midnight Friday.

Three winners will be announced April 24; each will receive $250 they can use for car repairs or maybe dinner, if they’re lucky enough to have found a winning pothole without damaging their vehicles.