ausauto News Article

Stranger in a strange land

It's been called Junkyard Dog, Ugly Mongrel and more commonly known as Old Yeller II, but when Los Angeles dentist Ernie Nagamatsu said that he would return for the 2008 Tasman Revival he knew that he would be more than welcome, writes Patrick Quinn.

The 2008 Tasman Revival was run at Sydney's Eastern Creek over the last weekend of November and was a resounding success.

In late 2006 the NSW-based Historic Sports and Racing Car Association held the first Tasman Revival and while everyone had a great time it was less than a financial success.

Undaunted the HSRCA immediately launched into the organising of the 2008 Revival and brought in a number of supporters including Repco and Shannons.

As the name Tasman Revival implies, the reason behind it all is to recapture those halcyon days of the 1960s.

A period when the cream of international motor racing headed south for the Tasman Series of openwheeler races in New Zealand and Australia.

During the period 1964 to 1969 the Tasman formula was limited to engines with a maximum capacity of 2 1/2 litres.

This brought in a whole range of interesting engines from Ferrari, Repco, Coventry Climax and BRM.

After 1969, the Australian national formula changed to Formula 5000, as did the Tasman Cup and the 5-litre V8 powered cars were used through to 1975.

For the 2006 Tasman Revival the HSRCA invited cars from across the world and did the same in 2008.

They came too, with cars and competitors from the UK, New Zealand, USA, Hong Kong and seven from Japan.

Amongst those cars that visited our shores in 2006 was Ernie Nagamatsu's OYII with the result that no only was Ernie taken with the Australian historic racing scene, it was also vice versa.

Ernie certainly didn't have to be asked twice if he wanted to return in 2008.

Max, pictured Max giving instructions to Carroll Shelby before the 1960 Road America Grand Prix, and Ina Balchowsky are names that will mean nothing to most Australians, but will certainly mean a great deal to followers of US circuit racing of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

After growing up in West Virginia, Max spent WW2 as a belly gunner of a B-24 Liberator bomber and following hostilities moved to California where he married Ina and together they set up Hollywood Motors.

Max specialised in engine transplants, boasting that he could "replace anything with anything" and Hollywood Motors was destined to become the Mecca for hot rods and performance tuning.

It wasn't long before Max became interested in circuit racing and started designing cars by drawing the outlines of his ideas in chalk on the workshop floor.

Max acquired a Plymouth powered car called the Morgensen Special and after pulling it apart rebuilt it with a Buick "nailhead" V8.

Why a Buick engine? Balchowsky had his reasons and knew that it was more powerful than the popular Chevrolet V8 and due to it smaller valves would also rev harder and faster.

It is also said that he built the chassis for his cars from scrap tube steel.

The yellow colour?

Max was visited by a friend who was a professional Hollywood studio photographer.

One look at the car Max was building and he proclaimed it as a mongrel, not unlike that in Disney's new motion picture "Old Yeller", the story of a stray mongrel that defended its adoptive family from a rabid wolf.

Balchowsky liked the connection and even painted the car yellow to match the colour of the dog.

He later estimated that Old Yeller II cost him all of $1,500 to build.

Expensive! Probably due to its Studebaker rear end, Morris Minor steering and $40.00 Jaguar gearbox.

Not long after it was finished Max put friend Dan Gurney into the seat and while describing the car as "comfortable as a baby buggy" Gurney went on to set a lap record at Riverside before the Buick's crank cried enough.

Later Carroll Shelby had a chance to run the car, complete with whitewall tyres at the Elkhart Lake circuit where it came home some 37 seconds in front of Lance Reventlow's Scarab.

The Scarab was one of a small series of cars that cost Reventlow, son of Woolworths' heir Barbara Hutton most of his fortune.

To finance Old Yeller III Balchowsky sold off OYII and like most old racing cars it past through many hands and even spent some time on the drag strip. Luckily it found its way into the hands of Ernie Nagamatsu.

Ernie is the perfect owner for Old Yeller II and I had the chance to chat with him at the Tasman Revival. Ernie used to race a 289 Shelby Cobra and is also an artist, poet and historian.

Ernie was a friend of the Balchowskys and it is clear that he is passionate about Old Yeller II and just a few weeks beforehand, both were special guests at the Goodwood Revival in the UK.

Of course he is well aware of the history of his car, and sure Old Yeller II looks more than a little used around the edges.

The body shows the scars of races past, however lined up against the likes of Birdcage Maseratis, Aston Martins and Ferraris it more than holds its own.

Just the way Max and Ina Balchowsky would have liked it.

Max Balchowsky built a total of 10 Old Yellers, but several have been written off or have gone missing. Old Yeller III is in the Petersen Automotive Museum at Los Angeles.

It was a pleasure to get up close and comfortable with such a wonderful and evocative historic racing car.