19 November 2009

Old Yeller II- a star of the show

One of the most significant cars on its way to New Zealand for the Festival of Motor racing is the legendary home built special – Old Yeller II – which will arrive on New Zealand soil for the first time after an astonishing racing career stretching back across six decades.

The "Backyard Special" Old Yeller II Buick Special Race Car was built in the fall of 1959 at the legendary Hollywood Motors in the USA by Max and Ina Balchowsky – who had raced cars in Sports Car Races since the early 1950s before embarking build the completely new Old Yeller II.

Max and Ina first started racing with a borrowed Jaguar XK-120 at the 1951 Reno road races. But the pair knew they had a much faster car in their highly modified 32 Ford Roadster – armed with a Buick motor – appropriately named the Bu-Ford Special. The Bu-Ford Special raced at Pebble Beach and other major sports car races and marked the start of an incredible journey for Max and Ina in road racing where they became regular rivals to the best factory teams from Europe and the USA.

Two more cars followed the Bu-Ford Special, a highly modified Doretti Buick and then the modified Morgensen Special which became known as Old Yeller I. The newly designed Old Yeller II was extremely fast from the start but had durability problems in the first five races. From that point in 1960, the Old Yeller II made racing history competing at all of the major international sports car races as well as almost every other important California sports car race..

Its drivers that year included legendary names like Carroll Shelby (Road America & Santa Barbara), Dan Gurney (Riverside International Raceway & Laguna Seca), Bob Bondurant, Billy Krause, Bobby Drake, Paul O'Shea, and Max Balchowsky himself. Many track records were broken with the Old Yeller II and the "Home Built Backyard Special" competed against the very best and newest Maseratis, Ferraris, Jaguars, and Porsches and a plethora of other road racing "Specials".

Old Yeller II continued racing until 1974 with its last race being a regional race in California. It then languished in a backyard in Fresno for several years until it was discovered by David Gibb who restored Old Yeller II to a basic original configuration and once again – in the early 1990s – the car returned to the track. Current owner Ernie Nagamatsu – a dentist with a background in art - bought Old Yeller II from Gibb and restored the car to the most period correct configuration of 1959.

In recent years Ernie and occasional guest drivers have piloted the yellow legend in race all over the world - from Road America to Coronado Speed Week, the Palm Springs Revival, the Monterey Historic Races and no fewer than five Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Revival Meeting races in the United Kingdom.

A motor racing legend – the car is certain to be a huge draw card for the New Zealand Festival of Motor racing crowds at Hampton Downs and Pukekohe.