The Cheetah

[Oldfart]

Jerry, thanls very much for the link. Dr Ernie was such an ambassador with the car at the NZ meetings 2 years back, what a car, what a story!
I was priviledged to see his NZ diary, even contributed a recipe.

[Jerry Entin]

Jerry Entin in the Cheetah at Stardust Raceway with Max Balchowsky looking in

Old: Ernie Nagamatsu is trying to keep the Spirit of Max and Ina Balchowsky alive for this generation to see the work they did.

Back to the Cheetah. Everytime I drove it my little toe on my right foot got cooked. The exhaust headers came across that area and kind of cooked my toe medium rare. I had taken the Cheetah to Max Balchowsky to see if he could fix it's handling. He thought it was basically a sprint car that was designed to be run on dirt and that it wouldn't ever handle for road racing and if you wanted to road race it, drive it like a sprint car. I never found anyone who could come up with the solution to make it handle better. I took it to Las Vegas for the first race held at what was called the Stardust Raceway. The Stardust was a hotel in Vegas and they sponsored the building of the track. Max came with me as did Bill Thomas, he was the one who built the Cheetah with the help of Don Edmunds, a sprint car builder and very good welder. The car won against local club racer competition.