In the tradition of Leyland Goodspeed, an Indianapolis racer and the first head of Checker Engineering, we introduce you to another racer, Rich Von Sneidern. We first met Rich Von Sneidern in April of 2013 with a friendly introduction. He wrote as follows, “Another noob here. I rescued this one from the
crusher late last summer. I just finished transplanting a 350sbc and 4speed. It’s going to be a road racer, cage construction starts next week. It’s a ’78 and had a junk 6cyl in it with a propane carb. I’m not sure if that’s original or not, the whole trunk area had been hacked out and there was no fuel tank.”
Room for Five!
Well Rich did finish Race Taxi and has put it in various events at Sear Point among other. No longer a standard taxi, it is still quite a fantastic Checker! According to Rich “Even with the cage, 5 people fit comfortably.” Other modifications included engine placements. According to Rich “I moved the engine back a little, which put the drivers side exhaust manifold right into the steering box. So I took some factory log exhaust manifolds and flipped them upside down. They take the 180* turn and run down the sides of the body with an exit in front of the rear tires.”
The results have been impressive, again according to Rich “In action on the road course. I’ve had it up to about 120mph, if I can believe the tach” Think about that, a 120 mph Checker!
Thankfully Rich has done a great job posting photographic updates and video. If interested, there is a great short video on Youtube.
Crunched by a little of lady!
Four years later in October 2017, we had some bad news. Rich Von Sneidern posted “So the race taxi had a bit of a mishap whilst parked in front of my house. I need to start putting together info so I can wrestle with inattentive-grandma’s insurance company.” Oh no! Our favorite Race Checker got squashed, and not in a race! It was hit by a little old lady!
We have an update, today, Rich updated the ICTA Facebook page with an encouraging post “It’s fixed enough for a race in 2 weeks. The butt is a little lumpy, but hey, it’s 40 years old”. We look forward to more racing highlight, we hope Rich has a great racing season for 2018!
So ends our update on the fasted Checker in the world. If you know of any other fast Checkers please let us know by contacting us via comments or on the email address at the top right.
A little beaten up, but ready to race!
