by Dr. Iain
Corness
The man behind Pattaya Kart Speedway on Thepprasit Road
is Andreas (Andy) Scheidegger. He is a man who automatically wipes his
hand on his trousers before shaking hands, because Andy is an engineer. A
practical engineer, who is used to getting his hands dirty.
He has had a very colourful background, born in a
farming village in Switzerland where his father had a cheese factory.
However, when Andy was four, his father decided there were too many holes
in the Swiss cheese business, and New Zealand was then looking for people,
so they emigrated.
In New Zealand Andy grew up speaking English with his
father, and German with his mother, who never learned English. He went to
the local school, but since he had to travel by bus to the closest one, he
would endeavour to miss the once a day transport, other than on
woodworking days which he enjoyed.
Remember the old wooden soapbox racers that we all
built? Andy remembers his too. He took the back wheel off, bolted in an
old Briggs and Stratton engine at one corner, using the pulley as the road
wheel and had the first motorized soapbox racer in town! He was 12 years
old at the time.
By the time he was fourteen and a half, Andy had had
enough of school (and if the truth be known, the school had probably had
enough of the poorly attending Andy) and he left, to make his living
milking cows. Three months off his 15th birthday when it was legal to
drive in NZ, he bought his first car. “It was a 1937 Chev,” said Andy,
“but the old man was very upset!”
In those days, cars were very expensive in NZ, so the
old cars had to be kept running. Andy’s 1937 Chev was no different from
all the other old rockets around the place, and Andy became no stranger to
its insides. He began knocking around with the other lads of his own age,
all struggling to keep their auto wheels turning, but Scheidegger Senior
felt his first born was hanging around with the wrong crowd, and Andy was
sent back to Switzerland when he was 17.
Since he had not completed his schooling, it was not
possible for him to get a true apprenticeship, “I had no education,”
said Andy, “so I got a job as a helper in a workshop.” His practical
NZ experience stood him in good stead and after 12 months he was ready for
the next adventure, which was Canada.
Canada needed people at that time, so formal training
certificates were not wanted. They needed people who knew how to do
things, and Andy knew how to do things, or if he didn’t, was quick to
learn and was soon working as a mechanic in Canada, later moving into the
relatively new field (at the time) of automatic transmissions. For fun he
began racing old Chevy’s in oval track events, and enjoyed the thrill of
motor sport.
After two years in the land of the maple leaf he went
back to NZ, getting a position in an “international” dirt track racing
team, joining some Australians and an American. Andy was billed as a
“Canadian”! A few months later he decided to go back to Switzerland to
try his luck there, now as a mechanic.
The Swiss government welcomed him back with open arms,
giving him a set of boots and khaki’s and Andy spent his time doing his
compulsory National Service. Following this he went to work, but after a
couple of years felt the wanderlust again, and hearing that there was big
money to be made in Saudi Arabia he went there. Five months were all he
needed to convince him that being a sand-groper was not for him, and he
returned to Switzerland, opening up a workshop with a partner, and
specializing in automatic transmissions.
Realizing that the secret was quick turn-around, he
went to America and bought reconditioned automatic boxes, bringing them
back to Switzerland, and began offering an exchange service. This took off
and Andy found himself in charge of a very successful business (which is
still going in Switzerland today, though Andy is no longer associated with
it).
By this stage, he was also racing dirt tracks in Europe
with specials derived from large American cars, and spending two months of
every winter overseas. After observing go-kart tracks in Spain on one
holidays, and thinking it looked like a good business, he then came for a
holiday to Thailand. There was an offer of use of a new track being built
here, so he threw four go-karts in a container and shipped them here, only
to find the track was not finished, and the business deal not as good as
he thought it might have been.
He confided in the manager of the hotel he was staying
at, “What the hell am I going to do with these go-karts?” The answer
was to build his own track on some land the manager’s family possessed,
and Andy made the quick decision. In 6 months he had built the first of
the Pattaya Kart Speedway tracks, and he was in business.
With only four karts, he needed more so he had to build
them too. Then as time wore on, it became obvious that downtime was money,
so he began manufacturing parts that made go-kart servicing much easier
and quicker. From there it was a small step to clutches and brakes. Andy,
the practical engineer, knew how to get around the problems.
15 years later and the go-kart track well established, is he sitting
back and taking it easy? No, Andy has just started a new project in
Cambodia, called Nature Waterways Resort. “This is my last project, says
Andy, “I’m too old to do any more.” I am sure this is incorrect.
Andy’s last project will be designing his own coffin! And it will be a
very practical one too!
