[V8Vairs] Doug Hargrove - SCCA Honoree

Wed Dec 3 00:37:54 EST 2014

This week, V8 Registry and Corsa member Doug Hargrove was inducted into the
San Francisco Region SCCA Hall of Fame. Doug is a long time Corvair racer.
He built and still drives a nice Crown V8 Corvair. (This past summer, he
drove it 1600+ miles, round trip, to the Tacoma, WA Corsa Convention. That
is confidence!)

- Seth Emerson
This is the story from the SF Region magazine, The Wheel.

Doug Hargrove
How many of the drivers sitting out there have received the “Transponder
Board” from the Starters or been stopped at Tech and told either that your
transponder battery is low or it isn’t working at all? Years ago, we were
not so computer dependent and everything was done by hand. Remember using
stopwatches? They were standard equipment in Timing and Scoring, along with
individuals who taped the cars as they passed S/F. After that everything
had to be consolidated.
Doug Hargrove was an active racer when he was approached in the mid-80s by
a Steward by the name of Al Brizzard, who asked him if he might be
interested in maintaining the timing equipment. What got him interested was
the
amount of effort and man-hours that it took to time, score and process a
session. By the end of the year, he knew there had to be a better way.
That winter he designed a computer interface board and wrote some basic
software. Over the following year with the help of Bob Stegall, a previous
HOF honoree, a computerized timing system was born. Further development and
improvement were added with the help of many others and in 1987 the R&D
Engineering Timing System was brought into service in the Region. The system

integrated Timing, Scoring, and Entry and reduced the time to produce and
release results. It also provided live unofficial results to Announcing
which was not a feature available before. The system was soon utilized by
other regions as well as by Steve Earle for his Historic Racing Series.
Doug’
s system was a precursor to the current AMB system to which SFR converted
to in the early 2000‘s. Most people thought that R&D stood for Research
and Development--but it really stands for Ruby and Doug Engineering Timing
System. Ruby, of course, is his wife.
Douglas Hargrove Racing History
He purchased his first car in 1965 which was a 1961 Corvair and enjoyed
driving it in the Mountains on the curvy roads. In 1968 after serving three
tours off the coast of Vietnam the Corvair was turned into his first
"fun" car where he drag raced it at Fremont, Vacaville and Kingdom
(Stockton)
raceways. In 1969 he was helping in the startup of a drag strip where he
was designing and building the timing system, staging lights, christmas tree

and the finish line judge. This was near Vernalis at an abandoned Naval
air station between Tracy and Patterson. he saw some cars driving fast on a
large concrete area and went over there to find out what was going on. They
had a course setup and explained that it was an autocross and he could
participate in it for $1.00. WOW, what a blast and the thought of continuing

drag racing never returned. He started running events in the central valley
and in the bay area and jointed Equrie AWOL, a local car club in Modesto.
Chuck Billington was a current member at the time. He was running events
put on in Stockton by the 7-11 Mustang Club and was having a blast winning
some event. The club members were so impressed with his Corvair that they
made him a honorary member of their Mustang club.
In 1971 he purchased a 1965 Corvair just for autocrossing, but kept it
licensed for the street. In 1972 and 73 he won the NORCAL IP class
championship. NORCAL autocross group had plans to raise the 1974 entry fee
50 cents.
To rebel against this increase, he with some friends decided to go road
racing.
Doug joined SCCA in 1974 and went through Drivers School in his 1966 Chevy
Corvair. Walt Moss was his driving instructor. His first race at Sears
Point was April 6th that year. The next year he won the Regional
Championship in D Production and acquired his national license. He continued

Regional racing and ran the national Runoffs twice, finishing 22nd and then
10th
in class. By 1992, he retired the Corvair and started racing a F440, which
he continued until Aug. 2001 when the car was totaled and he had tire marks
and gauges on his helmet--and he had to answer to his wife! That car was
rebuilt and he returned to competition in 2006 running the F500 in the solo
F modified class. He is still an active autocrosser with the Sacramento
Chapter.

Doug's Timeline

1968 to 1973 was an active Corvair drag racer and autocrosser.
1974 joined SCCA San Francisco Region and went through Driver School.
1975 won the regional championship in D production.
1976 campaigned national races in the North Pacific Division and ran in
the national runoff at Road Atlanta finishing 22nd.
1979 May 20 received the Shasta's "Drive of the Weekend" award.
1979 won the regional championship in D production.
1983 campaigned national races in the North Pacific Division and ran in
the national runoff at Road Atlanta finishing 10th, the last year for D
production.
1986 awarded Worker of the Year
1987 won the regional championship in GT3 in the Corvair.
1992 retired the Corvair and started racing a 1987 Red Devil in F440.
1994 won the regional championship in F440
Continued in the F440 / F500 class until Aug 24, 2001 where his car was
totaled at Sears Point, tire marks and gouges on his helmet and he had to
answer to his wife.
He rebuilt the F500 and started running solo event in 2006 campaigning in
the Sacramento, Fresno and SF area events wining several FM championships.

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 9:00 AM, <v8vairs-request at corvair.org> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Power Rack and Pinion for your v8 (Matt Nall)
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>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 13:51:35 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Matt Nall <patiomatt at aol.com>
> To: v8vairs at corvair.org
> Subject: [V8Vairs] Power Rack and Pinion for your v8
> Message-ID: <8D14FC717AD54FD-1BE0-6827D at webmail-vd008.sysops.aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
> rack is out of a 77-78 Merc Bobcat, ford part #D7FZ 3504B, NAPA #
> 269-2335. Gordon Rexin
>
>
>
>
> Gordon,  current owner of my old v8 car.... did some research......
>
>
> Car drives nicely with good road feel and 2 turns lock to lock..and not
> skittish at speed!  Very little tire scrub too!
>
>
>
>
> Matt Nall
> Charleston, Oregon
> http://tinyurl.com/The-Corvair-Patio
>
> http://tinyurl.com/Matts-Tech-Pages
>
>
>
>
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