Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/258790
W e s t W o r l d >> s p r i n g 2 0 1 4 35 is clearly a serious need for speed in the fam- ily (Scott's oldest brother is a competitive cyclist) and so Jim bought his son a kart to carry on the Hargrove racing tradition. "People who don't know racing dismiss go-karts as toys," says Scott, "but with 35-horsepower engines mounted on 175- pound chassis, these tiny brutes boast the best power-to-weight ratio of any ride at the track." Although go-karts clock half the speed of race cars (120 km/h versus 240), they can still pull four times the force of gravity in the corners, and, from the driv- er's super-low perspective of "butt practi- cally touching the ground," they feel just as fast as Indy cars. Hargrove graduated to race cars in 2011 for the Skip Barber Summer Series. The fol- lowing year he moved up to USF2000, but it was an inauspicious debut. He crashed twice, missed some races and finished 11th in the championship. His worst crash was in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he rubbed wheels with another car, caught a little air time and plowed into a wall at 130 km/h. His car blew apart, but he walked away unharmed. (You can view the action at scotthargrove.com .) At the time of writing, his worst injury in the sport remains a sprained thumb from go-karting. Still, he'd be the first to tell other teens, "Don't try this at home." Despite already being an experienced racer by age 16, Hargrove took driving lessons to get his B.C. driver's license. He follows his instructor's teachings when driving on pub- lic roads in his 1993 Mazda RX-7 and he has even shared his safe motorist tips in a video series for the Province newspaper. In 2013, Hargrove switched teams and won the champion- ship as a driver for Florida- based Cape Motorsports With Wayne Taylor Racing. The US$383,700 prize money will cover his first season in Pro Mazda. He says he's looking forward to driving the new rotary engine cars that come with 100 extra h o r s e s and smoother shifters than the four-gear "dog boxes" of the USF2000. The Road to Indy mim- ics the elite IndyCar class with a mixture of races held on road courses, street circuits and oval tracks. Hargrove says they're all fun. He likes road courses because with their generous grass runoffs they are more forgiving teach- ing environments, and he loves street circuits because with concrete walls blurring by just a few centime- tres from your tires, you quickly learn discipline. As for oval races, there is only one that matters: Indianapolis 500. Hargrove says simply, "It will be like driving on a knife's edge for 200 laps." And for a moment, the glint in his eye is replaced by a softer gaze as he visualizes himself drinking milk in Victory Lane. – Rob Howatson Jeff Topham started racing at the only two competition- level go-kart tracks in the Vancouver area: Chilliwack and Sumas, Washington. Hargrove was smitten and asked his father if he could join the pack. Fortunately, Hargrove Sr. has one obligatory racer-dad trait: a love of RPMs. Jim Hargrove is the president of Analytic Systems, a Vancouver company that makes battery chargers and other power con- version products. The company sponsors Scott's car as an extension of Jim's love for all things fast. Hargrove Sr. raced autoslalom as a UBC student and later topped the podium at the 2003 Vancouver Indy, albeit in a sports car event that preceded the main race. There 34 W e s t W o r l d >> s p r i n g 2 0 1 4 Jeff Topham p34-35_Profile.indd 35 14-01-29 11:02 AM