So, take the Pfaff Porsche, throw in two of the finest young drivers in Canada — Robichon and Hargrove — and you have a potent combination.
Scott Hargrove is a busy guy these days.
The 24-year-old racing driver from Surrey, B.C., isn’t just competing in one top-level racing series this season, he’s driving in three: the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (co-driving a Pfaff Motorsports entry with Zach Robichon), the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge (another Pfaff entry, this time with Orey Fidani) and the Blancpain GT World Challenge America — Pro Series with Wright Motorsports and co-driver Patrick Long.
This weekend, he’s racing in two of those championships — the WeatherTech and the Michelin Pilot — during the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen meet at Watkins Glen, N.Y. Next weekend, he’ll do it again at the GTA-area Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix presented by Acura.
That SportsCar Grand Prix weekend has the makings of a barnburner. In addition to the WeatherTech championship, which features the exotic Daytona Prototype and GT guided missiles powered by the likes of Cadillac, Acura, Audi, BMW, Corvette, Ferrari, Ford, Honda, Lamborghini, Mazda and Nissan, among others, and driven by the likes of Helio Castroneves, Juan Pablo Montoya and Katherine Legge, are rounds of the Michelin Pilot Challenge, the Prototype Challenge and the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Yokohama.
I mean, how can you beat that?
Testing at CTMP will start next Thursday, with practice, qualifying and racing beginning on Friday. The headline event, the two-hour-and-40-minute Grand Prix, will go to the post at 1:05 p.m. next Sunday. Go to canadiantiremotorsportpark.com for additional details and the price of admission.
That the Steve Bortolotti-directed Pfaff entry in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (Hargrove and Robichon race a Porsche 911 GT3 R in the GT-Daytona class) could be considered a powerhouse would be an understatement. Pfaff itself has been involved in Canadian motorsport for 50 years, supporting drivers like Ron Fellows and Richard Spenard and fielding entries for racers such as Kyle Marcelli and Chris Green.
In fact, president and CEO Chris Pfaff was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame for that very reason. Unlike the situation in many other countries around the world, there are not that many Canadian companies — other than Multimatic of Markham and Pfaff Auto, to name two — that, in the words of Hargrove, “race what they sell.”
So, take the Pfaff Porsche, throw in two of the finest young drivers in Canada — Robichon and Hargrove — and you have a potent combination.
Like so many others, the two combatants started out like houses on fire while racing open-wheel, open-cockpit Formula 1600 and F2000 racing cars. The last year Robichon raced formula cars, in 2015, he won five races and captured six pole positions. In 2016, he finished third in the Canadian Porsche GT3 series, second in 2017 and in 2018 he won the championship, finishing first in 11 of the 12 races. On top of that, he won seven of the eight races he started in the U.S. Porsche GT3 series.
No slouch himself in cars without roofs, Hargrove was the 2013 Cooper Tires USF2000 champion, did well in Pro Mazda and Indy Lights and was a member of the Team Canada that raced in the annual British Formula Ford Festival. He started driving for Pfaff in 2014 and won the first of his two Porsche GT3 championships that year (the other title came in 2017).
Last year, he won the 2018 World Challenge GT Sprint Championship and was named a Porsche Selected Driver by the manufacturer (Porsche will publicize his talent and his record and help him to develop as a race driver). So, how does he get along with his teammate was the first question I asked Hargrove when he sat down with the Toronto-area motorsport media at a Pfaff facility recently.
“Just great,” he said with a smile. “We get along really well. Obviously, we’re competitors, going back to our Formula Ford days. But we work well together, and I admire Zach as a great talent. At the Glen race this weekend, for instance, I expect he will qualify the car for us because he really knows how to nail qualifying.”
Thinking about Watkins Glen and his now-teammate, however, brought another smile to the B.C. driver’s face.
“The last time I was at Watkins Glen with Zach, it was pouring rain. We were battling. I was in the lead and he came up from behind. He had some momentum and he got around me. The next corner, I tried to out-brake him and it didn’t go well, and I finished off by spinning him out. But I always respected Zach, and I certainly didn’t do it on purpose.
“The two of us, we had about a 30-second lead. I was in the lead and he was a few seconds back. I slowed down and let him pass me — but I still got the penalty. That’s the last time I self-policed in a race!”
Hargrove acknowledged that the idea of trying to make it to Formula One or the IndyCar Series has pretty much disappeared into the ether.
“This is my career now,” he stated emphatically. “Getting associated with Pfaff has been the best thing for me. They have helped get me into this position so that I was picked to be a Porsche Selected Driver, which wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for them. I’m excited to see where that takes me.
“So, this is my home now. The team is great, the series is great. There are so many manufacturers involved, and it just wouldn’t make any sense for me to leave.”
Hargrove, who also finds time in his busy schedule to be an instructor at the Area 27 racetrack being developed in the B.C. interior by Canadian F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve and partners, said that although the Pfaff team is a powerhouse on paper, it hasn’t enjoyed the success so far this season that it had anticipated.
“This year’s been a little tough,” Hargrove acknowledged. “I haven’t even looked at the standings recently. It’s not been any one thing. At Daytona (the Rolex 24), it was an electrical battery issue that took us out of the running. At Sebring, we were looking set to win and a bolt came out and that turned off the ABS system, which made things difficult. At Mid-Ohio, I threw that one away, my fault entirely.”
(At the time, Hargrove explained what happened: “I’m absolutely devastated,” he said. “Zacharie drove a strong first stint. I managed to keep our Porsche 911 GT3 R on course for a podium spot. Actually, the race was rather uneventful for me, but then I made a mistake. At the entrance to the first turn I lost the rear of the car, landed in the gravel and got stuck — game over. It’s a shame, because so much more would have been possible for us.”)
Hargrove said there is reason for optimism, because the team is not yet out of it. “The good news is that they give us points at each corner in endurance racing, so we have a pretty good points total (14th out of 25 teams; 29 points behind the leader). With Pfaff behind us, it gives me confidence we can start winning. When you see Pfaff’s level of commitment, in a motorsport setting it’s very uncommon — especially in Canadian motorsport.”
Although, as he put it, CTMP is about 4,000 kilometres from where he lives, he still calls the circuit north of Belleville once known as Mosport his “home track.” And he loves the challenge of attacking the legendary circuit.
“It’s a high speed track and a technical track, which makes it the perfect combination to challenge a race driver,” Hargrove said. “Turn 5 (Moss Corner) is the best. With the elevation change (you drop down from Turn 4 and then go up and turn hard right to begin driving around the corner), it’s very tricky to get the car set up properly to make a good exit onto the back straightaway. I just love the whole track.”
Hargrove said he’s had to make some mental adjustments this year. “The longest I drove in a race before this year was an hour,” he said. “This year, we were in the Daytona 24-hour race, and that meant a massive change to my thinking. I had to pace myself, mentally and physically. Yes, there were other drivers on our team, but I would finish my stint, and instead of thinking the race was over, I’d have to start getting ready to drive again, and again.”
He also said endurance racing of the type promoted by IMSA, in which cars with more or less horsepower are all out on the track at the same time and racing in their own classes — races within races — is interesting for a race driver. “Everybody is fighting for the same piece of real estate,” he said. “The prototypes come at you out of nowhere and you just can’t go away and hide. You might be slower, but you still have a race going on at the same time.”
Now, when you’re out at CTMP next weekend, and you want to keep an eye out for the Pfaff car driven by Hargrove and Robichon, look for the No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3 R. You can’t miss it — mainly because it is decorated differently than just about any other racing car you’re ever likely to see.
And this is because it’s wrapped in plaid. It looks like a Scottish tartan on four wheels.
And how did that happen?
Laurance Yap, who used to write for Toronto Star Wheels and is creative director for Pfaff Auto, said it was an accident. “The guys all came in to work on the car and they were all wearing plaid shirts. We all looked at each other and said, ‘Why not?’
“And it’s proved to be a beneficial decision, because while we are 14th in the standings (before Watkins Glen), we’re No. 1 in exposure. And let me tell you: you can’t beat that kind of publicity. We’d like to be winning, but this is almost as good.”
The operative word there is “almost.” Maybe after the races at Watkins Glen and CTMP, Yap will be able to stop using it.
Image Source: Pfaff Motorsport
Keyword: B.C. Racer Hargrove, Ontario’s Pfaff Motorsports a Marriage Made in Heaven?