{"id":495158,"date":"2016-01-20T11:35:15","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T19:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=25149"},"modified":"2024-01-08T14:25:10","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T14:25:10","slug":"25149-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/25149-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Harkey (1930-2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bob Harkey, an Indycar regular during the \u201960s and \u201970s, has passed away at the age of 85. Born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Harkey made his National Championship debut at Milwaukee in June of \u201963 driving Jake Vargo\u2019s six-year-old Kurtis-Offy roadster. Starting 9<sup>th<\/sup> he finished 5<sup>th<\/sup> to enjoy quite a debut. In seven further Indycar starts that year, however, he could not match his debut result.<\/p>\n<p>He started a dozen Indycar races in \u201964, taking Wally Weir\u2019s Watson-Offy to and 8<sup>th<\/sup>-place finish in his rookie run at Indy and 7<sup>th<\/sup> at Milwaukee, and then driving John Pfrommer\u2019s Meskowski-Offy dirt car to what would turn out to be a career-best 4<sup>th<\/sup> at Trenton that July. Seventy-eight more Indycar starts followed through 1979, but Harkey was never able to match his early successes despite being a regular top-10 runner. His best finish from six Indy 500 starts was a pair of 8<sup>th<\/sup>-place finishes, the one in \u201964, and another in \u201974, when he drove for Lindsey Hopkins. Upon retiring from the cockpit, Harkey worked for many years with Champion Spark Plug\u2019s safety program.<\/p>\n<p>To the Harkey family and Bob\u2019s many friends in and out of the sport, <em>Vintage Racecar<\/em> extends its sincerest sympathies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bob Harkey, an Indycar regular during the \u201960s and \u201970s, has passed away at the age of 85. Born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Harkey made his National Championship debut at Milwaukee in June of \u201963 driving Jake Vargo\u2019s six-year-old Kurtis-Offy roadster. Starting 9th he finished 5th to enjoy quite a debut. In seven further Indycar starts that year, however, he could not match his debut result. He started a dozen Indycar races in \u201964, taking Wally Weir\u2019s Watson-Offy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":532935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,18114,18330],"tags":[17152,427,18435,18107,16791,11305,9881],"class_list":["post-495158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-culture","category-people","category-profiles-car-culture","tag-car-culture","tag-kurtis","tag-people","tag-people-profiles","tag-profiles","tag-indianapolis-500","tag-ims"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bob Harkey (1930-2016)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/25149-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bob Harkey (1930-2016)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bob Harkey, an Indycar regular during the \u201960s and \u201970s, has passed away at the age of 85. Born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Harkey made his National Championship debut at Milwaukee in June of \u201963 driving Jake Vargo\u2019s six-year-old Kurtis-Offy roadster. Starting 9th he finished 5th to enjoy quite a debut. In seven further Indycar starts that year, however, he could not match his debut result. 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content=\"@supercars_net\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@supercars_net\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Zimmermann\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.supercars.net\\\/blog\\\/25149-2\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.supercars.net\\\/blog\\\/25149-2\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"John Zimmermann\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.supercars.net\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/96b206a07dacd5614967544b2c3b0e35\"},\"headline\":\"Bob Harkey 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